Mama had come to receive us. Coming two days, we spent with Mama and Mami and their cute kids. It was practically our first visit to Chandigarh because the last visit happened to be, when both of us were too young to remember anything of the place. Chandigarh was planned by a French planner, who distributed the entire area in the form of sectors. It is a city of beautiful gardens and wide and well-maintained roads on the sides of which, well indicated signboards stand, directing towards various sectors, which in turn, look similar due to their profound symmetry. The place is host to one of the finest eating joints in the country where quality and quantity of food is unmatched, keeping in accordance with the frisky class of residents who never compromise on their standard of living.
Apart from Mama and Mami, some of papa's service training batch mates are there too. Apparently, we hadn't been able to find their contact numbers in our telephone directory, back in Mumbai, so we decided to find them ourselves. I must have made at least a dozen calls to who so ever I thought may help, before being conferred Mr. M.P. Rai's contact numbers. Rai's were with us in Dehradun in early nineties,and so, we get along pretty well. On the succeeding day , we went to their house, a huge government bungalow where we witnessed, hospitality to its best. While aunty prepared some pakoras along with nicely prepared liquor tea, we recalled the good old days of Dehradun with uncle as we also disclosed our adventurous plan. Rai uncle himself, is an adventure seeker and has been toying with the idea of driving down to Ladakh, since a long time. He seemed to be impressed by our zeal to conquer the forbidden land.
Up next on the agenda was, a visit to Shimla, for the sole purpose of meeting Khullars and Gorayas. Both, Khullar uncle and Goraya uncle are senior I.F.S. officers like my father and Khullar uncle being the senior most in Himachal Pradesh, occupies the post of Managing Director, Forest Corporation, which is a PCCF(Principal Chief Conservator Of Forests) rank post. Goraya uncle is of the rank of Conservator Of Forests, and occupies a 'side post', as a result of his stern honesty, which he abides under all circumstances. Even when sidelined, he doesn't crib and instead jokes around saying, "how does it matter which post I occupy or what work I do as far as my pay cheques keep falling every month". The preceding day, we brothers boarded a Chandigarh Roadways bus to Shimla from the central bus station. The driver seemed to be in a ferocious mood. He barely missed brushing a few buses coming from the opposite direction. It became foggier as we ascended above Kasauli, a small town of Himachal Pradesh, 65 kilometers from chandigarh, on way to Shimla. Little more than midway, lies a beautiful district town of Solan, which too, seems to be a good tourist attraction because of its famous alcohol produce and also as a promising hill station. Within three and a half hours of journey, we reached the Victory tunnel in Shimla, where the bus dropped us. From there we walked till the nearest local bus stop and boarded another bus (mini bus) to Khalini, a locality of Shimla where the Forest colony was. Bus routes weren't a problem at all since there was only one route and the same bus would go everywhere, touring the entire hill station in one go. After a little misguided directions and self inventions, we contrived our own route to Khullar uncle's house, through the Pine and Deodar trees; over the mountain; under the mountain; crossing the outhouses, we came out, just besides a municipality dustbin after a lot of struggle to climb up that hilly terrain. And what we saw in front of us was worth the struggle. A beautifully made wooden house, the entrance of which, had a wooden board with Dr. Pankaj Khullar, I.F.S. written on it. Both of us heaved a sigh of relief. We reluctantly pushed the main gate open.
A peon came out of the chowki, just besides the gate and after ensuring that we were genuine guests of Khullars , escorted us respectfully towards the living room. As we walked pass a passage which had two bedroom on its right and the living room at its end, Kunal, Khullar uncle's son, appeared, right in front of us. He had appeared from the living room. We had met after nearly a decade but nothing seemed to have changed. The feeling for nostalgia, on meeting good friends after a long period, was mutual. Kunal was younger amongst the two Khullar siblings and had just completed his engineering degree in Instrumentation from Hubli, a place in Karnataka. He was two years senior to me in school while Shikkha didi was four years senior to him. She has a consultancy firm in Delhi . From the kitchen, came the lady of house, Khullar aunty. She has always been an idol for many, my mother being one of her fans, right from the days of Dehradun, still looks up to her fondly. Three of us, Kunal, Bunny and I remembered the good old days, we were together in Dehradun, and the kind of fun we use to have after school time, playing oonch-neech on the school pavilion while waiting for our bus. Before lunch, kunal insisted on taking us around, particularly Kufri, a major tourist attraction and therefore, a happening place. The driver of the Government Maruti 800, we were in, instantly stopped in front of a gate, from where beautiful girls were moving in and out. He friskily uttered," Saint Beeds saab, girl's college".
