Lansdowne

I write this still recovering from a terrible typhoid – one I picked up on this recent visit to Lansdowne. Even in my most progressive state of mind I’m not the variety to carry happy memories from a place that inflicts a hundred and four, backbreaking fever. Point: Lansdowne is exceptional.

Like most weekend trips, this one also stemmed from blown out of proportion life events: excessive stress at work, in love-life, mostly unrelated crap - so we shall cut to the chase. It all began one fine August evening a little after tea. What was planned as a swift five hour drive to the hills spanned, non-regrettably, into a nine-hour expedition. Stopping by every local attraction along the barely 250-km drive, we paid little respect to the notoriety of the stretch. (You’re lucky if driving through Uttaranchal’s dense forests at two at night you don’t run into dacoits or wild animals; however, madness precedes youth and that’s not a bad age-bracket for travelers).

On principle, I despise the ‘home away from home’ philosophy of some hotels, for, to me, travel is essentially an escape from the known into the unknown. Yet on visiting the hills, each time without fail, a certain sense of homecoming does creep in. We knocked at Blue Pine’s see-through door at three in the night. A sleeping attendant Akshay-Kumared off the sofa. Embarrassment sat on our eyebrows. He shrugged it off with a 24-carat smile. We stepped inside the hotel, perfectly, unabashedly, at home.

Swiftly transported to our comfortable though non-opulent rooms, and barely able to keep our eyes open, we cracked open as many beers as we could without breaking teeth. A group trying to maximize a holiday is more motivated than a battalion fighting a war.

As a matter of fact, drinking on a hotel balcony surrounded by the hills, it does appear the night will keep company as long as your glass isn't empty.

Amid more such philosophical thoughts alcohol took effect and we called it a night at dawn.

There are sparse, yet vivid, recollections of early next morning. The resort stayed true to its ‘this is home’ ideology and disturbed sleep at least three times – a first of its kind hotel that zealously keeps calling up so you don’t give breakfast a miss.

We finally woke up at one. Like other days, I reached out for my phone. Unlike other days, I switched on its camera and stepped out on the balcony - a balcony that was an insane departure from my second floor flat’s terrace overlooking a multitude of shanties. With the Sun beating down like it does in the hills, looking through the phone camera was never on the cards. Yet standing there surrounded by 360 degrees of mind blowing beauty, all I needed to do was hold my device still and click frames. Left, right and center.

Carefully outlined hills straight off an artist’s portfolio, balls of cloud spread evenly across the blue sky and playing home to a zillion pretty birds, one white ambassador reduced to an ant’s size as it trudges along on a coiling road so far away that its origins can’t be traced.

In fact, the only pictures that didn’t come out well were the ones I shook.

Some hours later, we found ourselves snaking up towards the cantonment of Lansdowne. Now, I agree most army dwellings boast of unsoiled surroundings. Having said that Lansdowne, the regimental centre of Garhwal Rifles, does show more than usual zeal in the matter. If you have money to lose, put some on spotting a single plastic bag along the ten kilometer cantonment road.

Talking of roads, Lansdowne roads also double as the tour guide. From one attraction to the other, bank on the road to take you to every place worth dropping by. First up was the Garhwal Rifles Museum, better known as the Darwan Singh Sangrahalaya.

Unless you nodded off the moment History lessons began in school, and therefore the mere existence of something from three hundred years back does not set your pulse racing, enter prepared to be captivated. Before entering, spare ten minutes for a general chit-chat with the Jawans guarding the museum. It’ll make their day less mundane. It’ll bring you the joy of having made their day.

