Can I interest you in a cosy home stay deep in the mountains that's accessible only by a pulley cart over a fast-flowing river?
Raju's Cottage in Tirthan Valley.
It's a lovely resort in Sarchi near the village Ghosaini, voted among the best home stays in the world! One has to book months in advance. It's been featured on TV and it's no longer obscure.The establishment comprises
stone-wooden cabins and it’s nestled against a thickly wooded hill. The best
part is the approach: one can access only by a pulley-cart across the Tirthan
River! Quite an experience since the River is fast-flowing and you’re suspended
halfway across in a small cart! Great fun, though. Once you reach the home
stay, Raju Bharti and his family treat you to home cooked meals that include trout,
fresh apple juice and produce from their garden. Although there’s no mall road
or shopping centre nearby, the family ensures you’re never bored. They have
bonfires in the evening and so much food that you really don’t miss the hustle-bustle
of Shimla or Manali. One and a half kilometres away is the Great Himalayan
National Park and Raju will organise a trek there if you so desire. Here are some pictures below:
The approach to Raju's cottage!
Go on, take a chance. Aim
for roads less travelled and you’ll find the holidays more fun than you can
ever imagine!
Come summer and the travel
bug strikes. It becomes the hottest topic of conversation: where should we go
for our vacation? In a tropical country like ours I cannot identify with anyone
heading for still hotter climes. I’d like to spend my holidays without being
roasted, thank you, so the mountains it is for my family and I. We have the
advantage of living in glorious Chandigarh, which is at the foothills of Shimla
which, in turn, opens up a whole range of possibilities for wonderful travels.
You can do Shimla, of course, and sometimes be fortunate to get some awesome
views. Or, if you’re feeling
adventurous, go to Ladakh like we did two years back. Fantastic experience but
not for the faint-hearted. Although I did a whole item on the Leh road trip,
I’m sharing some great pictures below again
Approaching Zoji La enroute from Srinagar to Leh
Ladakh, Baralacha La June 2014
Manali is another lovely
option. Here’s what Rohtang La looked like in June 2014
But how about some less
known jewels? Narkanda, for instance, just a little beyond Shimla offers some
wonderful views of snow- laden mountains and the HPTDC Hotel Hatu is a pleasant
place to stay. Here are some pictures of it.
Hotel Hatu, Narkanda. That's our Yeti parked outside
View from Hotel Hatu
The two lesser known getaways
I’m sharing are great options for vacations. Some of you might’ve even been there.
Kalpa, in Kinnaur District (famous for apples) is a small town above Reckong Peo.
Both places are must-sees. Reckong Peo is resembles many other Himachal towns but
the view of the Kinnaur Kailash range is jaw-dropping. Sample these below. Our hotel
Kinner Villa was a cheap and cosy place with yummy homemade food. What more can
one ask for?
Reckong Peo
Hotel Kinner Villa
The last place recommended is in the next post, since I've exhausted the space for photos with this one!
There’s an anomaly peculiar
to our country regarding the use of language. English is the language of
official use in the Central Government and one finds that most officials can
write English but not speak it well. The reverse is true for Hindi. Majority of
those working in North India speak Hindi; it’s their mother tongue. But they
can’t really write it well. The lack of fluency in spoken English does not,
however, hold them back and they use it with a laissez-faire attitude that can
be hilarious at times.
Take, for instance, the
strangely Indian quirk of referring to anything behind them as ‘at my backside’.
During my early years in service when I was posted in Bangalore and given the charge
of administration of a large office, I’d launched a cleanliness drive. A few
hours into it, a junior official came into my chamber with a look of
consternation on his face.
“You have to intervene,
Madam,” he said.
“Yes? What’s the
problem?”
“Well, I am cooperating
with this drive but administration section is putting files at my backside and
bad smell is coming.”
On any given day in my
present posting I receive about forty to fifty files. I have to go through them
diligently. Now and then I come across bloopers that send me into fits of
laughter.
Consider this: ‘Why
this proposal is coming peace meal?’ (a junior official to the one who put up
the file)
‘...hence the two
lowest bidders are fit for evolution’ (evaluation!)
‘...kindly tell me if
this still holds goods.’ (complainant in a pension case)
They’re many, many
more, which I shall duly note and pass on.
But the incident that
takes the cake so far occurred during a meeting I attended during my previous
posting in Delhi. It was a high level meeting with a Member of the Board, Mr. Mohanty
(we shall call him), who was from the eastern part of the country and, thus,
had a distinct accent. There were many of us Directors in the room and Mr.
Mohanty was bemoaning the slow progress of a particular project.
“You fellows* jaast don’t
adhere to time lines,” he complained. “I keep telling and telling baat you don’t
leesan. Whaat I shood do weeth you all, huh?”
*(everybody was ‘fellows’
for him. A new take on equality of the sexes, I guess).
We held our peace collectively.
“After all,” he
continued, “you can take a daug...”
He paused. Dog? I
wondered.
“You can take a dauk to
tha water baat you can’t make eet drink.”
Dauk? Duck! A rumble of laughter went through
the room. In what universe would one need to take a duck to the water?
