Jam Baby

She would be called a Jam Baby or perhaps Baby Jam. Or perhaps Zardari Jam. No, they wouldn’t want to associate her with Z . Lets call her Jam Baby.

Lucky, isn’t she? That she is born. Even if it is in a Jam. Isn't it better to become a Jam Baby instead of having been preserved in a Jam Jar? Zardari should not be upset about her for She and her mother are stronger than those babies and mothers who are forced to suffer the glorious practice of saving female fetuses from the trouble of being born. We women should honor and applaud them both. Even Zardari should be honoured for providing the baby an opportunity to show her strength.

Talking about a different sample of woman power, I have always been somewhat doubtful about the abilities and the merits of our own President, Madam Pratibha (Who??) Devisingh Patil. When I compare her to APJ Abdul Kalam, I often wonder what merit did she have to succeed a man of Kalam’s temperament. Just the accident of birth! Not that I am against her becoming the President. She has raised my own ambitions to the sky. Everytime I see her on television and everytime I see her talking about the imaginary babas that visit her in her dreams, I console myself, “Mampi, tera number bhi ayega.” I would also, inshallah, be the President of India one day. If SHE can, anyone can. And I am not that bad, am I?

Now, I was on a prominent Delhi road, waiting for my bus one day when the President Pratibha (Who??) was to pass by. The security personnel on duty (poor chaps) were requesting the people rather forcefully to go behind a barricade. Everyone moved behind the bus stop screen. Why they did, I failed to understand and I didn’t go behind the screen. I had to work hard to stop myself from laughing. I, however, moved back a little. The Delhi Police Jawan was not happy with the way people hid behind the screen. I wasn’t either, but I didn’t matter and the policeman did, obviously. He asked the people to move further back.

"Where?" The people wanted to know.

"There." He gestured. So the people moved behind the road on a link road.

"Further back," he demanded. I refused to budge. "Why should I go hide when my President moves on the road?"

"Orders from above, Madam." He was trying to be humble.

"But she is our president." I was adamant.

"Whatever. You got to go behind that barricade." He meant business.

"But you are also a danger to her, what with your gun and all. And, for all that you know, I can throw a bomb at her from that afar also, hee hee hee." I teased him. He was stunned.

"Chaliye chaliye, madam."

And I dragged my feet. Though I wanted to spring on the road militant style and tell Madam Pratibha Who?? that she had no business disturbing our life like that. But then, she is not at fault. After all, she does not know that she is causing this kind of inconvenience to people. Hell, she does not know many things. Poor lady didn't even know that she was to become the president of this country when she did.

I know, you Dilli walas/walis would say, "Mampi madam you suffered it one day and we are suffering it everyday." I would say, "Well that is part of the fun of choosing to live in the capital city."

Thank God I was not pregnant and due when Pratibha Who?? passed by.

Otherwise I would have been nursing a Jam Baby too.

Powered Rain and Dharamsalaed Trek

Punjab has been reeling under power crisis. Nothing new, considering that the two prominent contenders for power have always been at verbal loggerheads with little time and energy to think of common people. And do not forget Mr Sukhbir Badal contributing his (unfortunately worthless) more than two pennies too. Anyway, I desist from political commentaries and I stick to the bijli crisis that we all suffered and which was a supreme case of mismanagement, rowdiness, and haphazard supply. As a result, you have a paddy cultivating Punjab suffering badly with a power supply released for half an hour every two hours. Anyway, this post is not about power.

Thankfully, for the past two days it has been raining hard and good and I cannot help grinning. Rasan, ecstastically hugged me yelling, Mama, hun bijli nahi jayegi na? (there will be no power cut anymore, right?) Never in the last five years have I celebrated rains in such a spirit. Why, you would say? My previous residence was a closed kind of building where you did not get to see the stars. Mahesh loves to see and show off the stars to kids here in this residence. Here, I hear the koel, I hear the crows. Sadly there are no small house sparrows that I grew up watching in my house. I loved the way they picked at the grains that we scattered in the courtyard for them. They are innocence incarnate. Where did you all go, dear little sparrows?? And here I get to see grass growing so fast that the gardener is unable to finish trimming the whole garden in one go, By the time, which means days actually, he gets to finish the lawn, the grass at the beginning, much to his and my chagrin, grows back and yells for his attention. Being a sarkari banda, he doesn’t bother though. Grounds filled with water, cool breezes, jamuns falling off the trees in front of the main gate. You deserve a video. I will post it soon.