By lunch time, we were back and so was Khullar uncle, who had been out touring for a couple of days in kangra valley. After a hearty meal which included momos, a tibetian delicacy, Bunny was preparing for a siesta while I insisted to go out and enjoy the climate, we crave for in Mumbai. The temperatures had gone down drastically following a little ceremonial pitter patter, and the hill station was enveloped by milky fog, through which due to translucency, lush green Pine and Deodar trees could be seen in the misty coomb. I used the word 'ceremonial', since, though it rains normally in Shimla in monsoon season, but to us from Mumbai, it certainly did not seem to have kept up to expectations, since we were used to seeing much more action. The spellbinding view of the picturesque milieu was possible because of the huge, door sized picture windows of the living room, that faced the depth and openness of the valley, the house being on the edge of the mountain. In the early evening, the three of us walked up and down the mall road and loitered around the famous Ridge of Shimla. The climate couldn't get better than this. It was misty and cold. And I could literally smell chilled volumes of fresh but heavy air.
Late in the evening , the three of us visited Gorayas who lived in the same forest colony. While aunty prepared some bread rolls and tea, uncle shared some of his experiences of the Manali-Leh route. God! He's been there six to seven times. We got to know, a great deal of tricks to cheat the ghastly nature of high altitude areas and remain in full senses which otherwise seemed difficult, as the experiences of Goraya uncle progressed. He clubbed humor with tragedy as he spoke about the wretched condition of a Russian Expert on cold desert, who never reached Ladakh taking that route. It was told to us that he was found in an unconscious state with eyes wide open, sitting in his jeep, in an upright position and had not even covered half the distance. After listening to such life threatening stories, an obscure feeling had creped in me. I could visualize the barren and alien mountainous terrain and cold, extremely thin and sandy monstrous winds of the forbidden land, blowing for aeon and shouting in my ears,"abnegate the idea of stepping out of my land alive you moron".
"Try the bread roll sunny. You'll like it". I was brought back to myself as aunty insisted that I try a bread roll. Though I ate quite a few, but, left some space in my tummy since there was dinner waiting at Khullars. That night, at dinner, I ate like never before. And why not? There was chicken cooked in mint; some vegetarian dishes that I didn't bother to hog on; rice; chapattis and two types of sweet dishes to give it a coup de^ grace. There was this, peach in syrup and some good flavored. Ice cream. I hogged on both, impartially. The next day , after a sumptuous brunch which featured 'pan cake like' puas with honey and white butter, we guys pushed off for chandigarh. Kunal waved till the bus left the station.
On the 3rd of August, Maddy and Bawa reached Chandigarh by afternoon and gave a tinker from the railway station. They then hired a three wheeler auto rickshaw which took them places, in order to find an accomodation for one night. Maddy was an expert in negotiating even for a penny and so he got on the nerves of owners of many cheap accommodations, the kinds with common toilets. It was a test of Maddy?s obsession for miserly acts against the Punjab da puttar spirit of never say never die. But I seriously felt deep in my heart, that, the Punjab da puttars may have to suffer heavy casualties of brain hemorrhage due to Maddy's never ending; Brain storming; useless; senseless; baseless arguments to support his cause. Then I went stoned and concentrated on the aftereffects of Maddy's visit to Chandigarh, or rather I may say side effects. What if, I thought, in the news tonight, I see Maddy being arrested for his new felonious hypnotic technique to kill innocent hoteliers by using the weapon of dangerously besotted arguments on why the hotelier must reduce two rupees and fifty paise from already rebated, negotiated and agreed upon fare, and his formula of showing off that he's the coolest dude with a different attitude and making the poor hotelier feel like a godforsaken, useless, illiterate buffoon with no discernable qualities, on whom, Maddy had bestowed his enormous wealth. And now that he had paid him his share of fifty percent fare in advance, Maddy would behave like a true Indian son-in-law , whose 'kick the moron on his arse' attitude was his birthright.
