Mussoorie

When you look down from there, to a sheet of golden lights, you wonder about the million lives who live in the nuclei of those shimmering dots. And about the billion dreams each such life sees with open eyes every day. And about this one single dream of one single life that came true that day to see rejoice in the eyes of someone you love being there with you feeling tiny soft cold raindrops brush past her, as she strolls in the beautiful wet roads with an umbrella in her hand, in the alluring monsoon Mussoorie.

Past a two day long multi-parametric analysis on the web a month back, the venue for my Mum's surprise pre-birthday trip was frozen. A heritage stay in Mussoorie it was going to be. A week back the to and fro bus tickets were booked. All set, it was as planned and as free as it was supposed to be. I will always remember watching Mom almost jump with surprise when I broke the news after a delicious dinner one day. Then a couple of days back the Media shrieked mercilessly of ruthless rains in the state of Uttarakhand. 'Beware' they said. But rains always brought back beautiful childhood memories to me. And it indeed did transform Mussoorie to a beautiful solemn haven unlike the rustle-bustle of blind tourism that defames the erstwhile British escape in the scorching summer heat.
The transit city was Dehradun, a place with seemingly similar roads and shops and houses and billboards and dhabas and malls to the ones in the plains, yet with a freshness in the non polluted air that made you stretch your arms and inhale till it filled you with instant placidity. A taxi ride later, we reached the bus 'adda' for Mussoorie. The ride till Mussoorie was like driving through lazy fogy clouds. On the canvas of my imagination, I drew proud peaks, elegant valleys, box shaped houses set onto feeble man-made steps, distant mysterious temples all hidden exotically under the blanket of this mist.

Mussoorie, in it's first impression, with clouds heavy upon us and the rains more than possessive, was secluded. Taxi drivers who smelled of weed and local liqour swarmed around, which interestingly didn't stop them from charging outrageously for a ride lasting few minutes. The slopes were strict and it took a few seconds to reorient balance and sense of gravity. We reached Padmini Niwas for our weekend long retreat to be. The place was beautiful, more so with the woodwork, antiquity, an aura about the place with flattered you with subtle royalty. Still early morning, with hot paranthas and pickle and tea, the sound of raindrops smashing against tiny pebbles on the pathway, the absolute silence beautifully corrupted by distant chirruping of a young bird being your partner in admiration of  this natural celebration of monsoon rains.

The mall road had a living breathing life of it's own. A line of shops extended to 'infinity and beyond' selling everything you could bargain for at 2005.5 meters above sea level. Apparels, ice-cream, snacks, electronics, toys, antiques, cosmetics, footwear, medicines, bhutta vendors, and suddenly it almost seemed like slicing layer by layer of a 'mall' unwrapping the shops decorating them linearly beside the road keeping just enough space for cars to virtually battle through a swarm of gentlemen and ladies with colorful umbrellas trying to seep through the crevices of the traffic. From modest stays to colossal hotels built like a mountain upon a mountain, from square-tabled restaurants to the fully glass-ed 'Mall road view' ones, from the roadside 'extra-adrak' tea vendor to Cafe Coffee Day, from Desi 'bhutta' to Exotic continential, the wide spectrum of travelers and tourists injected the monetary fuel to keep an unexpected beast of an economy alive and moving.

The quintessential soul sister of Mussoorie was Kempty falls. Equally commercialized beehive of shops and stores selling outrageously useless stuff at times. For a family, the fall's base was well designed - carved almost like a swimming pool, though with a strong gush of chilling cold water that smashed against your shoulders. The impact of water fall expels excessive mist in the air, which when coupled with the breeze reminds you of December winter in Delhi. An endless set of stairs were to be climbed to and fro. The cab took us to two temples, the first one a modern built Indian one, and the second one was a serene Buddhist temple with a humble looking priest.

As the night drew close, like an almost conspiracy, the crowd kept growing thicker in direct proportion. I saw relief on faces of few who seemed to consider themselves pardoned from the 'wrath of the rains'. Others, majorly children, ran around frantically looking up at the sky tasting the rain drops with a prejudice-less delight. We grabbed boiled and grilled sweet corn sold alongside the roads, and walked on across the stretch. It was then when suddenly while taking a turn, you'd catch sight of the magnificent shimmering lights of Dehradun city below. Phantom clouds swam above the city like delicious cream over coffee. I wished a digital photograph could do justice to the dark scenery that lay ahead, but I knew it wouldn't so I asked myself and Mum and Aunt to capture this indescribable spectacle in their memories.

