Fires

It is so weird how the mind works - you are just chatting to someone (in this instance, me to Peter) and suddenly a random remark evokes a rush of memories. As we chatted about gilets, red boots and Land's End Clothing he said something that reminded me of the mountains and Kalimpong. Fires in bedrooms. You see we always had a fire in the bedrooms in the mountains so one slept with the gentle glow of embers, the scent of pine resin and gentle crackling of the wood as the fire slowly burned through the night.

And then the memories came flooding back, whisky and brandy bottles filled with hot water, snuggled into a crocheted cosy and pushed down so the bed was warm. Kancha bringing up pails of boiling water to fill the tin bath so we bathed in the morning in a bath, that had probably been to Gyantse and back in its lifetime, in front of a newly rekindled fire.

This may sound as if I have confused my memories with those of someone older and from another time but I promise this is true. At 4500 feet Kalimpong got cold at night. As a small child I would be tucked into bed, kissed and left to drowse in the firelight as downstairs I could hear the chatter and laughter that now seem such a hallmark of my childhood. As it got later sometimes the sounds got louder, the laughter more manic and Auntie Annie could be heard singing some ditty from the music halls of her youth. If I judged it correctly I could then creep down, hide under a table and watch entranced as the dancing started.

If you have never seen Nepalese dancing it is hard to imagine, it is both graceful and life enhancing: the beat of the tabla and the sweet sound of a flute join the voices as they sing of the love of a boy for a girl, of how the girl invites and then repels. The dancer or dancers reenact the song with the gentlest of hand gestures, use of the eyes and a constant circling and twirling as the story reaches it end. Then suddenly the mood would change, the drum was beaten faster, handkerchiefs pulled out and the men using the drum and our clapping as rhythm performed fast and furious gymnastics to the song Nainitala - Desmond excelled at this and the boys who sang always made him dance this at least once. I would get too carried away and clap loudly from my hiding place, get caught and sent back to bed.

One night Auntie Annie called us all out to the porch - once a year a flower bloomed and it was this night. We looked in awe at the purple blossom and then out across the valley to the far away snows, the spirit lights and above a huge and pendulous moon hanging in a sky studded with stars so close you could touch them if you stretched.

All this from one comment about having a fire in one's bedroom. That Marcel Proust knew a thing or two.

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