“Horse! Horse!” I
whispered. My colleagues giggled and tried to shush me.
Too late. Mr. Mohanty’s
ears had caught my voice.
“Yes, Meeses Gupta, you
have saamtheeng to share weeth aas?”
“Er, no, Sir. Nothing.”
He fixed me with a hoary
glare. “Please, I eenseest.”
I cleared my throat and
said: “I think it’s a horse, Sir.”
He looked at me as if I
was mad.
“You theenk a dauk ees
a horse?”
*
And, as always, here are two videos related to language faux pas. Enjoy them!
One of the delights of
getting dressed and going to work every morning is the interesting people I get
to meet during the course of the day. For a writer, this is a gold mine for
sourcing characters to depict in my novels. Many of the people I come across
feature in my works without them knowing it. I’m going to share some of
the jewels I come across but, since they exist and are very much part of my
office, I’m compelled to change their names. So please bear with me.
At present one of the
chief characters is someone I shall call ‘Jeevanji.’ He’s fifty-five, podgy, cantankerous and a Smart Alec. He also
occupies a supervisory position in my office. One day not so long ago my PA
Deepak (name changed, of course) announced that Jeevanji wanted to see me.
“Send him in,” I said,
presuming he wanted some clarifications regarding a meeting we’d scheduled the
following day outside Chandigarh.
He entered with a
pained expression on his face and, after taking a seat across my desk, declared
that he was forced to approach me because he was being mistreated in the
office.
“Mistreated?” I said in
surprise.
“Yes, Madam. As you
know, I never trouble you unless it’s unavoidable* but I have to report that
Gopichand is showing me disrespect.”
(*bull&@#?+)
Gopichand is Jeevan’s
bugbear, a cocky but intelligent subordinate, and the one to whom I’d delegated
the work of organizing the next day’s meeting.
“What happened?” I
asked.
“Well, he’s preparing
folders for the meeting and he’s given me...well...an ordinary pen.”
I stared. “Excuse me?”
“Yes,” Jeevan said with
a snivel. “An ordinary pen. I should have a better pen since I’m senior to the
rest of the officials attending the meeting.”
I’d set a limit of
twenty rupees for pens that are put into files along with small notebooks at
such conferences or meetings. Now, I could scarcely believe my ears.
“What kind of pen do
you want, Jeevanji?”
“Well, it should be better than the others’, at least thirty
or forty rupees.” He went on to explain that by the grace of God he was well-
to- do and it wasn’t that he couldn’t afford to buy himself a pen but it was
the principle of the thing.
“All right,” I
conceded, “I’ll tell Gopi to put a better pen in your folder.”
“Thank you, Ma`am,” he
said brightening, and left my chamber with a spring in his step.
The meeting went off
well the next day. Jeevanji,
Gopichand, and a few other officials from my office travelled an hour and a
half out of Chandigarh to the venue and there didn’t seem to be any tension
during the two hours we spent there. The day after, however, Jeevanji was back in my chamber red-faced and
apparently on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
“What’s happened now?”
I exclaimed.
“Madam, I am
constrained to report a serious matter,” he said in a choked voice. “I was
manhandled yesterday.”
“Manhandled?” I must
admit I was worried.
“Well, not exactly,” he
said, much to my relief. “But they...they treated me very badly while
travelling to the meeting.” Jeevan, Gopichand and two other officials travelled
together in a hired vehicle, a Tata Indica. He went on to explain they’d
planned things in such a way that he was the last to be fetched (at his own
request, I’m sure) and when he got into the car he found they’d all taken their
seats. He was forced into the backseat between Gopichand and another chap. “And
all through the journey, they squeezed me from both sides!” he said, gesturing
with his elbows. “Each time the car turned a corner, they fell on top of me.”
I tried hard to
maintain an impassive facade but I was nearly collapsing with laughter on the
inside.
“You’re senior to them,”
I said, “Why didn’t you insist on a window seat? You could’ve sat in front with
the driver, too.”
“No, Ma`am, you don’t
know what it was like. They were three against me.”
“If they were being
rude you, as their senior, could’ve simply told the driver to stop the car and
ordered them to get out. They could’ve taken a bus back to Chandigarh.”
“No, Madam, I am not
such a harsh person.”
“Well, what is it you
want me to do?”
“Nothing. I just wanted
to bring this to your kind notice. For the future.”
I was perplexed but
agreed to make a note of it- for future reference; won’t force him to travel in
the same vehicle with Gopichand again.
“One more thing, Ma`am,
since you’ve spared your valuable time...He took my file away.”
“Gopi? Which file?”
“The one...the one with
my pen. He picked it up with the rest of the folders after the meeting.”
“But that was his job,
Jeevanji. He collects the unused
folders- or used ones and brings them back to Chandigarh. He picked mine up,
too. I’m sure he’ll return yours. Do you want me to tell him?”
“Yes, Ma`am. With the
pen, please.”
Every word of this is
true. Watch this space for more such jewels.
One of the ferries that transported us over a river
Candolim Beach, Christmas 2015
The sea along the Konkan Coast
The famed beauty of the
Konkan coast lures many people to the region especially in December- January,
since it’s the coolest time of the year. Many choose the Konkan railway and
those living nearby might drive along but how many people decide to drive
halfway across our vast country? To be precise: Chandigarh- Goa- Chandigarh? My
guess is, not many.
