[Shilpi has written her own little travelogue, here. See how different people see the same things differently.]
Ever since Pupu grew up, I have been taking advantage of mid-to end February to go travelling. The weather is still fine to tolerable, my work schedule is slack, and it is ‘off-season’ almost everywhere, because millions of kids are taking year-end exams in school, and so their parents are tied up too. I have just come back from another long trip. This one was a repetition in some ways, and a first in some others. I took my mother along with me – for the first time in my life, when I am running fifty five. She was tough enough to cope with the whole thing and enjoy it. Not easy, when I see women half her age – and a lot of men too – who are decrepit already. But then she still teaches mathematics, and insists on doing a lot of the housework…
Ever since Pupu grew up, I have been taking advantage of mid-to end February to go travelling. The weather is still fine to tolerable, my work schedule is slack, and it is ‘off-season’ almost everywhere, because millions of kids are taking year-end exams in school, and so their parents are tied up too. I have just come back from another long trip. This one was a repetition in some ways, and a first in some others. I took my mother along with me – for the first time in my life, when I am running fifty five. She was tough enough to cope with the whole thing and enjoy it. Not easy, when I see women half her age – and a lot of men too – who are decrepit already. But then she still teaches mathematics, and insists on doing a lot of the housework…
We
started off with Hardwar. I am not religious in any conventional sense, yet
Devbhoomi, as they call the Garhwal hills in those parts, holds an ineffable
fascination for me. This was the fifth time I was visiting, the first being in
1989, when I took the Xavier’s kids along (is any of them reading? Those boys
would be past 40 now!) I checked into my favourite hotel, the Teerth at Subhas
Ghat, because it is bang on the river, and a few paces away from the most
happening location in town, Har ki Pauri, where the river which is mother of
India descends to the plains. We arrived late at night, so that day was wasted,
but driver Munna Lal took us to Neelkanth Mahadev the next day, and on the way
back we took in Laxmanjhula and Hrishikesh: it almost felt like coming home.
Munna was just the kind of driver I like, courteous and friendly without being
garrulous and presumptuous, and very staid at the wheel, so I fixed up the rest
of the tour with him.
Off
we went to Devaprayag, where the Bhagirathi joins the Alaknanda and becomes
Mother Ganga (-ji. They consider it sacrilege to refer to her by name without
the suffix – a mannerism of which I strongly approve). Ma offered her prayers,
then we pushed on to Rudraprayag, where the Mandakini, river of heaven, meets
the Alaknanda. Checked into a roadside hotel, nothing special, but it overhung
the river from a ledge, and the view was breathtaking. It was not cold until I
had sat on the balcony watching a forest fire on the hill in front for more
than two hours. The river sang to me all through the night.
Next
day we followed the Mandakini to Chandrapuri, where the picturesque Tourist
Lodge had been washed away by the terrible flood of 2013 (the office still
works out of a tent). I had planned to stay the night there, but in the event
the down-in-the-mouth cottages didn’t seem too appealing, so we pushed on to
Ukhimath, where, as luck would have it, Lord Omkareshwar was residing (he comes
down from Kedarnath for the winter every year). And so, agnostic that I am, I
managed to pray to him without actually going to Kedar, which I probably never
will, given my bad leg. Then back to the same hotel in Rudraprayag, stopping at
Dhari Mata temple on the way (which they had removed to build a dam, and then
came the flood, and so they are rebuilding it at the insistence of the locals,
who don’t want the Mother to be angry again) and the Sangam, where I went all
the way down to actually stand in the Mandakini and collect a bottleful of
water for someone who had begged for it. I stopped also at the tiny Jim Corbett
Park (opposite to the Panchayat office and RTO now – Corbett would have gaped)
which marks the precise spot where he shot the notorious maneating leopard back
in 1926. I badly wished that Pupu had been beside me: the story is so alive and
vivid for both of us…
A
very long drive to Mussoorie the next day, because we had to stop again and
again at places where the mountain was being blasted, dug up and removed so
that the road could be widened into a highway (presumably so that the Dilliwala
fat cats with their luxury cars and coarse manners could drive up faster and
easier). Stopped at Sahasradhara just outside Dehradun, and it was a
disappointment. Dehradun itself has sprawled, become rich and brash and nearly
faceless (but for the still extant greenery) like so many other cities around
India ever since it became a state capital. The drive up to Mussoorie was,
however, still just as beautiful as always. Munna drove us into a hotel he
knew, and it was good, especially because they were offering a 50% off-season
discount. The next day was spent in a leisurely way, strolling around the Mall,
walking up to Landour where Ruskin Bond lives and visiting Kempty falls, the
Buddhist Temple (close to the LBSNAA, where they train IAS officers – strictly
a no-photography zone, enforced by stengun-toting and very stern looking commandos)
and the cute little ‘Company Garden’. Mussoorie is even more troubled by
monkeys than Hardwar: one took away and broke my teacup when I had turned away
for ten seconds on the balcony!) The
city blazed like a carpet of lights below me. And it was the last cold night I
had this season…
Down
to Hardwar on the morning of the 23rd. I had invited Shilpi, who is
now working in Delhi, to come over for the day. Ma was tired out, and wanted to
sleep through the afternoon. They were hammering away somewhere on the roof of
the hotel, so sleep wouldn’t come to me: at four I gave up trying and went up
via ropeway to the Manasa Mandir for a bird’s eye view of the town. I am glad
that two Bengalis have been greatly honoured in the Hindi heartland: Subhas
Bose, after whom my ghat was named, and then there is Vivekananda park, where
you see the swami’s diminutive statue standing right in front of the monumental
Shiva as you drive out of the city. We watched the aarti at evenfall again, and
strolled along the ghat and sat on the balcony watching the river flowing by
till late at night. There was the wretched chore of having to get up at
daybreak to take the Jan Shatabdi to New Delhi (that station is still the pits
– you can’t get even a cup of tea on the platforms!), where the tedium of the
long wait was greatly alleviated by Akash’s visit, and finally a quiet trip on
the Rajdhani back to Durgapur on Sunday the 25th.
The
Ganga was unbelievably green for mile after mile. When am I finally going to go
rafting down her? Unfortunately, wherever there is even a small town or a place
with some claim to holiness, there are now far too many people everywhere, and
so also too many shops and motor vehicles – worse still, two-wheelers swarm the
roads. The fact that our numbers have swollen by a billion since independence
is becoming more painfully, intolerably clear with every passing year. These
days you have to trek far beyond the motorable roads and the reach of TV-dishes
and mobile towers to enjoy the beauty that is still pristine, and the silence
amidst vastness that never fails to wash away the silly and futile cares of the
world far below, when you can at last be alone with yourself. I have seen
almost everything that metro life offers, and I promise you, until you have had
this experience you have not lived. But one warning: if you travel around these
parts, be ready to climb up and down thousands of breathless stairs, and live
for the most part on pure vegetarian food (Well, that's two warnings actually!)
So
my travels are more or less over for the season. Now summer is around the
corner, and I have to gear up for the admission storm in late March. After
that, two continuous months of class, then a mid-summer break, when Pupu will
decide where I should go along. The rest of the year belongs to her. But I
shall be searching for pretty and quiet two-day getaways all the time – any suggestions
beyond the usuals, which I have seen already? I am particularly interested in
the new homestay facilities which, I hear, are sprouting all around the state.
Photos can be seen here. Also, here is a little video that I have put up on
youtube. This young man was playing the flute beside the Ganga at Laxmanjhula.
That’s the kind of small roadside miracle that you can catch anywhere in
Devbhoomi.