Finally it was time to close the Mussoorie chapter, and as we retreated to our hotel after dinner in one of the 'Mall road view' restaurants, our minds were elated but our legs cursed in an almost Punjabi manner. I exclaimed that such is a day's worth of spending physical and mental effort exploring and discovering something new like little children. That night as I played back snippets of memories of that day - the bus ride, misty fogy roads, beautiful sightings, delicious bhutta, jalebis, cab ride till Kempty, reading about Prayer wheels in Buddha temple, and suddenly it was a pleasant sinking sensation of giving in to sleep. I slept like a piece of log.

We packed and moved out early morning next day and boarded a bus back to Doon. While Mussoorie was a tiny self-sustaining ecosystem, Doon was a monster of a city in scale, and hence the dilemma of how to spend the last few hours of this trip. Upon recommended, we were escorted to the Forest Research Institute, and this was the second time all three of us almost jumped. The word 'magnificent' is an understatement for the architecture, the green cover, and especially the Dhanaulti mountains in the backdrop almost like an oil painting. We moved through museums experiencing rich studies on timber, forests, insects, herbs and happened to pity the University Chancellor due to some reason so silly the laughter persisted for a long time. It was an ideal place to sit down under a tree all day and think about life and it's ecstasy. But this was not that day, and so we left for ISBT, where our Volvo for Delhi awaited us. The way back home was one of reflection, and it reminded me of how the best of things are sometimes most simple and effortless.

Like this small escapade hopefully as a mark of a new beautiful beginning of endless experiential journeys. Happy Birthday Mum :-)

The Forbidden Mysteries of Matheran

Looking down at the valley hundreds of feet below, feeling the echo of absolute silence brush past my ears, I heard my voice whisper to me – “How would it be to take a step ahead.  To fly down effortlessly to the deep vastness of this silence that lay below me; till it swallows me and makes me one with itself.” Just then, like a sting of infinite intensity, I felt my conscience flood back into me. I turned back and walked on.

It all started a day before Diwali ‘13 – when I realized the away-from-family, friends-leaving-for-their-homes, celebration-devoid disaster my Diwali holidays were going to be. As the last of my friends bade me goodbye, I still gaped at skyrocketing flight charges and overloaded trains wishing something could magically teleport me to-and-fro Delhi. Practicality struck me hard, and so I considered visiting this hill station close to Mumbai, called Matheran, as an alternative to celebrating Diwali a little ‘differently’.

I had heard a lot about Matheran from local friends. Google images made me ogle at the beautiful painting-like scenery, and so the plan was fixed. I packed my bag before I slept that day, and next morning I left early to catch an early local train toward Matheran. Taking a bite off the Samosa-pao I got from the Malad station canteen, I dived into the hell-packed Dadar-side local like a Spartan! Next was the lightly packed local towards Neral. Standing at the door of the train, feeling the soft morning breeze embrace me, with rhythmic music from my headphones, I felt the beginning of this journey couldn’t have been better. Little did I know what lay ahead!

Neral station reminded me of the classic movie Sholay - Red soil, scorching heat, and dust flowing past mysterious grumpy looking faces. I boarded a shared van-taxi to Aman-lodge railway station for 70 bucks, and all throughout the way up the hilly range, I was simply awed to see the beauty of those underestimated lower plains I was coming from. Up at the entrance to Matheran, a ticket for Rs. 50 was to be obtained to enter the station from where a toy train takes you up to the Matheran market. An alternative is a horse ride, or to simply walk up-hill for 20 mins. The toy-train looked fascinating, so I got the Rs. 40 ticket and boarded it, eager to see what the real ‘untouched’ Matheran was like. The journey was short, and as I exited the station, I was surprised to see a fully established organized bazaar – restaurants, resorts, hotels, parks, shops, and it didn’t look much different from the less-crowded version any Mumbai market. With the difference that the only modes of transport were horses, and your two strong legs! That’s why Matheran was untouched by pollution. No vehicles – no emissions.

But alas, this is where my fairy tale gets sorely interrupted. Reminding me of extremely incredibly annoying houseflies, all sorts of brokers got around me – with all sorts of prices for all sorts of places to stay. I’d stay No, thinking I’ll find a place to stay somehow. But they’d still linger on for minimum 100 meters more, asking on average 5-6 questions – “Kaisa hotel chahiye?”, “Resort chalega?”, “Privacy wala room chahiye?”, “Arey budget to batao kitna hai?”, “Valley view room loge saste mein?”, and the questions just got weirder. But the only question EVERYONE on the way had been asking me was – “Who’s traveling with you?” I felt really strange because when I’d answer “No one”, they’d suddenly stop walking and with eyes wide open, they’d just gape blankly at me as if I’d chanted an unforgivable curse. I anyways took the opportunity to boast “I travel alone” with a wink. Still wondering what the deep surprise on their faces meant.

