Category: India

  • Shillonging Day 1 – 4 states

    To protest against people being unwillingly sent back to the north east, we decided to willingly go there. Actually, we had booked the tickets quite a while back. 🙂 It had been a while since “Gang talk” happened, and since D seemed to be acquiring the taste from Zingron, we thought now was as good a time as any to go Shillonging!

    Early we woke – 3.45ish – to catch the cab at 4.15 and reach the airport in time for the 6.40 AM flight to Kolkata. 6E is known to be punctual to a fault and we had no intention of taking any risks. We arrived early enough and true to form, the flight took off right on time. Kolkata airport was exactly as we remembered it, but then 2 years is hardly time enough for that phenomenon to change! We thankfully didn’t have long to wait since the connecting flight to Guwahati was just a couple of hours away. Breakfast was at Subway! Kolkata is not the kind of airport that gives you a wide array of choices, so you can probably stop smirking now!

    We had been informed by the tour operators that a person would be at the Guwahati airport to collect the balance amount, and with him we would find our driver, Ajmal. We saw a person carrying a placard with D’s name. In just 5 minutes, we were able to establish, with the help of a passerby, that D was indeed the D he was waiting for, and in turn, he was reasonably sure he was Ajmal! Introductions done, we started our journey towards Shillong. From the massive bovine presence on the road, we figured out how Cowhati got its name! Lots of greenery dotted with brick kilns and markets. We seemed to have arrived just in time for one of their celebrations, which involved people trying to spit on moving vehicles, including our own. White cars were given preference – probably more points.

    The person who was supposed to meet us for the payment finally met us outside town, and wished us a pleasant journey after he counted the money. We stopped to fill petrol at a station that had its own complex patterns of how differently sized vehicles should exit. Just to spice it up a bit, they also used a larger board for smaller vehicles. But Ajmal was smarter by a league, and used the entry path to exit. Ha!   In fact he was so good that we didn’t even know that we had already crossed into Meghalaya. 4 states in about 6 hours. 2x Chetan. We stopped soon at the L.C Woodland Dhaba and dug into rotis and Chicken Butter Masala, which actually turned out to be quite tasty. My friend from previous travels – the splitting headache  -announced itself immediately after. Ajmal celebrated by playing Silsila. (Hindi, not Malayalam)

    We slept most of the way to Shillong, though we did wake up in time to catch the amazing scenery as we climbed. Though the journey is a 3 hr one, we took double that. Part of it was the last mile traffic jams in Shillong. That’s a story in itself! Once we crossed that hurdle, it was time for Ajmal to do his bit. Having no idea of where our hotel White Orchid was, he promptly took us to Orchid, parts of which were white in color. It was also the home of the village idiot who proclaimed that he had been living in Shillong since 1979 and there was no place named White Orchid. He played the same sentence in a loop until I said I could pay him to shut up. While he considered that, we called up the hotel. They were very helpful and gave Ajmal directions to get there. But Ajmal, whose IQ cannot be measured by petty human standards, rebelled against directions, and stopping near a petrol pump gave that as the landmark to the hotel people. The hotel staff said they would be there in a couple of minutes. In subsequent calls, he also created a fantasy world nearby which had a hospital and a bridge. I used Google Maps and urged Ajmal, but he silenced me with a glare that would have made internet watchdogs proud! Finally I made him move in the direction that Google gave me and voila, there was another petrol pump. Ajmal complained about what the world was coming to when a town could have two petrol pumps.

    White Orchid was a tiny guesthouse but we were given a warm welcome by Chetan Kumar (aka Chintu bhaiyya) who would prove to be a godsend many a time in the next few days. We skipped dining there and asked for directions to one of the many places on our list – Sesame in Laitumkhrah, just over a km away. We used the most common transit form – the Rs.10/head taxi, but just couldn’t find the place. We finally settled for Cafe Shillong.

