11 years till we found the Mountains! (Travelogue)

​

11 years of togetherness out of which 3 we have spent as married couple is good enough time to accept the fact that while we did meet online we connected thanks to a lot of hot messages exchanged in the imaginary environment of the mountains. And it took us 11 years to find the mountains!

(I take the omens thing by Paulo Coelho a little too seriously!)

In any case this is a travelogue about our trip to the queen of the mountains, Mussoorie. The trip was planned thanks to our friends, who got married in Rishikesh and had their reception at the Grooms' village in Tehri, Gharwal ( a remote village 20kms before Chamba). So we decided to extend the trip to the hills!!

And here is 'our' experience along with some tips.

Day 1:

The View from our hotel in Rishikesh

We started for Rishikesh late afternoon from Gurgaon. The thing is that the highway to Rishikesh is via Ghaziabad and Meerut and to cross that stretch takes ages, because NH 24 is a busy busy highway! So it took us about 3 hours to reach the highway that looked like a highway. [Tip: If you have the time, then please start early in the morning. Late night the highway at the border is choked with trucks]. We stopped at Modinagar for the famous shikanjwi and had dinner around 9 ish at a forgettable Dhaba about 80 kms before Rishikesh. We entered Haridwar at around 10.30 and because of the Ardh Kumbh the whole place was lit up like it was Diwali. That was the one treat we got because of the lateness of the hour. We continued towards our destination which was a hotel/ resort by the name of Divine Ganga Cottages. The place is awesome and is located by the Ganges, you wake up some awesome views! BUT DO NOT FOLLOW GOOGLE MAPS TO GET TO THIS PLACE! It is in absolute interiors and the approach road is super scarily narrow. Since it was the dead of the night we did not encounter any traffic or one way restrictions but got into a minor scuffle thanks to Google Maps! We finally checked in around 12:15 am, and the staff was totally awesome about that. We faced absolutely no trouble at all. The bed was comfortable and the room was neat and clean. The bathroom was clean and had the basic utilities.

Day 2:

We woke up to a beautiful and clear morning, crisp sunshine and some chill in the air. The owners (and their family was there!!) and they talked to us and made sure that we were well taken care of. We had breakfast at the resort. Omelettes, puri bhaji, lemon honey tea and black coffee. All of it was delicious and very satisfactory. Especially since we had it on the terrace with a view of absolute bliss. Post breakfast it was time for us to get ready and go. I needed the iron and the wife of the owner was delighted to share hers with me. The check out was super smooth. And then we joined our friends at a banquet hall in Rishikesh for the wedding. ( I would not have otherwise mentioned the wedding but I need to tell you all about a certain incident that took place there!) the bride's shawl got flicked in like 5 mins we turned our heads and the Bride's sister traced the culprits and got the thing returned.

We left around 6.30 p.m. in our car to drive to Tehri Gharwal, our friends village, and boy, was that an experience or what! [Please note that tourist cars and buses are usually not allowed to ply on the roads from Rishikesh towards the hills after sunset]. While most of the stretch was the hill drive with intact roads, the last 2 kms were severely intense wherein the road to the village was mostly a dirt/pebbled/ broken road [true blue safari/off roading experience]. We parked the car, and then were escorted by our friend's family towards the houses/settlements, which was an uphill climb of about half a kilometer [try doing that in heels.. and tell me how it was]. The small compund outside our friend's house was decked up and awaiting the arrival of the newlyweds. Husband and I were also treated like royalty and after an exhausting bout of pooja, and mooh dekhai, we finally got some breather. Husband went off where all the men were drinking and offered them his ice burst ciggrattes which became an instant hit. I was tackling the ladies and trying keep them from asking prying questions to the bride. We had some good village cooked food, served to us with love. We danced till the wee hours of the morning on local gharwali songs and slept in the room along with the bride, and the groom's cousin. The whole village had opened their houses to the guests that had come for the wedding and no one really knew where the other was sleeping!

Day 3:

The Tehri Dam

The view from the village, which was a top a mountain was awesome and we woke up to our hosts wanting to give us bed tea and bed breakfast. Eventually we got ready, saw the couple perform some more poojas [also saw the phenomenon of the God possessing a man and a Goddess possessing a woman] and had puri and chole as brunch and left the village with lots of blessings and driving tips! We left at around 1.30 p.m. drove for about an hour and reached Chamba, where we had lunch at Gautam Residency and started our ride to the Tehri Dam [Highest Dam]. We again followed the Google Maps and reached the side protected by the CISF, and were of course not allowed inside. We stood there admiring the water, the mountains and the beautiful landscape that lay before us. 