I walked on though. I knew barely anything about Matheran as of then. And so it became really exciting. What was strange was that every time I’d ask somebody “Kya hai yahaan pe?” they’d give a “What-the-fuck!” expression, and so I concluded that just following the crowd was the easy way out. This way, I came across Echo point, Honeymoon point, and Sunset point. I also saw an artificial lake, and had a shitty tea at one of the nearby stalls for 15 rupees. The view at the points was amazing beyond any poetic vocabulary I’ve come across, and it was more than a dozen times I felt like what I saw was the most beautiful painting ever – an majestic creation of mother nature that no colour, no artist, no sketch, no photograph, no words can replicate. The temperature was uncomfortably pleasant, and a slight playful confusion of whether it was fast breeze or slow wind that whirlpooled itself in the valleys of your ears.

An insatiable curiosity made me walk on. For minutes altogether, it would be just me walking through the forest-covered hill roads. Greenery in all levels and genres of time – freshly sprouted shrubs like newly born toddlers, to ancient tress bent by the weight of their own years, hugged close that hard rocky crude road on which I walked on. It was easy to get lost. And that’s where footsteps of horses on the road, and their dung helped me. If there was fresh dung and prominent horse steps, I would confidently walk on. If the steps were scare, and the dung was dry, it was a less preferable road to take (because of some mysterious reason!) And the worst case - No dung. No horse steps. Fuck.

I thought of life in the woods. Far far away from the gaping brutality of city madness; from the place where a thousand emotionless faces swim by in dead stringent silence every morning, every night. Here – the birds, the tress, the horses, the wild dogs, the insects, the ants and their gigantic anthills, music of the leaves brushing against a humble breeze. The harmony was bewitchingly captivating!  The naturally unconditional resonance was pure fascination for me.

Lost in these thoughts and more, I stopped and looked down at my legs which were numb by now due to constantly walking on the ruthlessly hard rocky way. And suddenly that moment - to pure spine-chilling astonishment I noticed there were no horse-steps, no dung. I’d been walking for hours now. If I’d turn back, I might not reach to the main road before dark. And who knew how long was the road ahead (if there was a road ahead!). I suddenly noticed how alone I was there - alone as a modern human being, as effectively an alien to that ecosystem. As minutes ticked by, I heard occasional mysterious roars coming from the woods. I guessed it would be wild dogs, best case scenario. But in the back of my mind, I realized that as the dusk approached, the sounds seemed to crawl nearer every minute.

And just then, like a ray of hope in absolute darkness, I saw the tip of an old ragged hut meters ahead. It was my oasis in the desert of negative solace. I remember running towards it like a flash, absolutely forgetting about the pain in my legs. An old lady came to my rescue – giving me some water to drink, she showed me the way to the market. I still carried my backpack and was clueless about where to spend the night. But anything was better than a night being lost in a jungle with unknown wild animals. God! I shall never forget that horror!

On returning to the market, the brokers’ swarm surrounded me again. One of them showed me three places – unbelievably highly priced and unbelievably shitty condition. I thought this was illogical!  There were people from all strata who visited the place. There MUST be someplace affordable. The reason, I got to know much later, was because I was alone. Once I got rid of the broker, I searched on myself. Worst case, I thought, would be to sleep on the railway station. But it would be too cold at night, with new species of mosquitoes, and it was not wise to be beaten up by police in the middle of the night. Another stroke of luck, and I met an owner of a shoe shop, who happened to have a guest house. After an array of questions, he calls up my mother and asks another set of questions – “Is Karan your son?”, “What does he do?”, “Do you know where he was come?”, “Is he suffering with any mental depression?”, “Has he done anything to harm himself recently?”, etc. Although my mother was quite disturbed, she answered him plainly. A conversation later, I was surprised to know the reason behind this endless mystery – it was not allowed in Matheran for a person to stay single there. Why? Suicide! He told me that people who visited Matheran alone committed suicide. And the hotel where that person stayed would be investigated and hotel owner badly grilled. As no owner wanted to take worthless risk, even after asking me a billion questions, they’d offer me high prices for shitty rooms. This guy fortunately gave me sensible prices, and so without thinking much I agreed.

The next set of events was funny. I was given a room for 2 nights for 1.2k, and was asked to pay advance. After all this was done, I was ready to shift to the room, when a man in late 20s came our nervously from the adjoining room and started whispering something to the Guest-house owner. I intervened, asking if there was any problem. He just stood with an interestingly weird expression on his face, and that’s when I saw a girl peeping from behind the door of his room. The owner requested me to shift to a different room, as the man has supposedly complained that I might disturb them at night. I didn’t know whether to laugh or blow a punch in that bloke’s face. My legs were too numb to keep up that rage, and so I quietly shifted to the other room. To my surprise, the room was really decent. The bed felt heavenly, and as I removed my Woodland shoes, my feet came out numb and badly red. That night I slept like I’d been awake for ages.

An adventure had come to an end. Another, more mysterious one was supposed to start the next morning.