    A cosy little cafe on the first floor, a few buildings after the famous Jadoh. We were the only customers though the only big table had a ‘Reserved’ sign. Tiny tables on the balcony gives you a good view of the street. From the not-so-elaborate menu, we asked for a Pork Momos with soup, and for the main course, a Shillong beef steak with mashed potato and a Chicken Bastenga. The soup was thin but flavorful and the momos, tasty, though not a match for the Delicacy ones in Bangalore. 🙂 The Shillong beef steak was well, a beef steak in Shillong, with a tangy sauce and well cooked meat. The local rice wasn’t available for the Bastenga, so they used white rice instead. It had a spicy chutney and a very strong bamboo+other shoots flavour and smell. To wash it down, we asked for a Hot Chocolate, a reasonable drink. The bill came to about Rs.700.

     

     

    We took the taxi back to Malki Point, home to White Orchid, and slept in a spartan room after watching Kung Fu Panda for a while. 🙂

  • Kochi Chronicles – Part 2

    ….continued from Part 1

    Much as Willingdon Island has remained unchanged, Cochin itself has a completely different story to tell. As I’ve mentioned before, each time I visit, I am presented with a new landmark and a demise of an older one which belonged to an earlier era.

    For lunch, we decided to go to a trusted old timer – Tandoor. At Chillies (1st Floor) they serve an excellent Andhra meal. It’d been a while since I tried the Chicken Biriyani, so I chose to have that while D and the other M hogged the meals. No meal in Tandoor is complete without their special Kadai Chicken, so we shared a half plate. Amazing as it has always been.

    Chillies hasn’t changed a bit though Tandoor downstairs keeps changing the decor. A dimly lit ambiance that somehow manages to freeze time. Helped by the huge photos from a long gone era. (the owner is related to the Travancore Sisters, so you can find many like these featuring them and MGR/Sivaji Ganesan)

    The plan for the afternoon was ‘Beautiful‘. A movie we missed in Bangalore. We watched it at Padma, one of the several ‘feminine’ theaters Cochin is famous for. Most of them have survived, though the multiplexes have begun their march. Beautiful lived up to its name, and I loved the way they have quietly, but wonderfully shot the city and Fort Kochi in the movie. The day before, the other M had asked us to note a house in Fort Kochi – the one that had been featured in the movie.

    In the evening, I met a friend whom I knew from Bangalore. K suggested the Cocoa Tree on MG Road, a place that has consistently ticked me off whenever I have visited, but is still a fave hangout for many in Cochin. She had moved to Cochin only a while back and I quizzed her on her first impressions. A city in transition, we both agreed, and something that reminded her of Bangalore a couple of decades ago.

    To me it was still a small ‘town’, where most people still knew most other people. I probably bored her, talking of old landmarks and routes to school, and how the skyline has changed since then. I told her that I’d never felt a Cochin culture, something I could sense strongly in Trivandrum, Kozhikode, Trichur etc. Cochin has always been Kerala’s big city, changing too fast to have crafted an identity beyond that. She showed me the photo of her house with an awesome balcony view. Once again, I began thinking of where my final home would be. Oh yes, it would be fun to walk the roads as an old man – to walk past the Public Library, where I have spent so many hours, the CISF grounds whose pitch has seen many of my ‘spin experiments’, the school and its surrounding areas which has seen me transition from walking to cycles to a motor vehicle, Foreshore Road, where a dimly lit university computer room hosted my first forays into the internet, and so many many others. But would they be the same? A thought that crossed my mind when I walked back home, seeing familiar faces that had grown older, same people, doing the same things, even as time passed by. A mirror of a different sort.

    Dinner was at Kahawa, the owners were the other M’s friends. A coffee shop+ with a distinct character. Hand painted wall art, a book lending mechanism ( a tie up with another of their friends) and reasonably decent food. They also have a section upstairs which is opened on days that Manchester United has a match on. Also available are group discounts and discounts for the Mayor on Foursquare. 🙂

     

        

    We tried the Mango Italian Soda, which could have done a better job with the fizz. The Choco Chiller was significantly better and so was the Mint Hot Chocolate.