But then this post was not about rain also. This post was about our recent visit to Dharamsala and the trek that we enjoyed with the kids.

the fortunate girl, the unlucky boy

Before we set out for Dharamsala, everybody discouraged us saying that there is nothing much to see in Dharamsala. Sure they were right, if you go by the standards of a standard Punjabi family looking for fun. The staple fun that they expect in a hill station consists of these ingredients -there should be a good hotel, sumptuous food, car-able road (road where you can take your car and blare the stereo at full volume to disturb others), drinks – mostly for men, and shopping-loads of it-for women. We are different.

buddies

I mean I am different. My family was looking for the fun, sans the drinks. This time around though, I had my way. I made them live in a lodge with few luxuries. I pushed them out of the rooms at 8 am and we trekked all the way to a nameless waterfall. Most of the people who have been to dharamsala would understand that I am talking about Bhagsu Nag. Sure, we went there too. I found the priceless FBI at work there. This other waterfall is way higher above McLeodganj and Dharamkot where you leave your car to go into the wild to explore the priceless waterfall. I and Mahesh would have loved to go there alone but we had kids along. So we had a family meeting, took kids' consent that they would walk all the way to the waterfall which was about 4 kilometers uphill through narrow trails. It was fun, because with every step that we took, we were heading away from civilisation.

in the middle of the trek, we could hear the waterfall and could not see it

Kids were apprehensive, Mahesh quiet. I am sure he was thinking if it was a good idea to take his family into the wild. 1 hour and 45 minutes into the trek and we reached the waterfall. It is infact an assortment of 5 waterfalls and three wonderful pools that they form. With only two trekkers who reached prior to us, we were a total of 7 people on site. The seventh being Sansar, a man of 35 who runs a cafe here.

Sansar, the gutsy guy who lives alone at the waterfall

The cafe has the barest refreshments but the guy’s attitude is far more refreshing than anything else. A few minutes of talk with him revealed that he is unmarried and that he enjoys staying here-far far away from madding crowd. When asked if he misses living near the city he said “Those who live in stress need meditation; I am meditating every single minute of my existence. No, I don’t miss the village nor the city” It was somehow strange to find a humble businessman uttering these words.

I had a big fall on the rock near the waterfall. With an already injured knee it was a bit too much for me to handle. I wanted to cry, as in , I wanted to weep but just about managed with a yell and Mahesh rushed to my side, made me stand in the cold cold water to cure the knee of any fresh muscle tear and I was able to walk back through the tricky trail that we had chosen to spend our morning in.

the end of the trek-a tired trio, atop a cement ka ghoda

The day prior to it had been spent in roaming about in the McLeodganj market. Kashmiri stalls of trinkets and silver jewellery arrested me a lot of times but my favourite cop came to my rescue and released me from the shackles of avarice for newer pieces of junk jewellery. The Namgyal temple, its great wooden interiors , the funny signboard that warned us thus,

even when you are inside the temple? You gotta leave your eyes outside...

chess in every cafe, momos, Tibetan bread, bad humoured waiter serving us French toasts, a cool waiter bringing in chicken tikka, thin crust pizza,

bole so nihal, sat sri akal slogans in the McLeodganj main square, lunch in McLlo, dinner in CarpeDiem, cold drinks sans limits, half the night atop the lodge roof-under the stars, no internet, no TV , a dried up Dal Lake (yes there is one Dal here too- a duplicate one), St John's gothic Church and Lord Elgin's grave and Mahesh trying to play ghost,

this bell was foundered in 1915 in London

-that is what our two days consisted of. The third day, we went to this trek and said adieu to the hills, till we meet them again.

