by Sraddha Srikanth Pai
PureTravel Writing Competition 2025
With no pending drafts, I wanted to start something fresh, inspired by one of my recent trips. As I waited for my coffee, I pondered over various ideas and stories. Suddenly, I heard some ruckus at the counter. The espresso machine had broken down and orders got delayed. Most people left with frustrated sighs, while some expressed disappointment but waited for their coffees. Between the resentment of people and the staff’s impatient attempts to fix the machine, my mind went back to Sikkim.
We had been waiting for a few minutes now, watching a bulldozer clear the rocks that had just fallen across the road. Phones were useless here, no network, no maps.
One by one, people got out of their vehicles. The same tourists who, back in cities, honk at red lights like it’s a sport, were just… waiting, patiently. No complaints, no honking symphonies. Just leaning on their cars, breathing in the cold, crisp air.
The mountains stretched in every direction, the ones closer were green and thick with pine, the ones behind them dry, jagged and stern like old sentinels. Even thousands of feet below, you could see nothing, but a narrow stream of water rushing and gushing through rocks and bends. And here we were, stranded on this single thread of road wrapped around the side of a mountain.
The only sounds were the crack of rocks being drilled, the metallic grumble of the bulldozer, and bits of laughter from strangers sharing snacks. A tiny, accidental picnic on the edge of a cliff.
As time passed by, people ran out of topics to talk of. The energy had drained and snacks had started running short. A friend finally asked the driver “It’s been an hour! How much longer is it going to be?”
The driver laughed and said “However much time these rocks take.”
“But that could be hours! Our today’s plan can get completely spoiled.” He grew impatient.
The driver then said, “In the mountains, you don’t get to make the plans. These mountains make your plans for you.” Hailing from East Sikkim, he had that calm, unhurried tone people get when they’ve made peace with the land they live on. “A storm on one single mountain can cost days of food and access to an entire region,” he said.
He told us how snow, the thing tourists chase like gold, wrecks the region. Roads collapse. Vehicles skid off cliffs. Supplies stop coming in. “Many of my driver friends lost their livelihoods in the extreme snowfall in 2023. Even insurance companies didn’t give them much.”
“People see paradise,” he said, “but they don’t see how hard it is to live in one.”
He spoke about how summers are celebrated here, how the villagers worship the sun. How spring is welcomed whole-heartedly with festivals and parties, casually adding that alcohol is sold at grocery stores and petrol pumps, yet no one drives drunk. “Can’t afford to be careless,” he shrugged.
Listening to his stories as the bulldozer picked up the last pieces of rocks hit me – how fragile this place is, and how fiercely people protect it just by being patient. We urban folks romanticise the “slow mountain life”, the quiet mornings, the mist curling around the peaks, the pause that the world seems to take. But living that pause comes with its own cost. Up here, even something as basic as a steady food supply depends on the mercy of weather and roads. A single landslide can cut off entire villages for days. The pace we find calming is also what makes access so hard for them. Sikkim didn’t just make me marvel at nature’s grandeur, but also made me respect the invisible machinery of city life that quietly ensures food on our tables every single day, the roads that almost always stay open, the comfort of knowing tomorrow will run on schedule. And between the stillness of those mountains and the chaos of our cities, I think I found something else – a little more patience, and a little more acceptance.
Back at the café, they brought out another espresso machine and the order deliveries gradually resumed. As people grumbled about a broken machine and a delayed latte, I smiled to myself, and typed: The Mountains’ Choice.
Photo by Kinshuk Bose on Unsplash
