Lansdowne: Garrulous about Garhwal

Sometimes, nothing makes sense anymore. Our jeep hustled down the twisty tracks of the Garhwal hills in the Southern Himalayas. The journey wasn’t over yet. We still had to visit a place downstream of the river Malini.

It was getting dark and all the ancient history from the Mahabharata wasn’t able to enthuse us anymore. Legend has it that sage Vishwamitra meditated intensely on the banks of the river Malini. God Indra, afraid of his dedication had sent the damsel Menoka to distract him. Successful in her endeavor, she gave birth to a girl offspring, Shakuntala who was left at this place called Kanva-Ashram in the care of Rishi Kanva. Shakuntala was the mother of Bharata, a legendary Indian emperor who had conquered all of Greater India, his empire being named after him, ‘Bharat-varsa’.

What was supposed to be a quiet European-like vacation on a British military hill station turned out in the end a trip down mythological folklore. But I wasn’t complaining.

Tattling in the Train

The Old Delhi railway station is not a sight for sore eyes, and our eyes were very sore indeed. It was like an ignored elder brother. The old red building seemed a relic of lost British opulence, let down by the ignoble shabbiness of its modern Indian caretakers. The platforms were anything but clean and to find an unobjectionable spot to stand without dipping out footwear in grime was like a challenge already rigged.

The Mussoorie Express slowly chugged into the station, a disorganized caravan of compartments following it. Baffled, we reached the end of the locomotive in search for our bogey. Once in it though, an air-conditioned box is always a relief.

On the train, our company of seven people formed a congregation of pointlessness. They gabbled like geese and gossiped like girls, their voice rising above the peaceful reverie of other travelers.

The eighth member of the coupe occupied by the aforementioned babblers felt it necessary to hit the sack. Through the night, he tried to shut his ears, hide his face and also turned his rear side towards us. Yet all his actions were futile, if a little peace was what he sought.

Unreasonable Uphill Fog

Lansdowne, nestled in the Garhwal Hills, some 4,600 feet above sea level, is all about nature at its pristine best. Imagine the disappointment when all around us there was nothing but fog. Yet, through that fog was visible the pine trees, lush and beautiful, and I for the first time realized why they built Green-rooms for actors. It must have been for the relief it afforded to the eyes.

Struggle for Survival

Finding hotels on a weekend on a hill station is not easy. Seven of us were trudging up and down the mountain side when we came across a group of chums. They seemed over-enthusiastic in informing us that the Government Guest House was filled up. We took their word. But in the rarified air and loss of breath, I accidentally revealed our destination, the Fairy Dale Resort. Little did I know they would be hot on our tracks for the next sixty minutes!

But Fairy Dale was not to be found and I grew increasingly anxious, hoping that the parasites would go away. But it didn’t happen, and even after taking all the initiative and obtaining the directions to the hotel they could be scarcely warded off. It seemed to me that this world no longer carried any self-respect.

The clingy chaps followed me like bees to honey. It amused me to observe their desperation, perhaps a study into the human psychology, and how people are prone to behave without ego or respectability at times of need. I remained unflustered. After all, I knew precisely what was going on. In the end, it was the greatest stroke of luck that saved the day for us.

As I walked speedily, the chaps (I don’t even remember how many they were) walked with me, but they were careful not to walk faster than me probably not to seem too desperate, which they actually were. More I hastened, they followed suit. But I was worried about something. The rest of my group was nowhere to be seen! Did they know where I was going? Moreover, if I got lucky and got the accommodation, I didn’t have the money to have it booked. I hesitated for a few seconds. It gave one of them a head-start.

I made up mind to go for it. We reached the entrance, the morons and me. The leading moron was a couple of paces ahead of me. I stepped on a gravel path. The leading moron decided to act clever and switch to an adjacent concrete one. The gravel one led me straight to the reception. I made up lost time. Call that close!

“I need accommodation for seven people - four ladies and three men”, I blurted out with the extreme suavity and composure that anyone has ever seen of Humphrey Bogart. The man at the reception, a middle-aged respectable gentleman looked from one person to the other. The slugs were dumbfounded, their ego deflated, one of them went, “I need accommodation for four (or maybe five, I am not sure), but we are a separate group.”

After a moment or two of musing, the man, whom I presumed should be the owner of the hotel replied to me, “We have two rooms, one with three beds and one family room for four,” turning to the other guys he said, “Only if they don’t accept, can I provide you with accommodation.”

The battle was won. But I was still not sure if the rest were going to reach the place. There was no way could I get in touch with them, the place was disconnected from all kinds of wireless networks. Moreover, I wasn’t carrying enough cash. The full amount came to around seven and a half thousand rupees, including three meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner), and when they eventually arrived, we all agreed that it was a steal!

As Hydrophytes are to Rain

Even though the rain seemed a damper, our peregrinations would have been less exhilarating without it. It was not quite rain in the most traditional sense of it. It was more like a condensation of the clouds as they drifted slowly over the hillside. Tiny beads of water gently lay themselves on the hair and clothes like glitter.

