Travel Travails on Indian Trails: Chapter 04

They say victors are generally benevolent towards the vanquished.

Be that as it may, my boys bade farewell to their hosts with hearts heavy with gratitude, egos bruised with defeat and bodies sore with after-cricket aches.

On the morning of our departure, a whole lot of Military School boys escorted us all the way down a shortcut through the forest to the road to Shimla.

The way the boys hugged each other at the moment of separation filled me with the conviction we had departed from MSC richer.
By that, I don’t mean the pennies we had saved free riding their hospitality.

~

So back to the road again.

I have learnt through experience that roads, trails and tracks are the most unpredictable entities in India. No matter how much research you may have done in advance through travel guides and tourist maps, they always spring a surprise when you are actually travelling on them.
The Lonely Planet travel guides are the best in the world. As of today, they cover every inch of the planet Earth, telling you how to reach there, where to stay there, what to see there, what to eat there, where to get the daily doze for your personal nirvana and so on.
They too, however, concede defeat when it comes to the roads, trails and tracks in India.

For instance, there can be and there are several trekking routes between Chail and Shimla – via Junga, via Funga, via Kufri, via Shufri, and so on.
Needless to say, each route is different from the others in every respect.

The road not taken is something we regret later, like in our case when we took the one via Kufri and ignored the one via Junga.
The one via Junga is much shorter than the one via Kufri. However, the one via Junga has too many ups and downs whereas the one via Kufri has no ups and downs.

Scared of ups and downs, we generally take the one with no ups and downs.

Since we base our choice on the predictables, we need not grudge the unpredictables. Still, we always end up doing exactly that, like we did that day when we chose to walk from Chail to Shimla via Kufri.

For 30 kilometers between Chail and Kufri on that hot day in October 1979, we found no water spring, no stream, no roadside café -- nothing.
Unpredictability factor number one.

Today, there are so many hotels, resorts and health spas on that road you are confused which one to spend your fast bucks on.

~

We Indians are emotional people; we let emotions cloud our judgement at the crucial moment.
Like those affectionate boys from Military School Chail who hugged my boys while bidding them farewell but forgot to remind them to fill up their water bottles.

A barren mountain is far worse than the desert on a clear October day, particularly when you are on your way uphill. The sun is hot, the exertion is heavy and there are no oases in sight.

After walking about 5 kilometers out of Chail, my boys are so thirsty they are willing to drink anything. Sadly, there is nothing to drink from – not even those liquor shops you normally find in every nook and corner of Himachal Pradesh.

On a distant hill stands what looks like a small village by the side of the Chail-Kufri road. From that distance, I’m not sure if it is a village or a formation of the rocks.
Still, I point it out to my boys, assuring them it is not more than 5 kilometers away (It actually turned out to be almost 10). Surely, there would be some water there.

Hope sustains life. I am convinced of it when I watch my boys trudge like zombies with eyes glued to what looks like a village on the crest of a hill.

Talk about mirages only in the desert!
Unpredictability factor number two.

~

Eureka! The mirage on the hill actually turns out to be a village! The boys would have murdered me if it hadn’t.
But it is just a couple of dilapidated old shacks by the roadside.

An old lady dressed in rags sits in the verandah of one of them, doing nothing. Her face is an intricate cobweb of wrinkles, which expands into a different pattern when I touch her feet.

We Himachalis are programmed to show respect towards the elderly, even if we don’t mean it.
Though I don’t speak her dialect, I succeed in conveying to her my boys are dying of hunger and thirst.
And so am I, which I don’t tell her.

For an old woman, she jumps up with surprising alacrity and dashes into the single room in her house. I am not sure whether she is scared or concerned.
In the meanwhile, my boys have sprawled in the verandah like fish out of water for a very very long time.

Presently the old woman comes out of her room carrying an earthen pitcher and a steel tumbler. She places both items by my side and withdraws into the room again.

The pitcher is three quarters full of water. Boys pounce at it so ferociously I hug it to my bosom to protect it from getting vandalized.
Then I dole out a glass each until everyone has had one. Then I have one myself.
Water never tasted like nectar in my whole life ever before.

We have just begun the second round of water when the old woman comes out again. This time she is carrying a basket in her hand filled with freshly roasted corn.
I grab the biggest cob and leave the rest for the boys who pounce on them like . . . well . . . hungry boys. (Why malign the image of those poor old wolves?)

