Fresh out of school and with no money in our pockets, five of us took a train to Darjeeling without having bought tickets. Those were the days when the general compartments of long-distance trains were so crowded that no ticket-checker in their senses risked doing their duty.
An overnight journey from Calcutta to New Jalpaiguri station culminated in a shared ride on a jeep that, unfortunately, we did have to pay for. This left us with precious little on which to stay and eat in Darjeeling, which was a disaster, considering how much we had been looking forward to stuffing our faces at Keventer’s and Glenary’s.
The driver ejected us at a hairpin bend soon after entering the town. A thin layer of sleet covered the roads. In April! By now dizzy with hunger, we looked around wildly and discovered a shack lurking in the shadow cast by a building, with the unmistakable aroma of roasted meat wafting towards us. No consultations were needed, and we marched as one in that direction.
No sooner had we occupied a bench than the proprietor informed us that all he had were pork sandwiches. Remember, this was a time when pork and ham weren’t easily available to middle-class Bengalis…
Source: Food coma: Pork sandwiches in sleet-struck Darjeeling that could never be repeated
