LEAVING ON A JET PLANE

Tomorrow sometimes never comes.  It does of course, the day turns into night, the night into day and all that daily turning overs and passing ins and outs but the tomorrow one plans to sit down and commit oneself one to writing somehow seems more elusive than will-o-wisp, almost within grasp and yet, damn! flitting away. 

I hope that reads profound but the fact is quite prosaic! After every bit of travelling and every new experience it involves, it seems just done to put it into black and white with coloured photographs. But for some reason or the other, that didn't seem to happen in the past two months. The places visited and the people met began to acquire sepia tones........

Soon after the Darjeeling and Kalimpong visits, the next was of course the road much travelled and much loved, back to Shillong for Dasein (Dusshera),to familiar feelings and the all encircling warmth of unconditional love.The best flight is always the early morning one when traces of the night still lingers in the air and when the first dazzling rays of the sun hits one as the plane soars into the sky. Suddenly it is all bright and the body and mind, wracked by sleep deprivation and overdose of caffeine, comes awake with a jolt. Its an amazing sight outside the window- the deep azure blue at the top gradually peters to a lush tinge of aqua blue which gives way to a fairy land of clouds glowing with golden glow from the morning sun. I fail to get a seat on the left side, so I miss my regular darshan of The Himalayan  range that to me always seemed as if it got up early too just to say hello to me. Soon its the rivers and green hills of Guwahati....

 

 

Driving to Shillong from the Guwahati airport is now a pleasure. The widening and addition of lanes to the national highway that seemed to be going on forever is now nearing close and, it is not only a really smooth drive up but takes much less time too. That is of course until you hit Mawlai and then no fervent prayers can spare you from getting caught up in a traffic jam. You just sit back and resign to adding at least a minimum 30 to 40 minutes before you reach your destination. While everything is familiar and so comforting like all Indian hill stations, Shillong seems to be declining daily - too many houses, mostly concrete monstrosities, overload of vehicles,too many shops opening up (do they actually get footfalls?), too many people.But before you know its time to leave and however much you tell yourself that it is for a short time only, there is always sorrow, especially when you leave Bara Pani behind.

It's just a day in Delhi and off to Nainital. Its the first Kumaon Literary Festival and there's a panel discussion on documenting food heritage to participate in. An early morning train and a drive up from Kathgodam, the range of green all around is dazzling as is the bright sun. As we pass the famous Naini Lake, there's a mini procession of young chaps in bright local costumes walking alongside; they seem like high school boys returning home from some event. 

 

      

But as we drive higher up and as the looming hills come closer, the top of the hills look bare and brown making a rather sad picture. Every minute of the drive up, our driver, an elderly Sikh, had been chatting non stop and bragging about how Nainital unlike the other hill stations had remained green,verdant and tra la la. When one points out the barren hill stops he has a quick answer to that too - its the season, winter is arriving he says as if that explains everything.  Considering his verbal strength and stamina, one thought it prudent to mutter a disbelieving sure, sure!

We check into the hotel,which we are told is located at the highest spot in the town. As the sun weakens and the sky turns darker, it hits one bang - Nainital in October end is cold, quite quite cold once the sun goes down and yours sincerely doesn't have the requisite heavy warm clothing. Like an idiot one had thought that if the Shillong weather had been one light jacket/sweater kind then there was no way Nainital could be any colder. Hah! But then all hill girls know that the trick is in layering so one cut quite a figure in multi-coloured multi-layers! The evening by the fireside in the bar with the right company and right spirits and menu is a cosy moment. Soon its sleep time and then bang! It's like someone has stuck a megaphone into your ears and is blaring away in the highest decibels ever. Almost leaping out of the bed and totally disoriented while the audio assault continued unabated, it took some minutes to figure out that it was still quite dark outside, and the cacophonous noise violating the early morning was coming from a holy place nearby where for some unbelievable reasons someone had decided that Nainital and its denizens needed to be violently jolted awake even before the sun arose and that too, with the most discordant bhajan ever. It really surprised me that the hill dwellers turn a deaf ear to all that.