     

    In the main course, K had recommended the mashed potato and Meat Sauce, but the Roast Pork was too tempting. But sadly, it just about passed muster, as did the Chicken a la Kiev. The best dish was the Grilled Fish with Mornay Sauce. Once again D was the one who got lucky! There were a few options for dessert, but nothing that we really fancied.

    Before we left for the airport, we stopped at Malabar Chips – banana chips for Bangalore. Familiar faces, though they didn’t recognise me. Except for one person. 🙂 I wondered if this was the idea of home – a place that you can come back to after several years and still be  recognised, a place that thus gives you a sense of belonging.

    As we passed the North Bridge, we saw the first signs of the Kochi Metro construction. There was a line that stayed with me long after ‘Beautiful’ – “Maturity is the loss of innocence” It probably is true of cities too, and I wondered if it was only incidental that there were huge hoardings of a TOI launch on Feb 1st.

    We detoured through the University, and though the place shows small signs of transformation every time I visit, there are parts of it that refuse to change. Islands in time. Places where I could stand and travel back in time, because the settings were the same, all I had to do was remember. But I had a flight to catch, and a journey to end.

    until next time, timed travel

  • Kochi chronicles – Part 1

    It looks as though the cosmos reads my posts, well almost. The 2 hour bus ride to Cochin was spent near the window seat, close enough to see the night lights. Especially at the stadium where the Kerala Strikers were trouncing their Bollywood opponents in the CCL, and the collective star power was only eclipsed by the floodlights, which dominated the sky. Dinner was the must-have dish on every Cochin trip, from a restaurant which I used to frequent, but whose special dish I discovered much later thanks to a distant relative. The restaurant has shifted since, but thankfully, the dish survived the trip. 🙂

    A trip to a hospital which has been witness to many childhood exploits was the first agenda of the next day. The backbone apparently had its own growth agenda, the tangential perks of a daily face to monitor relationship with the computer. Reminders of mortality too, but a trip I was looking forward to was scheduled for later in the day, and that dispelled the morbid thoughts.

    Despite living in Cochin for more than two decades, Fort Kochi and Mattancheri had always been faraway places for me. My connection to them, for a long time, had been that they used to be the final destinations of the buses I used to travel in. Whenever I saw someone take a ticket to these places, I used to look at them curiously. A “where do you live, what happens there, what is it like – living there” look. Later, I had quite a few school friends who used to live there, and I knew the names of the localities they lived in and talked about – Cherlai, Kappalandimukku… 🙂 I had a friend in college too, my regular travel companion, who lived in Pandikudy.

    But it was only much later, when I started working in Cochin, that I actually visited these places. Despite frequent biriyani trips, I could never master the lane mazes there. An era before Google Maps. And despite the familiarity these trips created, these places, especially Fort Kochi, never lost the little bit of magic it held for me. The last time I visited the place was around 4 years back – part of an official trip, and as a ‘tourist’. 🙂

    This time, the other M, my sister, a regular visitor, kept teasing D in front of shops with “Madam, you want Kerala sari?” We went by the synagogue, the Police History Museum, visited Jew Town, and watched the backwaters from a cafe + curios outlet which charged tourists for window shopping. At Fort Kochi, a walk along the Chinese fishing nets was mandatory, and on the wall nearby, someone had painted his expression of the Mullaperiyar controversy. A refreshing iced tea + chocolate cake at the Kashi Gallery+Cafe later, we were on our way back.

       

       

      

    But there was one stop left before we got back home. One of my favourite areas in all of Cochin – Willingdon Island. Island, which has always remained the same. From Cochin’s old airport, which was returned to the Navy a long time ago, to the shipping container yards, the KV School grounds, the shipping offices, warehouses past their glory days and now in disrepair, and buildings which seem to tell us stories of another time.  The world has changed, and yet they remain, like a living snapshot of another era. These are the places where I learned to drive a car, where numerous hours were spent convincing people to buy broadband internet, where endless cups of tea were consumed dreaming about the future. Time on Island has always stood still for me. We stood by the sea, watching the Vallarpadam container terminal come up, the Rainbow Bridge, Bolgatty and so on, as ferries carried people home.