FBI @ Work

Recession is so so so bad that FBI is forced to sell Malai Barf (old styled ice cream):


Please do not notice his hand and knife, for soon he wiped the knife on his jeans and 'cleaned it', no idea about the hands about where/if he cleaned them:




Mission accomplished, time for a smoke:beedi jalayee lay...

Edited to add: I did not try the Malai Barf. Could not dare to.

Dalhousie III

A lonely Sardar Ajit Singh

Wish I could trek on this route, but then there is always a next time.

Tere hath'on mein Pehna ke choodiya'n... Remember?? It was here that it had happened

These drops started off as snow and....

Yeh kahan kho gaye hum....

Snow Ji Snow

Immor(t)al Love??

Aiming high? or Earning bucks?? A stall behind the Ajit Singh Memorial

Our last few hours in the Dalhousie town on the third day were primarily spent in collecting water from Panj Pula, and then driving down the hills. I opened my car window and let the air cool the car for as long as it could and wondered aloud why couldn't my hair now be called 'blow dried' instead of the 'wind blown' mess they were soon going to become.
Hope you enjoyed the pictures.
Dalhousie episode endeth here, Thanks for your patience.

Dalhousie-II

25.01.09

The day before had been eventful and I expected this day to be even more wonderful.

I had set the alarm at 7 : 30 am. Yes I know it is not early enough. Not by my standards, not by my mother’s standards, not by my mother-in-law’s standards. But hell, neither mom or mom-law were there. I tried to wake up at 8, couldn’t. How can you, when you have good hug material close to you? It took great will power to finally shake myself up 15 minutes later. Pinku-Parry had ordered morning tea for me too. Sheepishly, I went there (cos I was late), took tea in their room, didn’t want to wake Mahesh who had told me that he wanted to sleep even more. I and P and P decided we wanted to go for a late morning walk. We ventured downhill from close to the hotel. It was a steep downhill walk. All the while I kept thinking that if I have to walk uphill from here, it would an arduous task.

I kept boring P and P with the old songs that I have loaded in my cell-phone. We reached the bus-stand and P and P went to buy muffins from a good looking confectionary shop (wallah who was not worth the money Pinku spent) and found that the shop wallah had, in the process of re-heating, burnt the core of the overpriced muffin. I am absolutely at a loss how someone can burn a muffin from inside while it is still okay to look from the outside. Enough about the muffin, except that Parry burnt his tongue and cursed the good looking muffin walah. We came upto Subhash Chowk where Pinku scared a child in the car with her ‘hello’. With great difficulty we dragged her hurt ego away from the crying child and went to see Netaji’s statue, it is nicely done as compared to Gandhi’s in the Gandhi chowk. I don’t know why I felt very guilty being in front of Bose’s statue in track pants and sweater. It was a beautiful cloudy morning. It was 10: 00 a.m. by now. We then came back to the Geetanjali, showered, changed and took our breakfast at around 11:15 a.m. Pinku drooled at the very mention of Paranthas. She even forgot the 20 bucks worth muffin walah in the process. She and Mahesh had a parantha & butter competition. Mahesh was wicked enough to wipe off all butter and she was left courteously saying, “it’s okay Mahesh”. They asked for more butter from Pirthi Bhaiya (the cook) and he said , we have ample food but sorry we don’t have any more butter for the hungry hoarde. Disappointed, Mahesh and Pinku polished off another parantha each. I exaggerate, I am equally a culprit in over-eating too. By 1, the parantha fight was over. Contented, we thought of what to do next. Khajjiar was out of question, I told you everyone had discouraged us the previous day. We thought , lets go to Lakkar Mandi, about 8 kilometers away and then decide whether to go ahead to khajjiar or not.

