One Friday I found myself in Delhi for a not so interesting meeting. The Delhi branch of my company was planning a trip to Mussoorie. "Why don't you join?" was the question. Any response other than no seemed rude and that evening I found myself surrounded by a bunch of drunks, as we sat around a sidey bar in Gurgaon. Like "the last supper" this was the "last drink" prior to boarding the bus to Mussoorie. We were soon flying across Delhi towards UP and in the direction of the mountains. Some 80 odd kilometres from the start there an explosion and our tempo traveler lost control for a moment - Flat tyre. While the driver changed tyres, we had a few sips of lousy tea at a Dhabba on the other side of the road. There were no further incidents till Mussoorie.
The place of stay at Mussoorie was fine but I was disappointed by the place itself. From all those Ruskin Bond novels I had expected a cold and snowy place with a great view of the snow packed (or is it snow capped?) Himalayas. I had got my geography and season wrong. So neither were the snow packs (or caps) seen or felt. To me the place seemed to be a cross between Ooty and Yercaud. The day's plan did not sound exciting. A visit to a waterfall close by, which many in the group claimed was lousy and then nothing else. Evening, I planned to go down to the village where Ruskin Bond lives and try to get a signature out of him. I did not know exactly how to do it but that was the plan.
The guys were absolutely right about the water fall. It was lousy - very little water and a lot of garbage all around. To top it these guys had built all kinds of parks and what nots around the place. Thus the place looked worse; reminded of those dreadful picnic spots. The sight seeing was done by lunch and all of us being dead tired of the previous night's journey hit the bed for a siesta.
I woke up at around 4:30 pm and walked down to Jay's room. Sandeep and Jay had shown great interest in meeting Mr.Bond, who lives in a village called Landour. Google map claimed that the place was some 6 kilometres from where we stayed and we decided to walk to it. After some distance we asked someone for Landour. He informed us to "continue a few furlongs" in what seemed like a typical small town manner. We walked some more. It was now a good 45 minutes since we had got out but we had not even reached the end of Mussoorie. So we would not have covered more than a kilometre. We looked around and asked a rickshaw fellow to take us to Landour. He refused it point blank saying he only went round Mussoorie; for the place mentioned we would need a jeep. For the jeep, we have to travel back to the hotel; another 45 minutes back that is. Jay suggested, quite pointlessly I thought, let us walk some more.
We walked past a Tibetan restaurant that Sandeep claimed was very popular. We were so full of the lunch and the growing disappointment of the pointlessness of the trip that we walked on. We were crossing a book shop when I suddenly saw the name "Ruskin Bond" written on a board. Besides the board, the man himself was seated sipping a cup of tea, while a set of people were buzzing around. My eye ran back to the board and it said that Ruskin Bond usually spent his Saturday evenings at the shop signing books and meeting people. We thanked God for not having found a way to reach Landour and jumped into the shop. Then books were bought, hands were shook, signatures were taken, words were spoken and photographs were taken.
What happened earlier and beyond did not matter now. The trip was a huge success. We had met Bond, Ruskin Bond.
The place of stay at Mussoorie was fine but I was disappointed by the place itself. From all those Ruskin Bond novels I had expected a cold and snowy place with a great view of the snow packed (or is it snow capped?) Himalayas. I had got my geography and season wrong. So neither were the snow packs (or caps) seen or felt. To me the place seemed to be a cross between Ooty and Yercaud. The day's plan did not sound exciting. A visit to a waterfall close by, which many in the group claimed was lousy and then nothing else. Evening, I planned to go down to the village where Ruskin Bond lives and try to get a signature out of him. I did not know exactly how to do it but that was the plan.
The guys were absolutely right about the water fall. It was lousy - very little water and a lot of garbage all around. To top it these guys had built all kinds of parks and what nots around the place. Thus the place looked worse; reminded of those dreadful picnic spots. The sight seeing was done by lunch and all of us being dead tired of the previous night's journey hit the bed for a siesta.
I woke up at around 4:30 pm and walked down to Jay's room. Sandeep and Jay had shown great interest in meeting Mr.Bond, who lives in a village called Landour. Google map claimed that the place was some 6 kilometres from where we stayed and we decided to walk to it. After some distance we asked someone for Landour. He informed us to "continue a few furlongs" in what seemed like a typical small town manner. We walked some more. It was now a good 45 minutes since we had got out but we had not even reached the end of Mussoorie. So we would not have covered more than a kilometre. We looked around and asked a rickshaw fellow to take us to Landour. He refused it point blank saying he only went round Mussoorie; for the place mentioned we would need a jeep. For the jeep, we have to travel back to the hotel; another 45 minutes back that is. Jay suggested, quite pointlessly I thought, let us walk some more.
We walked past a Tibetan restaurant that Sandeep claimed was very popular. We were so full of the lunch and the growing disappointment of the pointlessness of the trip that we walked on. We were crossing a book shop when I suddenly saw the name "Ruskin Bond" written on a board. Besides the board, the man himself was seated sipping a cup of tea, while a set of people were buzzing around. My eye ran back to the board and it said that Ruskin Bond usually spent his Saturday evenings at the shop signing books and meeting people. We thanked God for not having found a way to reach Landour and jumped into the shop. Then books were bought, hands were shook, signatures were taken, words were spoken and photographs were taken.
What happened earlier and beyond did not matter now. The trip was a huge success. We had met Bond, Ruskin Bond.
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