The corn is a bit hard but tasty. Can beggars be choosers, anyway? We are munching away greedily when the old woman brings another consignment – this time a basket full of ripe cucumbers the size of melons. There is a sickle and a bit of salt on a piece of paper alongside the cucumbers.
Being a hill man, I know the routine. I quickly peal the cucumbers and chop them into slices the size of pancakes. Boys gobble them up, not even bothering to salt them. Everyone ends up with a healthy burp.

I keep the trek money in a leather handgrip I wear around my wrist all the time. The grip is stuffed with wads of cyclostyled receipts I keep handy to obtain thumb impressions of people unable to acknowledge in writing the payments received.
If I don’t do that, my headmaster recovers all unaccounted-for amounts from my salary.

I speak of the time when you needed those receipts in bulk in Himachal Pradesh. Today, Himachal is one of the highly literate states of India.

My handgrip is like a crafty woman. The bulges in it give wrong ideas to the right people, or vice versa.
Thank God, I haven’t lost my wrists so far on account of that.

~

When everyone is sated and content, I unzip my handgrip to take out some money and a receipt slip. I extract a ten-rupee note; on second thought, I extract another. I look at Sandeep for approval; he is my second-in-command. When he shakes his head in disapproval, I extract yet another. He is a baniya but with a heart, unlike our headmaster.

‘Paagal hua re shorua!’ the old woman scolds me, pushing my hand away. ‘Paaniro pesa kaun leta?’
(Are you crazy, you silly boy? Who takes money for water?)

I guess my boys too realise even Manoj Kripalani could not calculate the amount of pennies we saved at that moment in the old woman’s shack.
At the moment of departure, all of us including Wahid Yavari bend at her feet as she surveys us with a toothless grin on her wrinkled face.

~

The sun is about to set when we collapse in a heap at a place called Chini Bungalow just short of Kufri.

In 1979, Chini Bungalow was actually a quiet little bungalow on the crest of a hill redolent of summer flowers both wild and cultivated.
Only peace-loving tourists stayed there the night.
Noise-loving tourists came in HPTDC buses, ate their tiffins, littered the premises, clicked pictures and returned to the Mall Road in Shimla.

Today Chini Bungalow is probably the smelliest tourist spot in India, if not in the entire world.

Absence of public conveniences notwithstanding, the smell is generated by ponies, which are so numerous I suspect they exceed the population of Himachal Pradesh.
Why Indian tourists like to be photographed atop ponies during holidays is an enigma that generates stink and sustenance simultaneously – and in generous measures!

As of today, there is no bungalow at Chini Bungalow anymore. There is only a shabby shanty market selling fake antiques, artificial jewellery and genuine marijuana.

So many vehicles visit Chini Bungalow round the year its parking lot is the largest revenue grosser for the Government of Himachal Pradesh.

~

Anyway, let us return to that evening in October 1979 when all of us collapsed in a heap at Chini Bungalow.

We are so weak with fatigue we fall instantly asleep after ordering tea and sandwiches.
The waiter wakes us up after about two hours. It used to take that long to meet an order at the Chini Bungalow tourist resort in 1979.
No wonder fast food industry is doing so well these days -- thanks to places like Chini Bungalow!

Tea and rest revive us so well we are able to chat up the waiter and find out from him where the PWD rest house at Kufri could be.
The size of our tip notwithstanding, the waiter not only furnishes information about the rest house but also shows us a shortcut to it.
Going by his helpful disposition, it is obvious he is not from Himachal Pradesh.

~

It is pitch dark by the time we finish the shortcut.
Without that shortcut, we could still be wandering along ten kilometers of switchbacks between Chini Bungalow and Kufri like a bunch of desolate knights from John Keats’ La Belle Dame Sans Merci.

To our dismay, a passer-by tells us Kufri rest house is still three kilometers away on Kufri-Shimla road.

Wahid is so . . . er . . . pissed off (why hide facts?) he discards his rucksack and lies down on the highway.

‘Goodbye, my friends. May Allah be with you!’ he addresses us in a voice choked with emotion.
No farewell speech had raised a lump in our throats that quickly ever before.