The museum boasts of some of the oldest letters exchanged between Indo-Pak, including the Letter of Surrender by the Pak Army in 1971. Here you get to witness the oldest artifacts of the Garhwal settlement, relics of their culture, wardrobes of the Kings and the Viceroys. Most of it has been preserved so well that it barely seems to belong in a museum – you have a strong conscience if the thought of stealing the Orderly’s handsome dress does not occur to you. The museum also houses some of the most amazing artillery from the time – guns of all shapes and sizes, grenades in different hues and material, shining swords still sharp enough to split most in two. (On a personal level, my chest found a chance to balloon on seeing a family member’s name on the Wall of Honor. And true to my civilian roots, I took a picture of the same, royally ignoring a ‘Photography Prohibited’ signage next to it.)

Lansdowne’s climate is the opposite of its people. While the climate out here can stun you any minute with sudden rainfall or a dip in temperature, the townspeople never popped an unpleasant surprise. Be it the tightlipped jawans or the chattering cobbler, everyone was just as friendly as we had canvassed them to be. Add to it my intrusive ways – the phone memory is packed with random people shots, most of them clicked without informing the subject.

Next, the road led us to the Lansdowne cantonment market. Empty stomachs refused to take in further view, so after faking a careful examination of different restaurants, we stepped inside the first one that seemed to have place. In hindsight, the food in this particular restaurant was nothing compared to where we feasted the following day. But it’s not too difficult to please Delhi taste buds brought up on bad dal and overrated butter chicken.

One hell of a lunch later, we made for the Agarwal Theatre. Built over a hundred years back, this intriguingly yellow building houses Lansdowne’s only cinematic refuge. To give you an idea of how strongly the place was recommended to us, we paid forty bucks each to spend a good part of our holiday watching Ek Tha Tiger. It was dark when we stepped inside, and fifteen minutes of Salman Khan later, we figured why exodus is such a powerful word. But a little desire to see the theatre in some light, duly assisted by incessant rain outside, ensured we stayed put until interval. Not so soon it was half-time and the lights came on. The sacrifice had borne fruit.

The theatre is nothing like what most of us brought up in Central India would’ve seen before. Its blue velvet recliners call to mind film-stills of cinema halls in the colonial 30’s, the red walls in the backdrop complete the picture. The polished teak glistens by the soft yellow light, underlining the absolute absence of steel. The First Class and the Executive Class are neatly segregated by a three ft. tall boundary interjected by a classical wicket-gate. The presence of several formally attired NDA cadets in the rather scanty audience added to the colonial feel. Understated yet tastefully maintained, the hall did seem a happy recluse from the flashy multiplexes of urban India. Further testimony - we stayed the remaining duration of the film.

The time is ripe for me to make a confession. Brag as I may about my insights on hill-holidaying, there’s one aspect that continues to beat me. The happiness that we plain-dwellers derive in demolishing the nocturnal peace of the hills with Daler Mehendi, Mika and Himesh Reshammiya blaring out of gigantic speakers. Spread sporadically along a football-field-of-a-hotel-terrace, men and women display their command of pelvic thrusts. Mid-aged couples up their libido by transforming dance into a chain of lewd gestures. Singles try to score some strange by exchanging moves and drinks with random guests. Meanwhile, ‘Na, na, na, na re…’ rhythmically occults a nearby waterfall’s sound reducing it to a tick-tock, allowing the helpless mountains the luxury of tracking time as they wait for morning to arrive.

And so I spent my second night in Lansdowne sipping chilled beer and wondering about the role of pelvic thrusts in God’s scheme of things. Fruitlessly.

Here’s what happened the following morning: I woke up. I realized I had come down with a fever. I shared my thoughts on the same. No one gave a fuck. And before I could voice the word medicine, I was standing on an uphill beaten path with an umbrella, a jacket and little hope. Trek.

The sight sent my skin crawling. The chill in the air sent my bones freezing. The incline sent my joints shuddering. The neck, in fact, was the first victim as I tried looking at the peak above and over-lifted and over-stretched tad more than expected.