"Sunny, its Maddy, he wants to speak to you", Bunny innocently interrupted the influx on my weird thoughts."Hello", I spoke in an inquisitive but calm voice. "Arey bhai, we have settle down in sector 7. The place is good and cheap", Maddy updated me with his where abouts while a person kept screaming from behind him, in the background, "its only cheap, though the bugger is still in two minds whether to hunt for something unusually cheaper than this one or"... "shut up Bawa", I could hear Maddy ostracize Bawa bluntly. "See you guys in the evening. We'll dine out somewhere in sec-17", I ended saying "here, talk to Bunny", as I handed over the phone receiver to Bunny. In the evening, Mama-Mami had called some of their close friends over for an evening supper, highlight of the evening being our musical performance, especially Adnan Sami songs, which Bunny sang beautifully while I accompanied him on the guitar. Also joined us coincidently, Mr. And Mrs. Rai who had come to socialize generally and wish us both, luck for our long journey. It was because of us that they had known Mama-Mami and this was their first visit. Later in the evening Maddy and Bawa barged in too.
Bawa had a sense of glory and accomplishment on his face which was evident by the redness of his snow white cheeks. His face glowed while his eyes spoke volumes, which, if encoded, would read,' look! I have finally acquired Maddy's full attention and exclusive company and now, even I am a cool dude with a different attitude like him, and there are some experiences which only Maddy and I share in common'. To him, if even Maddy gave a look, meant an accomplishment of a lifetime. And he would feel important that look. A persons of Maddy's wit, finally considers him as one of his kinds a pat on his back or a nod of appreciation by Maddy would mean much more than a lifetime achievement award for his loyalty. Basically Bawa is of the genre who is overawed by anyone and everyone around, but himself. And what better specimen to hero worship than the greatest hero of all times, Maddy. So is he the unproclaimed Baadshah of Hollywood or Bollywood? Nah! He's the superstar of Miserwood. JOKES APART, Bawa and Maddy, seriously had some news, an interesting incident which happened while in train where these guys met a Spanish couple, on way to Ladakh, surprisingly. Beautiful; young; vibrant and..., as Maddy describes the girl to be, got engrossed in a conversation with her about Goa. Now one thing is for sure, if Maddy knows anything better than his three-bedroom apartment in cuffe parade, it is Goa. And so, he pulled up his socks for an interesting show-off session and tried impressing the girl in every possible manner. Bawa, though pretending to listen to music on his walkman, stealthily eared upon the conversation which as he describes was of the kind, you blow your trumpet, I'll blow mine. In the end, both seemed to know the same about Goa and so, the discussion drifted towards Ladakh. Now, this was it, Maddy was just waiting for this moment, since certainly, he knew much more than that Phirang, about Ladakh. And now Bawa was happy too. His master had won and the score was 2/1 with the Phirang.
That night we guys dined out and shopped around for whatever we felt was essential from the Ladakh-trip point of view. By then, I had started receiving vague SMSes from Aman who was on his way to Chandigarh from Delhi. His SMSes reached me every half an hour. I thought probably was trying to portray SRK in Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, or maybe, Kuchh Kuchh Hota Hai and trying to create that kind of 'watch out work, I am coming' hype. I could perfectly imagine Aman on the left hand side seat besides driver's, with wind kissing his face at all angles through the pulled down window glass with his mouth tightly shut and teeth shouting from within,
"open up dude or we'll be crushed to death". One of his SMSes read, 'I m on my way, Vikram is driving'. I got the shock of my life. Vikram is Aman's colleague in S.S.C.&B and I thought maybe he had favored him this trip in the name of friendship. Aman, who at most instances, thinks from his heart and makes decisions in an impulse, is capable of any such deed. How in this world would we accommodate another person, I thought. After calling him up on his cell phone, I learnt that Vikram was the name of the driver and not Aman's colleague. I was under the impression that some driver called Sanjeev would be accompanying us, as told earlier by the agency.
These guys reached Chandigarh at about 1:30 A.M. and directly came to sec-15C where we were put up. Vikram seemed to be a frolicsome person and instantly extended his hand said, "hi I am Vikram, nice to meet you sir". I was impressed since he seemed to be of my kind, just what I had expected, in his late twenties and loquacious. He also met Bunny in the same fashion and said, "Nitin sir, have heard a lot about you from Aman sir, that you sing very well and you can tell the future and know palmistry". Aman had exaggerated a little too much it seemed. I escorted Aman and Vikram to the flat where they were supposed to put up the night, in the same building on the top floor. This flat was vacant since its occupants, all students, were away for holidays and the owner knew Mama-Mami pretty well and so we got the keys for a flat.