CHILDHOOD CHATTER, NAINITAL NATTER

The weather at Kathgodam was very oppresive when the driver of the bus heaved himself up on the seat behind the steering wheel and set the bus on a twentytwo mile journey to Nainital. In the month of may even the morning hours are insipid.

We climbed up from the burning planes to an altitude of over six thousand five hundred feet. Then came the last long and straight stretch of the (then) best mountain road in the world. The roar of the engine was echoed back from both the sides of the road as we negotiated the last of the talla bazaar market area and emerged into a perfect pictured post-card scenerio !

Yes that memory is deeply etched. The senses of smell, touch, sight and hearing are amazingly sharp in a child and I still remember the ‘hit’ of the first heavenly cool swish of the breeze, laden with a mystical pleasant smell from the serene emerald green expance of the lake. And the first sight of the endless expanse of the majestic green lake was equally mismerising. In no other hill station is there a sudden change of scenerio like this.

I had a much older cousin who was then in the college. She was very sweet. I and my sister, who was my senior by a couple of years, simply adored her. All three of us were inseparable during my childhood Nainital holidays. As we were, then, unfamiliar with punjabi food we wondered what a tandoori roti was. We thought it was a dish by itself just like potato-stuffed paranthas or a spicy hot kachauri. And so we mustered up courage one day and entered a tourist-filled restaurant in Nainital.

Excitement mounted as I sat at the edge of the chair and, wide-eyed, watched my cousin give ‘order’ to the waiter.

“Three tandoori roti ” said my cousin and we eagerly nodded, literally drooling.

“And ?” said the waiter.

“And what? Nothing.”

“oh! ” said the waiter,”You want to carry them home”

“Why ! we will eat it here!”

The waiter looked amused and soon he was back with three plates of our order – three thick plain card- board type hot rotis.

That was an anticlimax that I never forgot though later on, in my Delhi days I hogged on nan and tandoori rotis with dal makhani and spicy,fried, vegetables.

There is a place called Garam-pani on the Nainital Almora hill road. It is some distancce ahead of the now famous Kainchi Ashram of Neem karoli baba (the Ashram came up in 1960s). In those days it was a long journey to the town of Almora via Ranikhet. The short cut over the Khairna bridge came later and it drastically cut the travelling time from Kathgodam to Almora from nine hours to four. In those day the buses .had a mid day lunch-time halt at Garam pani where they served mouthwatering food, all cooked in pure ghee (clarified butter) -steaming hot Puri, Aloo gutuk (fried spicy cubes of potato seasoned with a rare aromatic herb of Tibet called jumboo and other spices) and raita made of grated cucumber,curd and seasoned with white mustard. The opening of the khairna bridge destroyed the only place in Kumaon hills where the tourists could eat a range of fresh delicious kumaoni food. Sadly, there is not a single restaurant in the town of Nainital serving kumaoni eats. And the world is unaware of a range of delicacies that would make you drool !

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