Ever since I was born, it
looks as if I’m destined to travel. I don’t remember a sight from my maiden
trip to Betla and Netarhat forests as a 6-month old. Years later, finding me in
the blurred pictures of the album was no less than getting lost in that jungle.
I’m sure my parents have harrowing memories of a clinging, crying baby, nagging
for food, sleep or attention, or all three at that instant, haunted by the cries
of animals at night and the plight of travel in the day.
I cannot really tell why I
started travelling or accepted it as a ritual in my life. May be it compensated
for the family time I lost as a residential student or as a welcome break from
the monotony of routine. Though destinations were hardly discussed beforehand,
family trips were a delight, always. I was particularly interested in historical
places, and mountains, of course.
Imagine the awkward dilemma
when my then-boyfriend-now-husband disclosed that he likes sea and beaches.
“But I don’t like them!”, my heart ached bitterly but silently. I wondered if
we can mutually accept a destination for the ‘Honeymoon’ on the cards. Fortunately,
amid hectic work schedule, and settling a new home and a partner, it took a
backseat. As we started planning our maiden trip as man and wife, the struggle
was not between mountain and sea, but available leaves and distance from Delhi.
A few weeks before our
journey, one of my cousins had been to Dhanaulti. “He has all good things to
say and the distance too fits within the weekend (means no extra leaves wasted,
phew!),” we thought. While boarding the overnight Volvo from ISBT, little did I
know about the moments of adventure ahead. Reaching Dehradun in the wee hours
without an inkling of where to get the next bus from was as thrilling as
feeling the first cool breeze on my face once we started on the mountains. I
had bet my hopes too high and after 3-and-a-half hours journey in a local,
government bus, we were virtually dumped on the road at 2,200m+ above the sea
level – yes, that is the ‘bus stand’ simply because buses find enough space
there to stand on an otherwise narrow but plain road.
Once the bus moved on to its
destination, I wondered if I’ve become deaf at once. For there was no sound (or
noise should I say), except for a few people talking in local dialect, chirping
birds and swaying deodars. Dhanaulti was a genuine village of the Garhwal
hills, simple people, lofty greens and absolute quiet, especially after
sundown. It was so quiet that even our hyperventilating mobiles decided to take
a vacation. We had chosen a destination ideal for nurturing a nascent relation –
long walks on meandering roads through apple orchards and grassy slopes,
soothed by an undisrupted silence in which even whispering seemed sacrilegious.
At night, the sky looked like
a large plate filled with diamonds of all sizes and cuts. Standing on the
terrace, we refreshed our geography lessons (you read it right) and took
delight in pulling the laggard’s leg. We could only imagine how the snow-capped
peaks would look on a full moon night and whether the stray dog sleeping on the
stairs will ever understand the beauty of what he sees every day. I told my
husband how helpless and worried I felt to learn his preference for sea. “Hmm, but
this is more practical choice,” he remarked.
Our only contact to the big,
bad cities was through the PCO/STD booth across the hotel from where we called
our parents to tell “we’re there”. The old man managing the store told us how
he treks a few kilometers everyday to this place; I can’t tell if he was happy
about that. He asked if we would like to taste the juice of rhododendron (burans as they call it locally) he prepared
at home using age-old techniques. With a child-like amazement, I sipped the
1:10 concoction of juice and water, trying hard to relate the taste with something
known. Difficult it was; the rhododendron’s sweet taste and flower-like aroma
was something I’ve never experienced. Looking back, I regret the decision to
buy only one bottle for Rs. 100; a few years later, the bottle cost me Rs. 200 and
the taste was hardly close to the previous purchase.
Both of us fell
in love with Dhanaulti and any discussion on a weekend trip would invariably
start with it. But much has changed now – it has better mobile signals, more
eating joints blaring recent Bollywood songs and well-appointed hotels attracting
larger number of tourists. It would be unjust to imply that such a trend is
counterproductive, for it gave fillip to the local tourism and better earning opportunities
to the people. But as the steward in our hotel said, “Ganda bahut ho gaya hai (it
has become very dirty these days)”, it looked the hamlet graduated into adolescence,
and in the process lost some of its innocence.
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