With umbrellas out, we trudged towards a lake called Bhulla Tal. It was close by, and there was nothing special about it. A couple of swans sat languidly on the opposite shore having fun with the absurd activity of ‘touristy’ human beings. The ‘touristy’ people perched themselves under a shade and took pictures which could be easily obtained from the internet. Then there was the ‘playing Captain Jack Sparrow’ part on a paddle boat, often crashing into land and getting stuck, shouting, “Mayday!” Then getting back again into the water after uncomfortable maneuvers. City-slickers also needed to sweat it out a bit, albeit on a hill station in a paddle boat.

All this while, the ethereal dots of water accompanied us, touching the cheeks lightly, evaporating the sufferings of our souls.

Going back to the hotel, we hung up our socks to dry, took a swig of dark rum, played scrabble for a while then had lunch. Scrabble was to be continued post-lunch, but reason it seemed got caught in the malevolent mousetrap of sleep, and the bodies soon followed in supine subjugation.

The indulgence in sleep left us guilt ridden. Time was lost. The Sun was setting. There were things to be done. There was a church atop the mountain to be visited. There was the town centre, Gandhi Chowk where we had to go to get supplies for the night. The night would be dark, and returning to the hotel could become a liability. All these thoughts led to the decision to do that which was most essential, the trip to Gandhi Chowk.

Gandhi Chowk like many other street crossings in India has been unimaginatively named after the father of our nation. The place itself lacked any spark in human activity, and was very rural in nature.

On our way back, the sky turned a hue too superlative for words. Sadashib, a member of our ‘party’ made sure to capture it in pictures.

In a Web of Words and Clipart

Playing word games has never been a hobby of mine and I never realized it would be as stimulating as it proved to be that night. That night, even whiskey failed to blitz the senses blitzed by the assault of pictures and letters.

The evening started with a beautifully devised picture-naming game by Chaitra. The game consisted of a sequence of pictures and letter which had to be combined into a legitimate word. The pictures were meant to phonetically define syllables and not directly give clues as to the meaning of the word. It was indeed interesting in its unique challenge and entertaining in the simply tools used to device it.

Next came a game of ‘Tom, Dick and Harry’ as suggested by another member of our ‘party’, Chaitra’s husband Kumar. The game was based on the lines of a popular 60s TV show ‘What’s My Line?’ where one member of a team had to answer in yes/no a limited number of questions asked by the other members of the same team until the name of the individual in question had been identified. The name should usually be a well-known, relatively identifiable, real/fictional/animated personality. The challenge was put forward by the members of another team, who could in the proceeding of the game laugh a sadistic laugh on the inadequacy of their opponent. This game went on for a long time, all this while the alcohol slowly sipping into our bloodstreams.

When finally mental cognition failed to ask the right questions, a change was demanded. Guilt, it seemed had blown away sleep, far into a state of slumber. A new game took centre stage, another game of words. In this game too, a word had to be guessed through the interpretation of three clues, its synonym, antonym and lastly, a word which contained the first two letter of the vocable in question. The game was running smoothly and quietly until Sadashib got stuck in the word ‘because’ and the members of his team were equally incompetent in interpreting it, given plenty of time and clues to top it off. It was decided by consensus that time had come to call for the Sleep to take us down the feathery chute of slumber. Thus, the day ended.

The Church, the Temple and the Ashram

Megha was intent on visiting the church. It was not supposed to be too far off from the hotel. So many things are planned yet more often than not the plans never end up working out. It was decided upon to wake up early in the morning and take a walk to the church. Nobody woke up early enough. By the time we got ready, it was decided that we should take our breakfast, surrender our rooms, leave our baggage and go for the walk. By eleven we started. It was not a long walk but quite a trek uphill concrete-paved ways laden with wet moss.

We walked and walked to the curious bewilderment of locals. The church kept eluding us. “Is that the church?” I asked, not knowing what kind of architecture to expect, “No?” “Are we there yet?” I asked after another ten minutes, and repeated it after equal intervals.

The mist lay heavy on the mountainside, and the drift of condensation never seemed to stop. Whether to open the umbrellas or not became a million dollar question. All of us opened them at some point of time, but agreed in consensus that we really didn’t need them.

Like in ghost stories of the seventies, out came the church from behind the mist like an apparition. “Eureka!” we went. We had finally reached our goal. God can be quite a difficult taskmaster. St John’s Catholic Church, named after its patron saint, St John the Baptist was established in 1936, but left to disuse due to a paucity of priests. It was not before 1977 that the church was revived again, renovated and opened for its original purpose of worship and prayers.

After a quick tour of the church and its small, idyllic campus we had to head back down to catch a cab to make our way back to the railway station at Kotdwar. “Let’s take the winding road. It is beautiful,” said Anya, “And, that is what I have come here to do, not climb up and down moss-covered rocks.”

So we all agreed and walked down the winding road. It was beautiful no doubt. But were we on the right trail? That could only be known by asking local passersby. “Is this the way to Gandhi Chowk?” I asked a cab driver; got an answer in affirmative.

