The Uttarakhand Trip

En route to Mussoorie Situated about 30 kms from Dehradun and at about 7000 ft altitude, it’s quite a trip to reach Mussoorie.

Green hills, hairpin curves and breathtaking views I told ya it’s quite a trip.

Mussoorie – distant view Situated in the foothills of Himalaya ranges, this small city is also called ‘Queen of hill stations’ in India.

Mall Road, Mussoorie You can walk and walk along this promenade and you never get tired. Oh, and I didn’t see any mall by the way, but lots of restaurants, antique shops and an aquarium.

Somewhere along the Mall Road You see some cables in the pic? Yeah?, we have to take a cable car to reach, what they call, the ‘Gun hill’.

View from the cable car You get a bird’s eye view of the city, quite literally.

View from the Gun Hill Situated 400 ft above the Mall Road, this hill provides excellent views of nearby mountains and valleys. They say a canon was used to sound out midday for many years from this hill, and hence the name ‘Gun Hill’. Cold breeze buffet you all the time atop this hill. 

Some coffee shop atop Gun Hill This shop sells something by the label of 'fruit beer'; one sip and I realized it's just apple soda *sigh*

Sunset at Mussoorie Though this pic gives me a warm feeling now, on retrospect, it was almost 5 degree C when I took this. And coming from a place where the only temperatures are hot, hotter and hottest, it quite made my teeth rattle.

En route to Kempty falls which is situated about 15 kms from Mussoorie. You can see something like rice terraces to the mid-left in the pic.

Kempty Falls It’s said that the British used to organize ‘camp-tea’ parties here, and hence the name ‘Kempty’. Down the hill, the waters of Kempty meet Yamuna.

Robber’s cave, Dehradun Known as Guchhupani among the locals, this is a natural river cave formation situated about 10 kms from Dehradun city. You can walk through this cave for almost a kilometer in that icy cold spring and you reach a fort wall structure. It’s said that the erstwhile robbers used to hide here from the British, but now I could see a college couple hiding in there.

En route to Rishikesh Nothing much to see along the way except for some thick forests and lots of monkeys, and I mean a ‘lot’. 

Lakshman Jhula Bridge, Rishikesh This is a suspension bridge built in 1939 and the main landmark of Rishikesh. It’s said that Lakshman crossed Ganga here using jute ropes across the river.

View from the bridge Also known as the ‘Gateway to the Himalayas’, this holy city has several ancient temples along the banks of the Ganges.

The Ganges in its pristine form It’s here that the river leaves the Shivalik mountains in the Himalayas and flows out into the plains of northern India. As you can see, the color of the river here is Turquoise, which I reckon, is due to high concentrations of dissolved lime picked up as it runs through sedimentary rocks.

Some ashram on the banks of the Ganges Rishikesh is often called the world capital of Yoga; no wonder I saw more foreigners here than Indians. Also, here you can get authentic Rudraksh beads, picked up from the foothills of Himalayas. According to one shopkeeper, to distinguish between authentic and counterfeit, one of the methods is to put the bead in water – the authentic one will sink, while the counterfeit floats. Smaller the size of the bead, higher is the price. And no, I didn’t buy any, leaving the shopkeeper disgruntled.

Haridwar Located about 25 kms from Rishikesh, this is one of the seven holiest places to Hindus. 

Kumbh Mela, Haridwar This is a mass Hindu pilgrimage that takes place every 12 years. What a coincidence for me to be there! It’s believed that this is the spot where ‘Amrit’ fell when it was carried away by ‘Garuda’ and so taking a holy dip here will wash away one’s sins to attain ‘Moksha’.

The sparkling Ganges Every good thing comes to an end, and so did this trip. 

The expletive lesson

What am I going to do? How’s he going to respond? Will he call my parents? Will I get suspended? Oh man I’m screwed.

Standing outside his office, all kinds of thoughts about an impending doom passed through my mind. It was the 8th standard and it was all started by Alex. And look at him, happily sitting inside the class and enjoying. Speaking about Alex, the guy was very vocal plus he had an extremely good vocabulary of swear words in English; in fact, I first heard the F word from him. So you can’t really argue with Alex, he will strip you down with his ear-ripping language.

It was another of those days when I got involved in an altercation with Alex, and as usual he just excoriated me and made me speechless. Mortified, dejected and depressed, I meekly went and sat beside Maximilian. An empathetic Maxi advised me that if I ever want to retaliate against Alex, I need to work on it. How? For starters, he said, one should go to the library, take the Tintin comics and search for all the dialogues of Captain Haddock. Seeing a ray of hope in Maxi’s words, the next interval, I ran to the library, took out a piece of paper, and filled the whole 2 pages with absolutely hair raising beautiful words such as ‘cachinnating cockatoo’, ‘blue blustering barnacles’, ‘gibbering anthropoid’, ‘macrocephalic baboon’, ‘thundering typhoons’ and the likes. Feeling completely satiated I went back to class and started memorizing all those words, coz next interval I’m going to pounce on Alex and annihilate him. Now, I was sitting in the corner right next to the window; the corridor ran next to it; and while I was juggling between memorizing the expletives and writing down what the teacher was writing on the board, a hand barged through inside the window and snatched the paper with me. The hand belonged to our Vice Principal, Fr. Edassery.
Me: "It isn’t…..I didn’t mean….that is, it was…..yak yak"
He carefully glanced through the paper, folded it, kept it in his pocket and walked away after asking me to meet him in the interval.

Standing outside his office, all kinds of thoughts about an impending doom passed through my mind. What am I going to do? How’s he going to respond? Will he call my parents? Will I get suspended? Oh man I’m screwed. The brief period of wait outside his door seemed like an eternity for me; well, Einstein's theory of relativity is true after all I guess. 

As soon as I entered his room, I begged, I apologized, I pleaded to spare me this time, and told I will never repeat this ever again. I almost fell into his legs. After hearing all my melodramatic histrionics, Vice let a deep sigh, removed his specs, slowly wiped it with his kerchief and said,

"It’s not blustering barnacles, it’s ‘blistering’ barnacles."