Once there, the toll booth walah gave us the green signal, “Arey no problem, go ahead all the way to Khajjiar.” I jumped on the seat, the car shook a little and we were on the way. Snow? In Dalhousie. Yes, there was some, on the sides of the roads, but nothing to get excited about. Hell, the little snow we saw was dirty. Why was Pinku so het up about this bowlful of snow? But then I was being mean. I had seen heavy snow, white snow, rather snow storms in Canada and this baby-snow was rather a wretched cousin of the real snow fall. By Dalhousie standards it was good, and the important thing was that it was SNOW- something Pinku had been singing for about a month. “I want snow fall, I want snow fall, I want snow fall.” In my heart of hearts I had kept laughing. Girl, where would you find snow in Dalhousie? But I also had been assuring her that I was also praying with folded hands for snow. But snow? In Dalhousie? We kept stopping on the way where there was abundance on the hilly slopes. We kept getting drenched by drunk drivers driving cars through potholes in the roads. But I didn’t mind it, not at all. It was fun, it was a cloudy day, no sun, and was cold, really cold, but it was fun. We were with friends; and friends wanted snow.

Bless Mahesh for driving all the way to Khajjiar. We reached there and Mahesh said, “Is this what is Khajjiar?” in the same tone as I had thought, "Snow? In Dalhousie?" I knew he would not be sharing my enthusiasm about the saucer shaped valley. After all what would you expect from a Passionate but essentially practical guy? I said yes, this is it, come lets run about. It was windy and cold. Mahesh would not let go of any pretext to remove his jacket once anyone aimed the camera at him. He would freeze, his teeth would be on the verge of chattering, but he needed to remove his jacket. He even tried to tempt me into removing the jacket. Thank god I didn’t give in. (Wish I had, because I have caught sinusitis anyway.) Then it drizzled and we walked in the rain around the vast meadows. I have been to Khajjiar many times, for camping, for trekking. I even located that hut that we used to use as a dorm and which has now been re-named ‘the Khajji’ as rhyming with Bhajji. But nothing to beat this peripheral walk around Khajjiar. The forest has been cordoned off with a barbed wire. I think it is a wise move that would lead to protection of wildlife. Human beings are more a danger to wild animals than the other way round. Rain forced us to get back to the car and we headed back. A narrow road, super heights, slippery path, but no fear. I had faith in the Man and his Machine. On the way, we were tempted to stop at another snow heap. That was when Pinku finally had her cottony snow in her hands. Boy, was she excited ! Everyone around could make out that her prayers had just been answered. And that is when I learnt about her Skiddaa.

A skiddaa is a skid in Punjabi. Her funda is that you add an ‘a’ or ‘aa’ and the word becomes Punjabi. And she says that you add an ‘o’ and it becomes a Bangla word. Now a big hug is a huggaa to her, and of course a parantha is a paranthaa to her. Pinku, I am just being mean, I know you are reading and I know you are drooling. She took a skiddaa once we reached enough height. That was certainly not enough. She climbed up again as we stood on the road, and took another big skiddaa. All the time, there was this song playing at the back of my mind “tere hatho’n mein pehna ke choodiyan, mauj banjara le gaya’. Ask me why? There was this fat-drunk Punjabi guy who stood watching her taking her skiddaas. All the time, our dear Pinku knew nothing of his existence. She was totally into her skiddaas. He was what we call in Punjabi “Tharki” (voyeur). He kept talking to his fat son, “oye mera alloo da parantha, oye mera burger, oye meri maggi” (all he could think was junk food) and was keeping an eye on Pinku skidding. When she was finally done with her big skiddaas, he looked at Pinku and said, “Maza aya na bhabiji?” Hehee, I wanted to go and ask him, “Oye keehdi bhabi oye?” (Which in simple English means, I dont know you but I am your brother-in-law) and what the hell did you do to add to the fun?" However, I didnt ask him anything, considering he was drunk. I just hummed the song out loud. Got the relevance?

Came back to Dalhousie, all gaga – me over the Khajjiar trip and Pinku-Parry over the snow. I blessed Mahesh, his wife, and his kids for taking me all the way there. And also for asking him to click weird pics on the way ; and that too at a notice of 2 seconds when he couldn’t even find the parking space on the side of a slipping hill.

