During my last trip to India, I had been warned about the pollution in North India.
Abarna, who I met on the drive to Darjeeling, had messaged me a couple of days ago. She had returned home to Chennai early after reaching Gangtok. The few days in Darjeeling and Gangtok had made her unwell. A day or so after she returned she was fine again.
When I arrived in Gangtok two days ago, I was suffering similar symptoms to Abarna, as was my US friend Steve. We all had, to varying degrees, a cough and congestion. For me, it had started in Kolkata, where the homestay owner had warned me about the pollution. The cough, although mild, persisted in Darjeeling. The heavy traffic through the town centre pumped out toxic fumes.
In Gangtok, I felt worse. Fortunately, yesterday, it rained all day. So I stayed out of the pollution and rested. I did pop around the corner to eat at Greens. It turned out to be a posh restaurant in a hotel. There were very few people eating here. The meal was good but I ate too much. I was stuffed.
After yesterday’s rest, I felt much better today. Almost back to normal.
The food and restaurant choices around me in Gangtok have not been the best. Searching Google Maps, I found two supermarkets near me. They were close to each other. I walked to them.
The first wasn’t a supermarket. It consisted of a few floors of open-air stalls.
The floor at my level (three) had organic vegetable sellers. Sikkim is, apparently, an organic state. I didn’t buy any vegetables because there are no cooking facilities at the hotel. I walked down to the ground floor.
With hillside towns, the idea of the ground floor is quite fluid. You think you’re on the ground floor then see a narrow passage with steep stairs leading up or down. Then you emerge on a new ground floor.
The second supermarket was more conventional. It sold the usual range of food, toiletries, stationery, shoes, clothes, and homeware.
When I was in the cereal section, there was a promotion for Kellogg’s Muesli. I’d seen this cereal packet before. It was the usual sugar-rich highly processed cereal dressed up as muesli. I was offered some so that they could take a photo of me eating it.
In North India, I couldn’t find the only decent muesli I had found in the South. It was the Quaker one with seeds. I bought the next best thing. I also bought plain oats, soya milk, and cashews.
When I got to the till, it was chaos. There were three tills but the queues were indistinct. They weren’t moving either. Although queueing is not a thing here, this is the worse I’d seen in a supermarket. It was not helped by the design of the shop. When the queues got long enough, they had to snake around the store via a narrow gap. At that point, the queues merged.
Whilst queueing, I heard someone shout, “Online queue!”. I moved to it, out of the mass gathering. Then I asked the young woman behind me what an online queue was. She replied to me in Nepalese. I said I was English and she laughed and replied, “I thought you were Indian!”. It’s strange how her expectations overrode the reality. I spoke English and yet she replied in Nepalese because she thought I was a local.
It turned out that an online queue is one that takes UPI payment only. I was in the right queue, which also happened to be the shortest.
The woman turned out to be a translator. She translated between English and Nepalese! As we were talking, the lights started to flicker. I asked if power outages were common in Sikkim. She said that they happened all the time. This was very annoying because she worked from home. She said that she’d somewhat alleviated the issue by installing an uninterruptible power supply (UPS). A UPS continues to provide power when the electricity fails. A small UPS (suitable for home) provides power for about 20 minutes. This is usually enough to weather a short power outage. The other day, however, she said the power was out for most of the day. She said she couldn’t work and had to take time off without pay.
Quite often in supermarkets in India, after you’ve paid, someone checks your receipt. If it’s the security guard, they might check your actual shopping although that hasn’t happened to me. This time, there was a specific desk to check receipts. The person looked at my receipt and stamped it. I’m not sure what he was checking. After checking he could speak English, I mentioned the chaotic queues. He nodded. I suggested that someone manage the queues so that there are distinct lines. He said there weren’t enough staff. I replied that there were three staff members doing the Kellogg’s promotion! He smiled. I added, futilely, that this was a bad customer experience. He nodded again.
On my way back to the hotel, it started to rain. Again, I’d forgotten the umbrella that Steve had given me. I saw a McDonald’s sign, which was unusual, then some other global brand names. I’d taken cover outside a shopping mall. Somehow, I’d missed it on my way to the supermarket.
I went inside the mall, expecting the rain would stop soon. I walked around the mall and ended up at the food court on the fourth floor. It was getting close to dinner time. The food choices were McDonald’s, KFC, Pizza Hut, Domino’s Pizza, Subway, or Indian. I opted for a masala dosa. After overeating yesterday, I was thankful for the smaller meal.
Back on the ground floor, a crowd had gathered around a flute player. He looked dashing with his mauve suit and Dr Martin boots. I sat down and listened for a while. Most of the crowd drifted away once they’d taken their videos and selfies.
On the way out, I saw it was still pouring down! By the exit was a small Starbucks. So I had a coffee, hoping the rain would subside. This was definitely not a flash shower. Steve texted me saying, “Strange weather!”.
In Starbucks, inevitably, someone (Uttam) started talking to me. He was from Sikkim. Uttam described the various jobs he’d done. He mostly worked in project management. Now, he’s working in a job that “paid 10% of what I used to earn”. He’d lost his phone and could not afford to replace it. He was using his laptop in Starbucks. He advised me about travel options in Sikkim. At one point, he said he was going to a casino afterwards and invited me to join him!
When he went to the toilet, I replied to Steve and told him about the casino. He replied that in Darjeeling someone kept asking him to play poker!
Two young teenagers were sitting to my left. They were from Yuksom, the old capital of Sikkim. They’d been in Gangtok (the capital now) for an athletics event earlier in the day. One was throwing the discus and the other was doing long-jump. A third person was trying to get them to leave. However, one of them, who could speak English, was keen to talk to me. I asked how they did in the athletics. The English speaker said he didn’t win. Although he was district champion, this was the first time he’d competed in a state competition. He said he would train harder for next year.
By this time, the shopping mall was closing! Three hours had passed during my brief stop in the mall. It appeared to be raining hard when I looked at the splashes. When I stepped outside, it was hardly anything. Within ten minutes, I was back at my hotel and mostly dry.