2008 September my mother and younger brother Robi made plans to take a car journey and the choice was the Manali-Leh highway, and we packed light as food and staying facilities were plenty en-route. Having got brand new tyres for my 8 year old Palio GTX 1.6, I felt that the car could take whatever the road would throw at it, but would not risk it beyond Manali. Beyond Manali it would have to be a jeep or SUV as the road would be boulder strewn and the low height of my car’s undercarriage could prove disastrous like our Badrinath trip when the engine had been shook of it’s mounting due to the rough roads. From my home in Vasant Vihar we drove off to Connaught Place where we felt that a great breakfast place would be the Metropolitan Cafe in the centre of Pahargunj where a satisfying typical English breakfast complete with porridge, rashers , mashed potatoes with sausages and eggs could be got at affordable rates unlike the 5-star hotels which would take us to the cleaners for such. As usual the friendly waiters and kitchen staff never failed to satisfy and with orange juice, banana and yoghurt lassi and coffee in the end, we came out knowing that this late heavy brunch would allow us to avoid feeling hungry en-route. The other option for us would have been was to rely on Haryana's road side Dhabas to cater to our needs with their greasy potatoes stuffed bread with yoghurt as a side-dish. Dominic arrived at exactly 7 p.m. and we walked or rather climbed towards the Mall where a nice restaurant called Baljees was suggested to us by Dominic where we tucked in heartily as this was the first meal after Pahargunj's Metropolitan Cafes's brunch. Next morning it was Dominic who woke us up as he wanted us to drive towards Kufri to see his college, but before that we would have to come over for breakfast at his home. We met his wife who we learned was from Kerala unlike Dominic who was from Goa but a naturalised Mumbaikar and now a Shimlaite if there is such a word !! Their children were very sweet and got us biscuits and tea as we gracefully refused breakfast having had a late dinner the night before. Then we walked towards Kaitho where my mother wished to see her late father's home which was their home after the Japanese invaded Burma causing the family of eleven individuals to walk the land route via Manipur to Chittangong's Cox Bazaar which was their original home. This was because the British convoy of trucks had taken off in the early morning deserting the unfortunate Indian civil servants. Chittagong which now is in Bangladesh was in the throes of the Great Famine of Bengal which is attributed by some due to supplies of rice from Burma drying up due to the Japanese invasion causing 1.5 to 2 million artisans to perish from 1943-44. Many Bengalis blame the British for an economic blockade as Bengal was in the forefront of the revolutionary movement against the British started off by the Chittagong armoury raid. Reaching Upper Kaitho we started asking for Prairie Lodge which my mother found with utter ease and we are now talking about a lady relocating her house after 67 years and her markers were simple as she could see the Annadale grounds from above where her house was situated. On the Annadale grounds is now situated the helicopter landing pad, and we knocked on the door of one of the flats where we were invited in for tea by an eighty year old Sardarji and his wife ho had a daughter who was a lecturer in the university of Shimla. Small talk about what the place held for the inhabitants and problems of procurement of water in summer months took place between us while my mother looked wistfully out of the home's rear window and reminisced the times when she was a little girl of ten who had to look after her brood of younger sisters and brothers who were six in number. My mother Bakul had two elder brothers Monu and Tunu who she called Monda and Tunda who never hung around the younger brood. The gang in Shimla constituted four sisters Mukul, Parul, and Putul and of course my mother Bakul, and three younger brothers Sudhir, Adhir and Sushil and they would roam around the hills of Shimla naming different locations in their own peculiar dialect of Chatgaiya from Chottogram which is very different from Bengali as spoken in West Bengal. My mother's memoirs of Shimla always started with the fragrance of long grained Basmati rice as they had all suffered eating a coarser and smelly version of rice which was available in famine stricken Chitagong. It was still a far cry from the famed jasmine rice of Burma that they would eat with their dried fish like Bombay Duck and prawn curry, but the Basmati rice brought cheer into the children's lives after the interim deprivation caused by their stay in East Bengal. Soon it was time to leave and we photographed the winding by-lanes of Shimla and walked through the old carriage track that went through woods past the Vice-Regal Lodge of Annadale. On reaching the Mall we were shown some remarkable structures like Dalziel House, Chelmsford Club and one building which Dominic claimed was the home of Rudyard Kipling. Another arresting feature of Shimla were of course the monkeys who were totally in charge of the place and hung around menacingly in little groups and would snatch food stuffs when desperate as per Dominic. Driving out of Shimla towards Kufri was encountering rutted and duty roads which showed how heavy commercial vehicles had torn the macadam to ribbons and we came across some lovely scenery and then soon we were in Kufri thirteen kms away from Shimla where my friend's government run catering institute was placed bang opposite a very well known landmark hotel The Oberoi Wildflower Hall which looked like a white Gothic structure. The Wildflower hall was once home to Lord Kitchner, the Commander-in -Chief of the British army in India and was a relic of the city's colonial past. Having seen the sights it was time to leave for Manali and bidding farewell to Dominic with a heavy heart as he was once part of our life in Kashmir we took off for Darlaghat which was a winding short cut to Manali via Bilaspur and Mandi instead of having to climb down to Kalka.
himalayandreamscape 