We again did that parking walah trick with the nearby hotel parking space. Mahesh had not been very comfortable about parking the car stealthily there. What a Gandhi-wadi of a husband. After dinner, we both went to this hotel and talked to the manager. He refused point blank to entertain us or our car. “Kar lo aur honesty,” I wanted to yell out to Mahesh. But he talked the manager into letting us park our car there, and I was relieved. What would I do without this guy in my life? At least I won't be able to park the car anywhere nice.

Ok, I skipped the detail about dinner. We, in the limited choice that we had in our dinner, chose a nice hotel and begged them to give us food because we were sick of dhabaas. They had some corporate party (this is what they chose to call it) which was hardly a corporate party. It was a motley group of diners from the same hotel. The hotel stewards preferred to call it a corporate party, so be it as long as we had a DJ to make the entire din and so long as P and P got a chance to shake a leg there. It was a great fun to watch them have fun. And let me mention that Pinku found the same kid who cried at her very sight and pataoed him to smiles this time. The dinner was really really good.

We came ‘home’. And surprisingly, I was not tired at all. But sleep we did. Incidentally that day there was this big spat between Sajid Khan and Ashutosh Gowarikar as a repeat on TV. I still do not know what all happened there. I never watched that spat. I refuse to patronize anything that is bad publicity. Not that my not watching makes a difference…

Pics in the next post. Promise.

Dalhousie-I

24.1.09

5:20 AM. A clear day ahead. Still dark. I sat in the car while Mahesh went to receive ParryAnka from the Ludhiana Railway Station. Our plan was to head straight to Dalhousie after picking them up. The train was late by about an hour. It was expected at 4:30 AM and it arrived at 5:40 AM. Just when I started to get bored waiting on the front passenger seat, and prepared to take a nap before they tapped on the window, I saw them coming. Hugs and hand shakes and Paulo Coelho’s Eleven Minutes later, we set for our journey. Mahesh on the driving seat-Parry with him, Pinku exactly behind Parry and I sitting behind Mahesh. Typical Pativrata women, you would say. But my idea of sitting behind Mahesh is that I want him to check on me every few minutes through the rear view mirror. Attention freak !!!

We started on an enthusiastic note but then I started to feel sleepy, having slept only minus 3 hours the night before. Roop can vouch for it. I was chatting with her till 1 A.M and I was up at 3: 30 AM the next morning. When I woke up many bumps later, we were in Pathankot, it was a beautiful dawn and Mahesh was on phone with someone arranging for our stopover at the town. I actually thought the Municipal Commissioner would come to welcome us and to express his/her gratefulness for having set foot in his/her city. But no one came. We had a sumptuous breakfast in a luxurious room in a beautiful hotel Venice , freshened ourselves up and set for the onward journey of about 80 kilometers to Dalhousie. Like a seasoned driver, Mahesh wound the car on the snake-like roads. And I kept getting excited about how it was 16-17 years back when I had come as a Youth Camper from my university. As soon as hills of a reasonable size started , we got down from the car and started to click pictures. My Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S700, which I was feeling ungrateful enough to change in favour of a high end one, came to my rescue. As if to prove its worth, it gave out brilliant pictures. Pinku had a genuine problem posing for pictures. I don’t know how, but she can manage to twist her face in such a way that the picture has to be reclicked. She was always in animation. My camera failed before her, but never gave up, and as a result we ended up having some really funny pictures of hers. But let me add that as it happens, she has gone home a reformed person. She now can tolerate being clicked rather gracefully.

As we started to get closer to Dalhousie, I started to get ecstatic. I have childhood memories associated with the town. Parents used to bring us here for our annual vacation. I can distinctly remember walking hand-in-hand with my sister and parents walking leisurely behind us.