    Cochin might be a big city in the making, but it sleeps early, for now. Even as we got out for dinner, at just after 8, most shops were closed/beginning to close, and traffic was minimal. We had dinner at 14 Avenue, which served some excellent pasta and cannelloni. The best way to end the day is with good chocolate cake, and that’s exactly what we did.

     
    The thing with hometowns is that there are many streets and places which activate memories. It is as though they are always waiting for me, to share a common story, to ask me if I remember, to tell me what has happened since, and if I will pass by to see them the next time I visit. Though our paths have separated since, each road has shared a journey with me, and every time I step on them, I step out of myself and think of the younger me who walked these roads.

    until next time, walk on

  • Sikkim Day 7 – Up & Away

    One more monastery before we left. We bade farewell to Mintokling and left for Enchey monastery, located within the town. It followed the same pattern as the other two we’d visited, the only exception being a lot of sleeping beings we found – a foreigner, a few dogs. The monk in charge was pretty rude when we almost stepped into an area inside the sanctum, we weren’t supposed to. We didn’t bother to point out that they should ideally cordon off that area, since there was no way to put a sign. Buddha really wouldn’t have minded.

    As we reached the limits of Gangtok, I wished I could take a snap of the CCD outlet with arguably the best view among its kind. We left for the 4 hour drive to Bagdogra, and there was a sense of finality as we passed familiar places and checked them off, like a countdown. – Ranipool, Singtham, Rangpo, and then into West Bengal – Malli, Teesta, Rambi, Sivok, and finally Siliguri. We stopped at the newly opened mall for lunch, actually still under construction, but with a restaurant, a multiplex and a few shops operational. We thought we’d try the food court, but the elevator wasn’t working and climbing up 4 floors (still under varying degrees of construction) didn’t really appeal. The loos worked, but were also victims of rigorous testing by the construction workers. Prakash, our driver from the first 2 days, claimed that the legendary Pawan Chamling owned the mall.

    The sudden shift from all the cold mountains to the stifling plains was very depressing, especially as we passed shanties and huge mounds of garbage as we continued from Siliguri to Bagdogra, in typical city traffic, where we shift to cm/hr measurements.

    We’d been sent a message the previous day, asking us to report 2 hours in advance owing to congestion. They were right, the baggage check queue almost went out of the airport. Bagdogra airport was a revelation as far as standards went. International check in times, aside, this was one of those heritage airports, from the time IA/AI planes ruled the Indian skies. Utterly ill equipped, the staff seemed to be always paying homage to that era. Their security checks were indeed pertinent – one visit to this place and you’ll be very tempted to you-know-what-mentioning-which-could-get-me-into-trouble. The railway station ambiance was topped with a bunch of women, exceeding their baggage quota by 216 kgs (!!) and then shifting bags to cabin baggage/ putting them back like veg shopping. We sat waiting, and I got bored enough to check my mail. The place was so crowded that I stored this in my drafts “‘Opening a secure connection. Content cannot be seen by anyone else’ does not include the guy looking over your shoulder.”

    We finally took off, about 20 minutes late. Our plans to make a quick dash to the Howrah Bridge from Kolkata airport were dashed, as the taxi operators weren’t sure of getting us back in time. So we sat in the CCD outside, and drank in the airport sights at dusk, quite an ironical finale to a vacation, as though helping us make the transition to routine.

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    Sikkim proved a decent trip – for me, vacations are in the mind, and a different setting can only help. Despite a few niggles, there’s no reason to follow the advice of one of the drivers ahead of us, on the way from Gurudongmar.