The Sunset in the Himalayas

We then turned back, and started heading towards Mussoorie. True to ourselves, we stopped at several places just to admire the view and take some pictures. We saw the most beautiful sunset ever, and also saw the snow covered peaks and the orange sunligt reflecting on them. We entered Mussoorie via the Mall Road and paid Rs. 150 for using the Mall Road as the road to go from one end to the other. The Mussoorie mall road has some serious steep roads and a lot of one ways, so be careful and ask around. After manouvering through the people on the mall road, and getting lost once (yes, Google Maps has a thing!) we reached our resort. We stayed at the "Dancing Leaves Resort", it is the resort by Sterling Holidays and it is located at a secluded spot 3 kms away from the Mall Road. We checked in at about 7.30 p.m. and decided to order in room dining. We ordered the tikka and the grills, and they were quite good. We planned for the next day and had a sound sleep in the soft bed and thick blanket.

Kempty Falls

Day 4:

We woke up really early, and were greeted with the view of the valley visible from our french window. We had been told about the Spa there, and we booked that for 5 p.m. in the evening. We ordered the breakfast in our room and left around 10.30 a.m. for Kempty Falls. We reached there at about 11.30 ish, and decided to go to the falls. I had visited the falls almost 15-18 years back, and remembered the trek to go down and come up. Luckily though, they had developed a ropeway to the falls, which Rs. 120 per person for a two way ride. We took the ropeway and reached the falls. Earlier what was wild had been tamed, and the place where the water got collected had been reinvented to facilitate shops providing lockers, change of clothes, maggie, eggs, tea and even food. We saw a couple of people jump inside the water and shriek because of the cold temprature, and decided instead to observe their antics over some maggi. We sat there for about 20 mins and then went back up via the ropeway. We then headed for the Yamuna Bridge. We went up close and personal to the river Yamuna, clicked pictures, but were disappointed as there was no place to eat lunch. We were there for another 20 mins and then drove back to Mussoorie. We parked at a designated parking spot outside the mall road and then walked on the mall road. TripAdvisor advised us to have lunch at a Tibetan Restaurant by the name of Kalsang. We ate a lunch of Soup, Thupka and Momos. It was truly awesome!! We were over fed and running out of time, and took a cycle rickshaw till the end of the Mall Road and drove back to our resort for our Spa appointment. We had a great time nourishing our tired bodies, and then had dinner in their Restaurant. The menu is the same, and because it was a very limited menu we ended up having chinese for dinner as well. Grills the night before were much better. We ended our night with a bottle of wine. [The Resort does not have a bar. We carried our bottle].

Day 5:

The Clouds and the Mountains

It was the day to go back home. We woke up to a lot of rain. Nevertheless, we had our breakfast [There was breakfast buffet, and the Puri Bhaji was amazing!] and checked out. The rain was now a drizzle. We left at around 10.30 a.m. and decided to go via the Yamuna Bridge route. It was longer by about 70 kms, but the drive along with the river was a sight to remember. We decended to Vikas Nagar, and the crucial crossing [where we could have either come via Dehradun or Saharanpur], I saw a board of Poanta Sahib [It is a religious spot for the sikhs and I could not resist] which was 15 kms from there, and we ventured from Uttrakhand to Himachal Pradesh! 

Poanta Sahib Gurudwara

After the darshan at Poanta Sahib Gurudwara, and lunch in the city, we took NH 74, and cut down our travel time quite a bit. The roads in Himachal were scenic and straight. And barring a stop at around 7 p.m. we pretty much drove straight home to Gurgaon. We reached at 9.30 p.m. but because we were well rested and did not have a stressful drive home, we were not very tired.

Tips:

- Even though it is not as crowded, but travelling to the mountain in winters has a charm of its own.

- DO NOT follow the Google Maps. Ask around. The directions by the locals is most accurate.

- Food was not a high point in the trip. Unlike in Maharashtra, where there is fish and sea food and preparation styles differs a lot, the North gets limited to the Puris, and the chicken and the chinese.

- Driving in the hills is different than driving in the plains. The time taken is more, so never be in a hurry. Also, drive by keeping to your left.

- Keep water with you all the times, you may feel lack of oxigen causing headaches. Water is a great solution to that.

- If you are travelling in winters keep an umbrella and adequate warm clothes.

I am addicted to you!

Time goes by, 

in a frenzy of the everyday life, 

there are times when you feel, 

just the need to be.. 

but even in those times, 

I know, that you are by my side. 

Love is neither easy, 

nor is it sane, 

but what is life without, 

some difficulty, madness, 

and all that is there. 

Just another year, 

you will exclaim, 

but when I look back, 

I am left speechless, 

still wondering the same, 

how in the world did we pull this off? 

A different city, a different life, 

still we held on, 

to each other, in a grip, 

like a vice. 

I am addicted to you, 

you are my drug to always, 

make me high, 

to push me to do things greater, 

than what I can't even thing about. 

Yes, you and I fight. 