Sarika, of our ‘party’ played the role of the ‘pebble peddler’ and though we were all supposed to be hush-hush about the secretive smuggling of blue pebbles in her umbrella, since the feat was successfully completed I thought I would make a mention of it.

Very soon though, the adverse effects of walking up and down hill roads would catch up. But before one or two members of our team started to fall sick, there was a snow-point to check out. It was a place from where snowy peaks could be visible. But the season was monsoon, the peaks were green, and any other peak expected to be snowy was shrouded in fog. Nevertheless, it was a nice place to take pictures from, the kind that makes wallpapers, and curiously enough, it was the only place in the whole of Lansdowne where my mobile phone was able to catch any network.

On our way further down, we came across the Garhwal War Museum, a memorial in honor of the brave soldiers of the Indian Army who had fought and won many a battles in distant lands.

To Gandhi Chowk we reached at last – spent and weary. It was past noon and we had to get a cab to resume the second leg of our tour on day two, to Tarakeshwar Temple, Kanva Ashram and then back to Kotdwar to catch the train back to Delhi.

The task was daunting indeed, and we weren’t finished with Lansdowne without stirring up a little controversy at the taxi stand. One of the drivers, high on pot duped us by agreeing to take us on our planned excursion for the money we had decided. Or maybe the driver had got duped by his own blurry senses, and as soon as he realized his mistake, he stopped his car and asked us to step out. Imagine if he had done that somewhere in no man’s land?

But we managed to get a cab at a reasonable compromise, and we were game for the final excursions before heading for home.

Tarakeshwar Temple was forty kilometers away from Lansdowne. The view from the road was a lustrous green. The distant mountains were arranged in neat rows and they looked as fresh as the first flowers of spring. The clouds had dispersed for a while and the rays from the Sun draped the hills in a blonde dazzle. The woods of Deodar, the Himalayan Cedar, beckoned us.

According to Hindu mythology, Tarakasura, the asura, son of Vajranaka, meditated to Lord Shiva at Tarakeshwar Temple to ask for a boon of immortality. A lot conspired later on which led to the christening of the name Tarakeshwar Mahadev. The temple was a Shiva temple. It was surrounded by a forest of cedar. A three pronged cedar rose just above the temple. It is believed that it resembles a trishul and was thus chosen as the spot to build the temple for Lord Shiva.

The entrance into the temple complex led into a path which was surrounded on both sides by dense foliage, reminiscent of Jim Corbett stories. The deodar trees were tall and aplenty, unwaveringly reaching into the sky like flagpoles proudly proclaiming freedom. The forest was dark and the hue was like malachite scattered over its floor.

It was getting late, and we were feeling tired. We had still to visit one last destination. It was the Kanva Ashram.

The Malini Watercourse

Sometimes, nothing made sense. Our jeep hustled down the twisty tracks, Godspeed. Kanva Ashram was our final destination, and it should be reached before Sundown to experience the serenity of the mountain river, Malini. Nothing made sense because dusk was on us and the Sun was setting fast behind the mountains, yet the faint murmur of the water flowing past pebbles seemed like a drug. The river was right beside us as we rambled down.

The setting was beautiful. I had dreamt of spending time in tranquility on the banks of such a riverine. Kanva-Ashram be damned! There wasn’t much in the name of an ashram anyway, just a small memorial for the sage who took care of Shakuntala.

The Hardest Part

The journey back to the ghastly material world from which we are conceived always feels like a ton of lead balls in the shoes. But, before I need end this train of thought on Lansdowne, I will pleasure myself in elaborating some aspects of the weekend other than the green grass and the ravishing mountain range.

What the Gourmands did in Garhwal

Being finicky about food is always a very dangerous habit. Travel can be exciting, yet it can be seriously frustrating for those who are particular about the food they eat. Lansdowne, Pauri Garhwal, was never my first choice for a weekend retreat, the main reason being its inadequacy in the gastronomic department. In fact, the whole of Uttarakhand seemed a bore to me for the only reason that they neither sold pork nor Himalayan trout. I was heavily biased from the beginning.

The hotel we stayed in provided some compromise that eased my troubled soul. Breakfast was eggs, bread, puri-bhaji, tea/coffee in as much amount as the heart desired. Lunch was chicken, paneer, rice and roti, and dinner likewise, with some vanilla ice cream as dessert. Though it may sound inappropriate and vulgar, our atrocious appetite left no place for any issues on morality, and this I say in plural as I was not the only delinquent here.

Verve

One thing that was not lost during our expedition was energy. It also came from those least expected quarters. In life you need not be perfect to be great. Lansdowne was great.

Post-Script

The alcohol we had carried to Lansdowne could not be finished. We had to carry it back to Delhi. How to carry it past Delhi Metro officials would be a challenge. There is a rule that all open containers of alcohol are to be confiscated. A journey on the metro rail was inevitable. The alcohol, we did manage to rescue. How it happened, no one will come to know.

Lansdowne in Pictures

Dwaipayan Adhya