We let the fresh-hilly air run through the car. We did not meet much traffic on the way. Early birds perhaps. We reached Dalhousie by 12:30 P.M. Reasonably enough, considering that it is about 2100 Mts above the sea level. And then nostalgia stuck! That same old bus stand, that same old Subhash chowk, and Gandhi chowk. We managed to find our hotel Geetanjali that Pinku had booked for all of us. Among the shiny new hotels, it looked like a poor cousin. But once we went in, it offered us that old world charm of high ceilings, really big rooms-you could actually play football if you wanted to, and a room sized drawing room in the front. Before checking out, Mahesh went and tried to ask the hotel people where did those mysterious doors from the room open? They told him that one opened from the room to a kitchen, and one from the washroom to the outer corridor. Purrfect exit doors for Sahib log. For it was an Officers Mess before it became Indian government’s money earning hotel/resort. Pinku later found out that it is 140 years old. That is quite impressive, considering that Dalhousie itself is a 150 year old settlement. Col. Napier found this place really great and converted it into a cantonment. I find Dalhousie a quiet retreat. Coming back to the hotel Geetanjali, it is an HPTDC venture. What venture? Its just perhaps a dying building. The government is actually planning to tear it down and erect a brand new hotel here. Phew ! God save the building and god save the guests.

Anyway, we checked in, rested a while and then moved out. Mahesh was tired after that tense driving. Leaving him sleeping, I got ready and came out with Pinku Parry to have a wonderful view of snow clad mountains in the distance. We stood munching peanuts and giggling and enjoying the clean-cold-chillingly cold air. Meantime, Mahesh came. Had our lunch at ‘a’ Lovely Dhaba. It was flanked by a ManMahesh Dhaba also. This was a surprise to me because I have often come across the name ‘ManiMahesh’, because of its obvious association with the Kailash yatra, but ManMahesh…?? I thought I had invented the name, obviously I was wrong. Or wait, perhaps they read this blog and thought of making use of the name. Yes, that is a happier interpretation. Anyway, Mahesh aka Shiv ji Zindabad. However, we didn’t patronize it because , because because....

I made enquiries about the existing tourist places. Yes, Panj Pula ( 5 Bridges) still stood about 2.5 kms away from the Gandhi chowk with a desolate Gandhi Statue. A narrow road, four excited people, and we reached Panj Pula. This place has a monument in the memory of Sardar Ajit Singh of the Pagri Sambhal Jatta movement. He was Sardar Bhagat Singh’s chacha and the force behind the mental make-up of Sardar Bhagat Singh. He died on the 15th of August 1947 in Dalhousie and his memorial / Samadhi has been erected here at Panj Pula. I kept running from one end to another trying to find this place where my parents had bathed us in the cold water to ensure we had shiny and healthy skins and then were cruel enough to click pictures of a freezing 6 year old Mampi and her younger sister. Can I ever forgive them? Yes I think I can, for that pool is now stagnant with a few paddle boats out to make some money. No children are bathed there anymore. The Samadhi is littered with torn balloons that come from a recreational stall behind it. We Indians don’t miss any opportunity to make any money, do we? Mahesh is seldom sarcastic but he happened to quote, “Shaheedo’n ki chitaao’n par lagenge har baras mele, watan pey mitney walo’n ka yahi baki nishaan hoga…” (The martyrs will be remembered through these memorials and people will congregate here every year to mark their anniversaries) Being the cynic that I am, I added a question mark at the end of the quote. He was joking that this is how the melas will take place, and that too, everyday instead of the yearly melas as the quote promises.

I was more interested in going right upto the origin of Sapt-dhara (seven streams). My mom had told me that it had water that contained medicinal values. Lord Dalhousie got this water in big quantities for his wife who had some sort of a skin ailment. While Parry and Pinku chose to stay behind, I and Mahesh ventured ahead to reach the visible falling stream. The water was pure, sparkling and untouched by civilization because thankfully, civilization needs to huff and puff to reach there. And civilization has gotten used to using what it gets right at its door-step. Civilisation loves to litter the waters-with plastic bags, disposable glasses, empty liquor bottles, empty chips bags and what not what. We stayed for a few minutes at the Sapt-Dhara and then came back. Hardly a trek you would say, but I loved it. There was a board displayed there that promised a 2 and a half hour trek to Chanmari dam. I wanted to do that one day. But the next day we had planned to go to Khajjiar. Now Khajjiar was higher up from Dalhousie and we had been advised by local shopkeepers, our hotel servants, and others against going there. There had been recent snow fall and rain. Both separate are perhaps not a danger, but can prove to be a deadly combo. We were wavering between going and not going. Over a cup of tea at the Panj-Pula, we finally decided against going there.