We push each other out, 

but like the magnets attracted to each other, 

we always come back, 

stronger. harder. 

to fight the odds that we have been fighting, 

for the years that have gone by. 

In the bed, often, I have looked, 

at you, 

sleeping. snoring. just being. 

I have looked and wondered, 

yet again, how did we? 

You my love, is all I have, 

my friend, my foe, my lover, 

my partner in hell and heaven. 

Another year marks our togetherness, 

another year tells reassures us, 

that together it was, 

together it is, 

and together shall be, 

for the years to come. 

forever and always.

Equality in Inheritance

The Hindu Succession Act, 1956 ("The Succession Act") is a personal law that was enacted in the year 1956 to consolidate the customs and laws around the succession of the property of a Hindu Family, especially in cases where the eldest family member dies without leaving a will.

The family system in India has primarily been a joint family system wherein all the members of the family usually share the wealth of the family. The  pushtaaini property is known as coparcenary property and the same is minded by the "Karta" of the Hindu Family, better knows as the Patriarchal Head of the family. The entire family unit is like a company where the family members are like the board of directors and the eldest patriarch is the Managing Director. For the uninitiated, the company also has a title and can be registered as a HUF e.g: A ABC HUF (meaning a ABC Hindu Undivided Family). This HUF has its own identity and also has its own PAN Card. It can make investments also. And if any thing goes wrong, or some one needs to be implicated it is the Karta of the HUF. And once the Karta dies, the family has a choice to either continue with the HUF or dissolve the same, after each one of them gets their inheritance rights from this HUF. This inheritance of the coparcenary property is governed by the Hindu Succession Act, wherein it states that unless it has been agreed otherwise between the HUF members, the property will be divided as per the schedule that is in the Succession Act. That schedule is quite complicated and I am absolutely not going to say anything about that here.

In the above background here are some facts.
It was in the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, where the rights of the daughter were curtailed, and a daughter would not be considered as a part of the inheritance as per the rules of succession and a married daughter had very little to no right in the coparcenary property. [Trust me this was super complicated, and I made it super easy].

But in the year 2005, this complicated Hindu Succession Act, was uncomplicated and amended to state that the daughters (whether married or not) had an equal right in the coparcenary property of a Hindu Family. Which simply means that if the father dies leaving behind a coparcenary property and he is survived by his widow, one son and one daughter, then each of them will get an equal share in the property. [Please note that here the assumption is that there are no other relatives involved in the same].

This was about the property and the inheritance. However, just by giving the daughter a seat on the board was like having a silent partner, and the patriarchal fabric of the hindu family still existed in the society. There was always a question hanging in the air about the real position of the daughter in her own family.
It is considered that once the daughter has been married she belongs to the other family. One fails to understand why can't the daughters have the privilege of being there for both her families?

Therefore in what can be called as a Landmark Judgment, the Delhi High Court in a matter has finally clarified the Law and has stated that there is no bar on a daughter from being a Karta of the family and if the daughter is eldest in an HUF then she has the right to not only manage the estate of the HUF but also the rituals of the joint family (which means that the daughter has the right to perform all the religious duties that earlier only a son was allowed to do).

This is a superb judgment and a giant leap towards the closing of the gap between the gender inequality.

This changes everything!

I am going to be super cryptic in this post because the news around the change in circumstances is not my own. It is of my BFF, and even though I am superbly happy, I am extremely skeptic, and this news read with how things are in my current relationships is going to do either of the two things.

This is either going to open the can of worms/ remove the carpets on certain issues and we finally get a closure on things or its going to be a certain heart breaking happening in the events. Of course I hope and pray and I will work super hard for the first part to happen.

The year has just started and so much has already happened. All of a sudden, there is going to be things to look forward to, and things not to look forward to.

Lesson learnt. Always think before you ask for anything. 

Demons of the Past

Just because I don't say it, acknowledge it publicly doesn't mean that these demons don't eat me.

My fathers' elder brother died at the age of 48. He died on June 26, 2003. I was just about 16. He was the best bade papa ever. My childhood was mostly spent at his house, because he had a daughter who was my age. She was 5 months younger to me, but we were inseparable, often called as twins. We had the same hair, wore the same clothes, and till we hit puberty, we had similar builts as well. Chubby.

She committed suicide almost 11 months after he died. We were expecting our 12th results at that point in time. I had given an entrance exam on that day and as a matter of fact she was to come and spend the night at our house that night. She did not turn up. She said that she had things to do. From what I have heard, every thing was normal till there was some argument and then she went into her room and hung herself from the fan. But I know that she was depressed. She was inconsolable after her father's death. I was not particularly available during that time. Studies you see.
In case you are wondering, a part of me does blame myself for not being there. For not recognizing the signs and yes even for a death.

I saw her the next morning. Lying in the hospital. In a vegetative state. On a ventilator. I had told my father that day that I was willing to give away my life if that is required to keep her just alive.
She was declared dead a day or two later.