The first half of the first three days of the Kumaon Literary Festival was at Dhanachuli and the last two days at Abbotsford, a heritage resort at Nainital which is a small drive away. Ours is the first panel discussion of the morning. But after the rude awakening, one is more angry than inspired.Thankfully, on the way up the winding little path from the room to the dining hall for breakfast its a lovely sight to see a young girl swinging away, chirpy and chattering, amidst the blaze of colourful flowers every which way. The bright sun is up in the sky again and all the shivering of the night before seem distant.

documenting food heritage panel discussion goes off well, even if I say so! Food seems to be quite the binding force. 

Continuing the food story, that evening we are lucky to be be at dinner at the Boat Club where the Uttarakhandi Food Festival hosted by the State Department of Tourism, Uttarakhand is on. Its typical Uttarakhandi cuisine. Being in the Kumaon region, one understands that the menu tilts towards traditional dishes of the region and everything is so wholesome and tasty.There's bhatt dal which initially reminded one of small rajma (red kidney beans) but this is much smaller and black.  Recipe reconstructionist and author Shiv Shankar Maitra tells me its actually black bean; the way it is cooked is superb. The raita with radish is quite addictive and finally one has to stop heaping it on the plate.  

The next afternoon is back to Delhi again and this time I am particular to start no conversation whatsoever with the driver, there is no way one is going to put up with non stop chattering once again. When leaving any place, especially a hill station, isn't there that one spot on the drive down that seems quite lonely and so far away from home....

It goes without saying that the weddings in India are no small affairs. When it comes to family and friends, there are weddings one has to be at whatever the location. So there we were on way to Pune, my first visit to the city and quite kicked up about it. One had somehow or the other always heard good things about the city and so the intention was to club the wedding, catching up with old friends and taking in the sights and sounds of the city. Someone up there must have been saying, honey isn't that too ambitious a plan for a couple of days? It was, because the first thing that welcomed us was a massive traffic jam. In Pune too I muttered and the driver gave one a look that said, from under which bush have you crawled out?   

Every time there is a traffic jam why is that there are some people who insist on directing the traffic and before you attribute any good intentions and Samaritan qualities to them, remember its inevitably to make way for the car they are in, which naturally means a car or two getting into the wrong way and ensuring that the jam continues for much longer. And so it was as we left the airport. Once we manage to make our way and hit the road towards the hotel, at quite a distance from the city, one liked the fact that the streets of Pune are broad and above all quite clean with a lot of greenery around. One also liked that many walls were painted brightly with pretty images and slogans encouraging cleanliness and growing of trees and plants.

In between the wedding festivities, we did manage to take sometime out.There were two specific destinations - the Osho Ashram and Chitle Bandhu Mithaiwale from which we were told one could get the best bakarwadi, the delicious Maharashtrian snack as well as the famous Pune Shrewsbury biscuits. And of course the plan was also to look out for any Natural ice cream stall. One didn't know that entry to the Ashram was now a no no and so one had to be content with taking a look outside and picking up stuff at the bookstore. The huge black gates remained shut while a couple of figures in flowing robes walked in and out. One snuck a mobile picture from the store of the road beyond the gate and that was the end of the much looked forward to visit that came a cropper.

 

Thankfully, the Natural ice cream more than made up. Even as we sampled several flavours- loved them all- couldn't help but notice that a building nearby looked for some strange reason like a big cheese that had been devoured overnight by rodents leaving huge holes around.   

The Chitle Bandhu Mithaiwale was another story. When we got there, it was shut. Apparently it was post lunch break and the shop would reopen after some time.What piqued my curiosity was that there were a handful of people hanging around waiting for it to open. It was nearing the opening time by then and before one could say Jack .a sort of queue started forming outside the shop. There was no question of going back, one had to see what the store was all about. It was quite an arrangement inside, one gets a token number and you walk a designated path and everyone on that path headed for bakarwadi counter and so did we. The Shrewsbury biscuits were at the next counter. And before I knew it one was at the payment counter, which meant that I could not turn back for the chiklis and would have to pay, get out and take another token and reenter. Fortunately, the husband was still inside and managed to pick them up. Was it worth the trouble? At the rate of earning Bakarwadi lovers ire, I have to say one was never enamoured of it but the chiklis more than made up for it.

The Pune trip was sadly short but driving from and to the airport  one passed many housing societies, established and some still coming up and they all seem to have all imported names like most metropolis in India. There was Citrine, Royal Towers, a Swan Lake too and Pride Panorama and a Deron Heights, which for some strange reason sounded very daraona! What is this obsession for bidesi names for desi houses?