Namah Shivay!
Long since a new article has been published here. It’s a pleasure expressing my joys as I write this with love. It was 19th of November, 2008 as I remember when I last saw the face of this scenic beauty. 30 kms from Dehradun, set in the lap of lush green Himalayan mountains, is a ride full of twists & turns & a mountainous terrain with steep falls & highs, that welcomes you to the grandeur of this small hill station, its beauty discovered by Col. Young during the British India era. Since then it has attracted foreigners every year throughout the year. The Mall road, Gun Hill, Camel Back, Lake Mist, Kempty Falls, Happy Valley, Buddhist Temple, Tibetan Market only to name a few. It requires one to have a stay of at least a week to fully set in the way of life here.
The Dehradun Shatabdi Express which runs from New Delhi station to Dehradun is a breath of fresh air when it comes to traveling. It’s like an economy flight on rails. The food is good & the signature habit of attendants of Rajdhani & Shatabdi to serve you mini meals every now & then keeps the tummy healthy & smiling. One of the most spectacular views is the green fields during monsoon season as the train leaves Ghaziabad & passes through the villages. At Haridwar, the Hindu culture is predominant & the way of life reflects here as well as soon as you see the confused foreigners, saints & devotees traveling with you get off the train & walk out to the welcoming mountains surrounding Rishikesh & Haridwar. Through the large windows the sight is picture perfect.
We reach our final destination after a spectacular sight of a dense patch of forests that can send ones imagination to a beautiful past which could have been so much colder, denser & mystical a decade or more back. They wouldn’t have required fans in this city back then. Beside the station is the Dehradun bus stand from where, every hour or so, one can catch a bus to the lovely Mussoorie, which is an hour & fifteen minutes ride approximately that would leave you amazed at how much the bus drivers are well acquainted with the steep turns & falls from the valley to the hills. It is reassuring to know how smoothly they handle the wheels at the sight of vehicles coming at you & overtaking vehicles from behind.
We stayed at Padmini Nivas Hotel, on the Mall Road, very near to the Tibetan Market, a 180 year old building, if what I heard is correct, built for the British sepoys as a retreat from the usual routine of life, a retiring place for the recovering & for those battered & bruised. The hotel started operating from 1980. One just has to let their imagination fly as to, back then, what this beautiful place would have been like. The tourists, commercialization hasn’t affected the natural setting as much as the trash thrown here & there that is littered across the boundaries of the hotels, shops that have sprung up, of many a kind. Tea shops, Chinese nook corner, bread & omelet shops, maybe throwing crumbs as well.
Going further on the the Kulri street I meet the age old man & his wife who run their fairy tale chocolate shop still. I am thankful to my sweetheart for managing to get me a beautiful autograph of the legendary Ruskin Bond. Just like before, it is now, a dream ride over there only clouded over the head and rainy, as it should be in the month of July.
More on this later folks.
(to be contd.)