Her birthday is on January 25 and her father's on January 26. She would have turned 29 this year. He would have been 61.

We, me, are still reconciling with the deaths of these two people, which broke us. Broke the family, broke our spirits, and changed everything. You know why?
Because, my darling bade papa just refused to take his medicines. He decided not make the minor changes that were required in order to control his diabetes. Diabetes, like it is widely known cannot be cured. You have to take your medicines, have some control on your diet and include about 30 minutes of walking. But he would not budge.

We told him. We pleaded with him. We cried. We prodded. Even got intervention. But nothing helped. he continued to stubbornly not follow the doctor's orders. And in the end, he suffered for 1.5 months in an ICU undergoing dialysis and left us all, with an empty space that hurts when I see the old pictures, remember the Birthdays, the anniversaries and them missing.

Sleep that refuses to come during those phases. The uneasiness of loss, that has happened, and the one that may happen.
It is the pain that no one will understand, because each one of us has their own memories and pain. My Bua, who his fraternal twin, would never feel whole again (that is a twin thing), my father doesn't have an elder brother to call his own... I lost my own twin, my best friend, my soul mate and the only other person apart from the husband who knew all my secrets. The husband still doesn't know me that much.

All this happened, because one person decided that the rest were all fools.

And then, there is also a phrase, that history does repeat itself, and I see the other half of my soul being ripped away because of the same effortless jaunting.

If my past haunts me, that is because the present is imitating my past. And, this time, I will break, never to recover. 

State of Affairs

The year 2016 has started off in a bad mood (to put it mildly). And, I am not even talking about my personal or professional life (just imagine).

The whole of December, 2015, was taken up by the environmentalists who have very clearly stated that the air that we breathe in Delhi is nothing short of toxic, and that something should be done about it. The reasons given by them is that; apart from the fact that there are pollutants in the air, the absence of air movement and the cold weather has trapped the pollutants at  a level that makes the air noxious to say the least.
While this profound knowledge and the red flags associated with this were being raised the weather continued to be gloomy, and we had the brilliant "Mango Government" (Aam Aadmi Party) come with a brilliant plan: "The odd- even scheme". The scheme simply states that on dates which are even the NCT will allow even numbered cars and vice- versa. The exceptions were single women/ all women cars/ hybrid cars and two wheeler vehicles.
The scheme is now at the fag end, and to be honest, while I just read a headline that almost 3000 cars have been fined in the last 12 days (that too in South Delhi alone), there has been a drastic, drastic reduction in traffic. There are lesser traffic jams, and there are a lot of people who support this scheme in an earnest, and are also petitioning to the government for extending it.
Will it be extended? I doubt.
But, what I really hope is that for their own sakes and for the sake of their progeny, the people have learnt a lesson, and actually make an effort to themselves to curb the traffic menace. One of the suggestions that is doing rounds is to make it compulsory for the MNC's to provide for shared cabs/ small buses. Makes sense. This will reduce the burden on the Metro and on the roads (what a win- win situation).

Another set of discussions and court cases that are making headlines is the ban on the women at the various temples across India. The fun part is that no one, no one is spared in this controversy. From the women (of course), to the media and even the poor lawyers who are fighting this case in the court. Everyone is (in some way or the other) being threatened for championing the rights of women (who apparently are goddesses Durga, Saraswati, Kali, Laxmi etc in the very Hindu Religion). The people continue to berate the non- understanding of the Hindu Religion by the modern human entities and how that modern human entity is influenced by the west. Though, I wonder what kind of Hindu Religion are they talking about because, Hindu- ism is not a religion at all.
Why can't we just be at peace with each other?? Accept each other for the limitations, eccentricities and for the individual person that we are. Why the need of an collective acceptance?

From the refugee crisis, to bomb blasts in the name of a God, is nothing more than a mass murder for whatever reasons that the murderer may have. Human life is a gift of God (or science) and all those who have killed in the name of that very God will hopefully pay for their sins, because Karma is definitely a bitch.

It is the times like these that make me wonder where we all are heading.   

Why, Hello 2016!

As the Clock struck 12, we all went Happy New Year! like we do it for every New Year. Every Year. So many of us join in the revelry to celebrate the end of the year, and to welcome another year with the new hopes of achieving something great.

A new year is like a coveted start. An avenue given to each one of us to leave the old and behold the new.

While, I am still startled by the surreal events of end of 2015, the truth and practicality of 2016 shall soon strike.
There are things that I have been wanting to change, in my self, and around myself. There are things that are still unclear, there seems no path ahead. It is like the Delhi roads on winter nights, where despite the knowledge of the road, you are unsure of when to go ahead and how to go ahead.

It is with this unsteadiness that I welcome the New Year and only hope for the best, for all of you.