‘Tell my parents,’ he adds as an afterthought.
We turn around in unison, surprised to hear him speak again. We thought he had either passed out or passed away.

‘Tell my parents,’ he emulates Rajesh Khanna -- the ham actor par excellence of our times (Shah Rukh Khan was still in his diapers at that time).
‘Tell them I died with a prayer on my lips. Allah, the Merciful, will restore one day their homes and hearths in the mountains of Isfahan.’

Depressed, we too sit down or sprawl on the road, forming a protective circle around Wahid Yavari – the poor little exile in our midst from the distant lands of Persia!

Half an hour later, Wahid is the first one to jump up and scurry for safety when a truck loaded with apples suddenly appears round the bend like a ghost with a weird sense of humour and almost runs us over.
Truck drivers of Himachal Pradesh switch off engines and headlights while going downhill at night. It helps making an extra buck or two.

~

Kufri rest house is a nice little Victorian cottage tucked away in a thick grove of cedar trees.
The old caretaker is so ecstatic to see us I suspect we are the first visitors to his rest house since the British left India in 1947.
(A cursory glance at the Visitors’ Book almost confirmed our suspicion!)

When the caretaker says ‘Dinner is ready’ soon after our arrival, my admiration of the Headmaster of Military School Chail touches a new high.
Obviously, he has done more than booking the rest house for us by phone.

~

I’m so tired a drop of brandy could do me a lot of good. However, I’m so pooped I can’t bear the thought of going looking for it.

Some impulse prompts me to share the thought with the boys scattered on the lawn in different stages of undress. Shoes are off and the smell of socks has vanquished the fragrance of cedars.

I’m not surprised Prakash Kripalani is the one to react to my thoughts.

‘Where could one find that stuff, Sir?’
‘At a place called Kufri we left behind us.’
‘What is in it for us if we go get it, Sir?’
‘A spoonful each.’

Even before I finish speaking, Prakash is putting his shoes back on. Can Rishi, his soul mate, be far behind?
Even Wahid despite good distance between him and Ayatollah Khomeini volunteers to go, but I veto him down. (You couldn’t under-estimate the reach of SAVAK/VEVAK in 1979.)

In a trice, Prakash and Rishi are on their way to Kufri.
They carry only cash -- no cyclostyled receipts. There are two reasons for it.
First of all, liquor vendors in Himachal Pradesh, even if literate, do not issue cash receipts.
Secondly, the money boys are carrying is from my own pocket.
After all, how can I risk my job for just twenty rupees?

~

Prakash and Rishi are back in less time than it takes between Mayo College Ajmer and the Choongi Check Post on the Jaipur highway.

When eleven spoonfuls are distributed as promised, there is little left in the pint. However, I count my blessings and drink it.

By the time dinner is served, my boys are so relaxed they tell me they had never thought trekking could be that intoxicating!

Till today, I have this lurking suspicion: Was there more to it than the single spoonful of brandy to make my boys that relaxed?
And why were they making a beeline to the toilets one after the other before dinner time?

~

Our trekking itinerary in October 1979 was as flexible as a street whore looking for pickings.

After counting the money left in my handgrip, pickings looked good to me only if we could avoid staying at Shimla for the remaining four days of our ‘trek’.

Narkanda is a famous ski resort 60 kilometers away from Shimla. From Kufri, it is only 45.
How about a trek to Narkanda, boys? I said.
My boys by now were so experienced they agreed on one condition – they wouldn’t walk!
I agreed.

We also signed an unwritten secret pact that night. Amit -- a gifted ‘creative’ writer among us -- would write a thrilling report on our ‘trek’ from Chail to Shimla via Narkanda for publication in the school journal.
None of us must contradict even a word of it.

~

A few minutes after getting off the bus at Narkanda the next morning, my teeth start chattering,
They start chattering not because it is cold at nine thousand feet.
They start chattering because the caretaker of the Tourist Bungalow at Narkanda has closed shop for the season and gone on a holiday trip to South India with family!

So we bus back to Shimla -- a place I married a woman from and am still married to.
What that has got to do with our stay of four days at Shimla I better keep out of my ‘account’ -- mainly out of respect, if not fear, for late Mr. C.R. Gupta, our Headmaster at Mayo College Ajmer.

Shimla in 2006