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    The single biggest thing for me was regaining the motivation to continue that book, for whatever it’s worth. But for now, we  seem to have developed a 3M fatigue – momos, mountains, monasteries, so maybe its time for a break from that. Like I told Mo, we were carrying the Leh baggage, and it will always be a difficult gold standard to measure up to. But having said that, there was a coincidence that seemed to me like the Joker character introduction in Batman Begins. The first chapter of the book I was reading was set in Tibet, at the exact same place mentioned in the first bottle of water I got during the journey.

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    Maybe, someday………….. 🙂

    PS. For those interested, we customised a tour with Yak & Yeti

  • Sikkim Day 6 – Sikkim Pop and Zero Point Someone

    The room did have a nice view from the window, but it was better from the balcony. The only snag was reaching the balcony, as the door refused to budge. I remembered my erm, MBA education days when I jumped out through the window (we did that during a few lectures) and opened the door from outside. It was worth it, as always. 🙂

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    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqT3gUvxs-s

    We left the hotel by 7, after a hurried breakfast, to see the famous rhododendrons in Yumthang, and to visit Zero Point, where all roads apparently ended.  Yumthang was only about 25 kms away, and as we climbed further towards Yumesamdong, the flowers changed their color from purple to red to a pale pink. Apparently there are about 10 different versions. The driver made us listen to Sikkim pop, and even a Nepali song, the latter reminding me of early 90s Bollywood.

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    We finally arrived at Zero point well over a couple of hours later. It turned out to be the Himalayan version of Kumbh Mela, with potential participants of music reality shows belting out everything from Shammi Kapoor to SRK hits, and generally going crazy at what perhaps was their first encounter with snow. Alcohol is freely available, thankfully so is coffee, though it stays hot for less than a couple of minutes.

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    The driver said that there was a proposal to build a road from here to Gurudongmar, but the Lachen guys stopped it with a petition. Tibet is less than 50 kms away. We returned, and stopped at Yumthang for what appeared to be the driver’s brunch, and watched while people irritated a yak and almost got gored in return. We made a brief stop at the hotel, and after a quick lunch, started our trip back to Gangtok. The driver estimated a 5 hour journey, which actually turned out to be 6. We also saw this interestingly named place on the way back to Chungthang. Sometimes life does seem like a

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    We passed the tourist points we’d halted at earlier, but thanks to the rains, they had absolutely no crowds. The driver, to our irritation insisted on following another driver, who was painfully slow. He also educated us on the pitfalls of shared cabs, as each passenger had his own tastes and harassed the drivers on where to stop, and not stop. At Naga falls, he seemed to give up on his companion, and told his passengers that he had seen their driver drinking. If we weren’t in a hurry, I’d have loved to stay and watch.

    We hurried because though the rope way seemed a lost cause, we thought we’d roam around Gangtok a bit more and maybe drop in a Lal Bazaar again. The driver, though, was glued to his mobile, after having been out of a network for the last couple of days (the network is practically non existent long before Chungthang) I think he let all his near and dear ones know we hadn’t done him any harm, though the chances in those last few kilometres to Gangtok were pretty high. A Buddhist with a liking for Hit beer, our driver.

    We finally reached Gangtok at 7.30, and after getting dropped back at Mintokling, decided to check out the last place in our list, for dinner. Arthur’s, on Tibet Road, another place recommended online, almost opposite Cafe Live & Loud, turned out to be a near replica of Allen’s Kitchen, but a few rungs lower in terms of character. While we waited for the food, we heard the owner tell a friend of his who had arrived just then, that if she’d come a few minutes earlier, he might have left immediately, because there was a large group of South Indians. Meanwhile, we leafed through magazines and found one with Charukesi’s Sikkim article, as the owner came over and asked us where we were from. 🙂

    The chilly pork was quite good, as was the Chicken Thupka. The article too. Prices are very reasonable. We decided to pay another visit to Baker’s Café, found it closed, and went to our backup option – Cacao. It had only one other group, and we sat watching the street on our last night in Gangtok. Peaceful.