The vertical stretch ahead had no trees and, therefore, no provision for a little slip of the feet. It’s difficult to tell if the path was riddled with snake-holes or one giant Anaconda-hole was riddled with passages. Slippery boulders stood tall and heavy, ready to pounce and roll you down into the bottomless pit of the valley. The ground was wet with previous night’s rain, all set to cave in at the drop of a hat. We readily got rid of our caps.

The words ‘we have a situation’ read themselves out somewhere inside my brain.

And that’s when I took the first real giant leaps of my life. I crawled some five meters. Sounded like a perfect plan at the time, mostly because I’d no others to choose from: keep moving on all fours without shoving hands inside the snake holes and hit the top in under three days.

I could hear people sniggering ahead of me, but I preferred it to the laughter of death.

I crawled up a quarter of the distance in over an hour. And that’s when I first looked about me. I stood surrounded by an immense green expanse of untouched land on all four sides. Some clouds hovered above me, some kissed my feet. The sound of the wind was just as exquisite as its smell. Above, the peak shone mightily. Birds would flutter by every now and then, providing a suitable background score.

The climb lasted two hours. The idea that I’d narrowly escaped death a couple of times was laughed off by peers, but I’d like to believe so. You may follow suit; it makes for a better story.

Atop, we sat. We joked. We looked down upon the valley. It might not be a contender for Guinness, but the trek booked a portrait in my Hall of Fame. It was a victory against lethargy. Against the office-chair. Against the cigarette.

Something that I duly celebrated by lighting one.

We wandered looking for water. We looked for shops, there were none. We knocked at someone’s door; an old lady appeared with a jug full of water and a smile. We drank the water. We passed the smile in Gurgaon’s direction suggestively.

If you haven’t been pleasantly surprised in a while, please pack your bags and hop on. You will return astonished.  

The Test

The car braked just in time.

Amid pointless conversations about society and Tendulkar, they had totally forgotten the purpose of this visit. A good looking jacket that keeps you warm. Those things have become increasingly rare.

The car swerved left on to the mall driveway and joined the several other cars making a beeline for an underground parking slot. At the mall entrance in the distance, they saw more people than there are in the whole of NCR. Or so it appeared.

The atmosphere was charged with festive spirit. Everyone had put on their best clothes. And were out looking for even better clothes.

The line was too long. They tried jumping the queue but were promptly shown the middle finger and a gun by a burly Jat they were trying to overtake.

Ahead of them crawled more than twenty cars at less than 5metres/hour. They feigned resolve for a full eight minutes. Then they took a u-turn and opted for another parking down the road.

The price for this alternative was of course a long walk back to the mall. A long, shivery walk. The temperature had hit three degrees Celsius. And the icy wind didn’t help matters much. They were covered from head to toe in the finest quality woolens. The chill paid little respect and pierced through their defenses nonetheless.

Still adlibbing ways to keep themselves warm, like blowing into their cupped palms, they ran into a strange sight. An old woman wrapped in a Sari, a sweater and a shawl sat on her haunches chaperoning an urchin. The little girl, perhaps five years of age, lied on her stomach totally naked. And not willingly.

Each time the girl attempted to cuddle against the woman, she would be pushed back in the open. After three attempts, she gave up. Behind them on the road, a car loudly screeched to a halt. The woman turned around to look at it, the urchin quick as a flash sneaked beneath the shawl. As if with years of practice, without even casting a glance, the woman pushed her so far back she almost fell off the footpath on to the service lane.

One of the guys quickly took off his jacket. The other pulled at his arm, gesturing charity be avoided. He was inhumanly, absolutely right. One act of benevolence and they would’ve walked right into the woman’s cruel trap.

The guys were educated, well-read, patrons of world cinema. One had in fact excelled at the Common Admission Test, the true test of one’s decision making abilities. And they stood there, stupefied and clueless. Grappling with the choices life had put forth. The collective wisdom acquired over all these years in the company of Hemingway and Marquez amounted to zilch.

They walked on, contemplating a fitting piece that captures their guilt.