The Unfamiliar Familiar – New avatars of old haunts - Mussoorie, Company Gardens

The last stop – before heading back to home and what passes for regular life for us – of the epic “back to the past” trip, was Mussoorie. After all how can anyone go to Doon, and not do Mussoorie?

We set off in the morning, and stopped first at the pakora point. After all, a few plates of piping hot pakoras and some chai are de rigueur for this trip up the hills. The pakoras are, indubitably, some of the best I have ever had, and the chai, while not of the caliber of the brews of Bengal, was quite enjoyable and refreshing. 

 

From there, and onto the famous Company Gardens of childhood wonder and memory, the roads and sights are familiar and strange at the same time. 

The gardens are at once smaller than I remember and better put together than memory says. Pretty enough, and centered on that amazing experience of memory, the lake and the boating. And that’s where the shock sets in! 

The so-called lake, which had seemed so vast and magical in those – almost ancient – times, is barely the size of my living room, and those “duck shaped” paddle boats are beyond ridiculous, and nothing like the “mayurpankhi” of the early 80s.

But, as always, any disappointment from remembered images is far offset by the stunning vistas around every corner of the hairpin bends on the mountainous roads. 

Post lunch, we head off to the Mall Road. Every hill station in India has one, and it is where the beating heart of the town – in this case the Queen of the Hills – lives, and thrives, though shops, hotels, hawkers and whatnot. 

Parking and walking up to the Mall Road… just that… is STILL an experience worth every second. The views – and the cold!!! – so incredibly amazing! For a polar bear like me… who comes alive in the cold and in the mountains… it was completely scintillating. And it was cold enough to make even me – walking around in a kurti in Dehradun in January, actually take out a jacket and drape a shawl over it! 

The road itself is unrecognizable. Any old denizen of Doon or Mussoorie would be well forgiven for feeling like they were wandering around a totally new place, instead of the much visited and oh so familiar old haunt. The 20 odd shops are now about 2000, the road up to the bhutia bazaar and the paratha haven is as steep as I remember, but lined chock a block with women hawking their wares on benches, and the entire expanse of the Mall is retina burningly alive with neon of every possible shade. Huge hotels and resorts line the hillside, and the valley side is overgrown and walled, with a few gaps here and there for “viewing points”.

 

Dozens of momo stalls and joints populate the market areas with the pakka stores, but surprisingly and sadly, most of them are “veg”. The few stretches of hillside which don’t have pakka stores set in the cliffs are set up with the kind of thing one is more used to seeing in this area… the benches and camp cots, piled high with the fleece and wool wares, manned by the Bhutanese and Nepalese matriarchs talking and laughing and gossiping with each other while sizing up and trying to sell to the steady stream of tourists walking and riding by. 

A rickshaw trip to the base of the cable car station, some photos, and some momos later, we finally bid adieu to the mountains, and sadly made our way back to Doon, dreading the flight home the next day.