a travel.log by Surajit Basu
In Delhi, the flat is on fire, and the air is that of a furnace. Through the glass windows that welcomed the sun during the winter days, the sun now blazes in during the hot afternoons. The curtains offer weak resistance, merely manage to paint the floor in shades of orange. From the sky, the angry sun bombards us (innocent citizens of this capital city) with its red-hot rays. The heat wave has trapped us in our homes, not letting us wander the streets by day, Faced with the relentless onslaught, the army of clouds clad in black armour has run away, leaving behind a rag-tag bunch, wisps of white, to fight it out. Fruitlessly. The war of the seasons is over. Summer has come to Delhi.
Ah! How different it was two weekends ago. Shivering at noon. Wrapping jackets tighter. Welcoming the warmth of the sun. We had gone up to the hills, to Mussoorie. Taking advantage of a friend's wedding in Dehradun, I decided that we - my wife Manjushree and I, and our friends Madhushree and Avi- could go there for the weekend. So we hired a car and we started off early on Saturday morning.
At nine, we stopped midway through at a restaurant called Cheetal. The place was awash with colour. Hundreds of pots of plants welcomed us with open flowers. Red, white, violet, yellow, orange, pink, blue - and each in different shades. Wherever we turned our eyes, new flowers winked at us, the leaves fluttering coyly in the breeze, the flowers blushing in new colours, new shades. It was as if we had stepped into a living easel.
We reached Doon in time for a hotel search and a late lunch. Then we went to Sahasradhara. In the middle of the mountains, a slice of land had been cut out by a giant knife. Into that slice, a dozen tiny streams from the mountains gathered their resources. Some contributing mere drops, some a trickle, some a dribble. At the bottom of the slice, we stood. The combined stream flowed slowly and steadily downhill at our feet. Half-a-dozen embankments had broken the stream into small rectangular pools; the water flowed from the end of one pool to the head of the next pool over tiny two-foot dams. The big rocks which make up the dams had sometimes left small gaps; so the stream of some points went through dams instead of over. Some pools were turbulent, some placid.
After some initial hesitation ("Polythene! Polythene!" ran the whispers), we stepped gingerly into the water. Our feet froze. Soon however, we were busy splashing my wife, who stood lady-like two feet from the water's edge. After some conspiratorial whispering, much to Manjushree dismay, Avi pulled her in. We had a second session upstream, where the water flowed faster, fresher, cleaner. The stream was knee-high at best, but it brought the cold of the glaciers to our hands and feet, soothing our bodies with the mountain air, calming us with its soft sounds.
The sun played hide-and-seek amidst the mountains, clothed in varying shades of green and yellow. When we left, the sun was on its way down, lighting the ship-shaped clouds with a dash of orange. Too long we had spent at Sahasradhara. By the time we reached Doon, the day was over. The Forest Research Institute Park - a botanical park - was closed; the famous temple nearby could be reached only by a difficult road. Not keen to take risks in the darkness, we came back to the hotel after a brief visit to a small unknown – quiet and nice - temple on the way.
Next morning - early, i.e. at ten - we set off for Mussoorie. It was a sunny day. Thankfully, because as we sped up the winding road up the hills, it got colder at every turn- and there were lots of them. The plains spread out below like a green carpet, little red houses peeped at us from the horizon, the trees changed into conifers and pines, their branches downward from the weight of remembered snow. Though the view was wonderful, Madhushree and Avi did not see much of it. Alas! They suffered from nausea. Avi, displaying his rich maternal lineage, threw up on the way up and down in spite of having some rather difficult-to-pronounce medicine.
Once we reached Mussoorie, all that was history. "Giant wheel, giant wheel, I want to go on the giant wheel! Now. " "Oh! Cable car, Cable car! Let's go on the cable car. Basu! Let’s go!" At the very top was a paved square with a set of shops - photo shops with clothes on hire (the backgrounds were natural), small-time eateries and - strangely- several shops selling children’s magic tricks. As good tourists, we did our duty. We took a set of snaps of Avi with some hired clothes, bargained but did not buy at the Magic Shops, and had lunch under the winter sun: hot paranthas and Maggi noodles. An unspectacular but pleasant day. Time to return home.
The weather gods had been really kind. It had been cloudy on the way from Delhi to Dehradun, and the day in Doon had also been cool and clouded. The day in Mussoorie had been sunny; the pleasant warmth of the sun balancing the cold air, keeping Manjushree barely alive!
Perhaps, we said once too often that things had turned out perfectly; perhaps, the gods overheard us and decided it was just too much; perhaps the godly dice had rolled too often in our favour. Whatever it was, the return took us 10 hours instead of 6; we were struck down (and stuck up) by three tyre punctures, a traffic jam on the highway, and a long queue at a level-crossing, waiting for a train. The sun blazed through the windows and the windscreen, sapping us, leaving us tired and headachy. But nothing could take away the two great days we had had in Doon and Mussoorie.
Back in Delhi, the plants in the balcony look dryly at me; I rush to water them. The hot days have been hard on them. The flat needs a thorough cleaning tomorrow; in summer, Delhi’s dust has a way of finding its way through closed doors and windows, depositing itself in thick layers on every exposed surface.
The afternoon has now rolled into evening. The ball of fire has finally disappeared under the horizon, but it put up a fight. Before it lost its daily battle, it set the sky ablaze with a fire that took an hour to die out. The fire-fighters have thrown a carpet of black ink on Gurgaon. Long lines of streetlights fight a valiant battle against the darkness, standing like ancient guards with torches in the palace grounds. Two buildings – squat squares with pyramidal tops– are pointing towards the sky like two fat rockets eternally poised for take-off. Near the horizon, a constellation of yellow stars flickers. I think it is the golf course lit up by night.
With the sun gone, the heat has lost its ally and weakened. A little wind has found the courage to come down, to our seventh-floor flat. It is flowing in through the half-open French windows in the drawing room, to spread its cool charm. I welcome my unbidden guest, hoping he will stay the night.
P.S. I think I should put the fan on. Perhaps, that’s why it was so hot earlier…