At Panj-Pula, we saw a group of guys who were busy drinking and smoking. If Mahesh had not been with me, I would surely have asked them what right did they have to pollute the sacred nature with smoke. Well, Mahesh doesn’t like me getting into the virago mode. His first preference is to keep peace, not to get into a tussle and certainly never to argue. It spoils one’s own peace of mind, he says. So, I had to ignore those stupid guys. We came back to Dalhousie and roamed about in the very very small market. Bought a shawl for mom. I usually refrain from shopping in these markets. They buy stuff from plains and sell it in hills and we, the stupid plain-wallahs buy it again and bring it back to plains. Well, if we didn’t do that, the economies wouldn’t mobilize. So, in buying that shawl, I helped mobilize the economy, yaay yaaye.

We sat in a small time fast food-general store kind of a joint and had some soup and gossiped. When we came out, Pinku located this shop that had a machine that told you of your love quotient. Obviously we had to experiment with it. First Pinku, dropped a 5 rupee coin in it and put her hand on the given space and it showed that she was ‘sensual’. SENSUAL !!! You rock girl ! We giggled and laughed. Then came Parry’s turn. Pinku insisted that it would show ‘dead fish’. No, it didn’t. It showed PASSIONATE (I think so, I have short term memory loss). Then came my turn, and lo, it showed the indicator to ‘hot stuff’, HOT STUFF !!! Finally someone knows my worth, hehehe !!! I shrieked, “Mahesh look at this, it thinks I am HOT STUFF!!!” We couldn’t stop laughing. When Mahesh put his hand on the machine, it said PASSIONATE. No comments!!! Could it have something to do with the hand temperatures? But the machine didn’t seem that intelligent.

It was raining by the time we were done, and it was windy. The eternal question of ‘where to have dinner’ remained. Not that it was hard to decide. Because we hardly had a choice. There were practically no eating joints open. The locals told us that the joints open only in March. For now, we would have to make do with the available eating places. Because we wouldn’t be able to wait till March. Geetanjali did offer dinner and breakfast. But we didn’t want to go back to have dinner to only to come back again for our mutter-gashti. So, in the icy rain, we went inside the only decent eating place that chowk had, and it was the same old Lovely restaurant.

The funny thing about this joint was that it offered elaborate meal – but only on menu sheets. Parry wanted a dosa, they didn’t have it. I wanted a pizza (I knew it would be a tadka-pizza), they didn’t have it. I offered to change my order to a sandwich (yes, I was crazy to want it at dinner time) with a chai. You guessed it right, they didn’t have it. I am not taking chicken etc these days, so I had to order different than these three paapi’s I was travelling with. But it was a big disappointment. The guy serving us was a sweet fellow though. Despite a crazy rush for dinner (because all the famished people of the entire town had come here) he gave us a priority and a service with a wide smile.

Post dinner, we braved the rain again and reached our hotel. Now came the next big issue of parking on the hills. There was an open parking, but I didn’t trust it. We would be parking at an insecure space on a curve of the hill. My paranoid mind was imagining a drunk driver coming fast at 1 A.M. and going tangentially at the curve, and hitting our car. So, all four of us decided to park our car at a nearby hotel parking which was at least in an enclosure. It was tricky. Mahesh did not agree with it, but he gave up 3 to 1. Of course, if we had told them that we were not putting up at their hotel, they would never have agreed to keep our car there. So we just risked it and kept it there for the night. And came back to our hotel. We were cold and we were tired. The old fashioned heaters were a great help though. But I wished the defunct fireplaces were working too. The rooms were big and it took a great while to warm them. But we finally fell asleep.

More Later...