We began our journey on
the afternoon of December 18, 2015 and returned to Chandigarh on New Year’s Eve
at a quarter to twelve. We travelled through Delhi, Rajasthan, Gujarat,
Maharashtra, Goa and Karnataka, covering over 5000 kilometres! Our vehicle: the
Skoda Yeti, a beautiful, sturdy four-wheel drive. After a night halt at Delhi
on the 18th, we proceeded to Udaipur in Rajasthan, passed through
Gujarat on the 19th and landed up in Navi Mumbai on the 20th
of December. Rajasthan is not particularly traveller-friendly despite being on
the tourist radar, since the roads are narrow and the marble industry brings
trucks by the dozens all day long. Getting stuck behind one of these is
miserable. However, the people are generally courteous and patient unlike our
friends in Delhi or UP and Bihar or anywhere else in the East! NH 4 also lacks
signboards and decent restaurants or dhabas. All we saw in profusion were
truckers’ eateries without any ‘family’ cars parked outside. But the
countryside is beautiful in a stark, expansive way. Shrubs and Eucalyptus trees
line the hilly terrain and Bougainvillea in red and pink separate the single
lane roads. The Rajput legacy lives on and most hotels and guesthouses have
facades designed to resemble fortresses.
Upon entering Gujarat,
the first thing that strikes you is the excellent roads and signboards that are
displayed prominently. What a relief! To see the asphalt gleaming in the
sunlight was a real pleasure. Everything perks up suddenly and this continues
pretty much all through Maharashtra. Navi Mumbai was crazy. If you think Delhi
is crowded, just visit Mumbai. Flyovers, high-rise buildings and horrendous
traffic. Overwhelming. Or maybe we’re just spoilt in Chandigarh.
Further south of
Mumbai, the pretty Maharashtra countryside greeted us and then came the Konkan
coast. Lush, green, thickly wooded and undulating, the road follows the sea
most of the way and it’s a feast for the eye. The Western Ghats have a steep
gradient in some places. The weather was cool, the population sparse and
everything was laced with a languid air. The houses had thatched roofs without
exception because of heavy rains that come down all year round and many of them
were painted in bright, pretty colours: Blue, Pink and Yellow.
We crossed the narrow
rivers five times by ferry along with our vehicle and it was great fun. Bigger
ferries transport upto eight vehicles plus motorcycles, the smaller ones only
two or three SUVs. It was cheap (only two hundred rupees for the Yeti and four
of us passengers), the people were polite and patient and the surroundings were
spectacular.
A word about the
cuisine: fantastic local dishes. We had prawns galore but there was also lots
of Pomfret, Surmai, chicken and pork on offer.
We dropped in at two
temples en route: Harihareshwar in Maharashtra, which is called Dakshin Kashi
and Ganpatipule in Goa. Both are located on the beach and, unlike North Indian
temples, they were clean and peaceful- no Pandas trying to extort money.
Delfino's, Candolim
Fisherman's Cove, Candolim
Lovely Portuguese style house, Panjim
We reached Goa on the
23rd and- wow! It was lovely. Our rented Dupleix was in Candolim,
which is perhaps the best beach since it’s clean and not too crowded. Baga and
Calangute were crazy: crowded with barely enough standing space but lively,
too. Candolim is peaceful even though it’s overrun with Russians. Restaurant
menus are bilingual: English and Russian, shopkeepers speak Russian and every
other person is White. I heard English and French accents but, surprisingly no
Australian or American or German.
One’s spoilt for choice
where food is concerned. There are restaurants every few feet on the main road
in Candolim. Delfino’s supermarket dominates the market and in the same line
there’s a bakery that goes by the delightful name, Butter Fingers. Yummy
brownies there.
I wasn’t too impressed
with the shops since T-shirts, flipflops, hats and key chains are about all one
can buy but the market was lit up for Christmas so it was fun. Christmas music
playing all over, Churches everywhere, the Christmas spirit was ubiquitous. The
three beaches I mentioned are in North Goa. We travelled down to South Goa-
Panjim and Fort Aguada. Panjim has an old world Portuguese feel with gorgeous
houses and Churches, broad roads with shady trees Basilica of Bom Jesus that houses the remains of St. Francis Xavier
is a tourist hot spot but the crowds and commercial ambience there left me
cold. In stark contrast is the Immaculate Conception Church, which is situated
at a height, and its white radiance is breath-taking. We were fortunate to
visit it on Christmas Day.
Our return journey wasn’t
half as much fun, how could it be? We took the Murudeshwar- Pune- Surat- Jaipur
route and, although the roads were good we were weighed down with a sense of ‘back
to work’ (hubby and me) and ‘back to school’ (my son, who’s in Class Ten). We
did 1100 kms the last day! Because it was New Year’s Eve and hotels would be
exorbitant. And also because my son had to get back asap to make up for a week’s
school he’d missed. It was back breaking but the joy of sleeping in one’s own
bed made up for the rigours of the journey.
