Travelogue...Kasauli

Aha ! how picture perfect was it in my mind before we started. I had already been dreaming of taking long walks on the hills of Kasauli , watching the sun go down and hearing the chirpy birds. My agenda was clear...complete leisure sans any form of technology ( no mobile , no laptop , no tv ).Little did i know or ever anticipated that i will end up having the worst road travel.Okay this is actually a comedy of errors..
It started around 4am on 9th oct (Pious Dusherra day ) ,our alarm snoozed and we all woke up hurriedly and took our turns to the washroom. The room was smelling of loud deodorants and perfume at 4:30am in the morning.We all had a quick bite into our so called " breakfast" thanks to mum :)) , now was the time to wait in the balcony trying to locate our driver.Off course we are smart people "The Oberoi's " you see so we had called in for a cab for our entire journey.the clock was ticking and it was already 5am and the cabby was seen no where in the radius of 5km's.So i called up the driver ( thank god for little mercy , had the driver 's cell no:)..and smartly he said he has been waiting outside a wrong address for the past half hour as he was not given my address?$?%%$^????...Nonetheless chose to ignore such a trivial situation, hence guided him and he reached our house in 15min flat.

Happy as we were to upload out stuff onto the car and merrily smiling at the apartment guards, our smiles were ear to ear" look here we go ...off to a weekend getaway"....0.5km driven..and the driver started hurling abuses..he said "madam the car is a junk piece, no proper headlight, no rear view mirror, the brakes are not proper...and i am so disgusted with the way the driver of this car has maintained it..my car is in much better condition"...we were shocked. I immediately called up the cab owner and told him to change the car.He said no other car available and this driver is quite experienced, 15yrs u see..so needless to worry.

So we started, mum told him to drive safely and slowly.we landed ourselves at the main highway in few hours, we were beginning to feel hungry now so a unanimous decision was to stop at a roadside dhaba and hog on to parantha's.That was my first gastronomical delight!!...the smile was now LARGER than life and if i may use this sentence from a hindi scripture "anandam bhavati sarv sansare "...few kilometers on the highway and our sleep gets shaken by a huge thud..."dhoooom" and the car bans into o motorbike. The Mayhem begins !!!that was the beginning..then the mob collected and the police cop came, talking to me in his vernacular Haryanvi & a mix of Punjabi.The lady had bruised her foot and the bike was not getting started. Thankfully all escaped any serious damages but its India and it’s always the fault of the bigger vehicle. So here i was talking in my utmost respectable mannerism with Mr Cop & the so-called or rather self-labeled victim of the accident. Finally managed to shoo away the cop and rather settle with the " self proclaimed victim".

My altruist self empowered me and i offered that lady to sit in the car , we offered her some juice and took her to the doc.prior to that i myself tendered to her bruises , i washed it , put dettol on it and applied a bandage. Her husband wanted to be opportunistic and wanted us to shell out some huge bucks.We took his bike to a shop and offered to get it repaired. It had already costed us two hours ,loss of sanity and some money.Finally i gave up , handed over the money and left....lessons learnt!! No Altruism anymore..

Covered about 50km and guess what..we were blessed with a flat tyre :) now this was too funny & adventurous for Piya and me to handle and we just couldn't’t stop laughing. He made a joke out of it and were laughing our hearts out.That was a cute moment, our car was parked under a huge mango tree and we were sitting and playing antaksri...That was like turning an obstacle into a stepping stone.Nothing could deter our spirit and we were relaxed under the shade of the mango groove.
“Chal dhano …aaj meri izzaat ka sawal hai “…and the dhano sighed and started in a while ,uphill , berp berp…jhatka’s ..hoof hoof…monkey’s on the road to Parwanoo…hoof hoof..berp berp….jump…another jhatka and we finally reach Gharkhal…( km away from kasauli)

Unloaded our baggage and here we crash on our queen size bed.All we needed was food ,food and more of it.Hogged , a quick shower and off we go to the by lanes of Garkhal, exploring the place , the people and the local food.Piya the biggest foodie ive ever encountered …could stop herself from those chat papdi , tikki stalls & this is after her heavy lunch …oh lord bless her :)

We realized that Gharkhal holds this ram Lilia & Dusherra celebrations every year with huge fun & frolic. What would it be sitting on the terrace of our hotel under the cold and open starlit sky and watching the local flavour of theatre,simply incredible !! The best part was the battle between Ravana & Rama’s team …it was so hilarious…little kids dressed as cute monkey's were actually rolling on the ground and hitting , smashing each other

Then it was a magnanimous scene , the entire skyline of Gharkhal was lit up with fire crackers….the red’s , the green’s , the orange’s and the yellow’s…sky no longer looked blue it was filled with colors and brightness , may be this was a warm welcome to the oberoi’s :)

That was the best vijaya dashmi we’ve ever had in our lives

Next day was a complete delight .A day well planned to do NOTHING.All we did was walking on the upper mall , the lower mall road and the cantonment area and then waiting at some arbid park ( actually the cutest ive ever encountered ) waiting for the sun to go down…so that the senior Ms Oberoi could click some pic’s from her beloved cannon.There it was shining straight almost 90degrees…all I did was read , sang , looked and looked….and admired certain things in life which are so simple yet so beautiful..and so much ignored as well. May be my moments of truth !

Again the most beautiful day of our lives that will always remain like a dream in my mind.
Did I mention that steep climb to manki point…had to drag mum uphill and save shades from the monkey’s.it’s a historic temple , they say Hanuman had put his foot on this hill while going to the Himalaya’s to fetch the sanjeevini buti.It actually is in quite a strange shape , a non believer may also tend to ponder

So next day was a day to say good bye to Gharkhal.Again all eyes were on Dhanno to drive us back safely.It took almost 15 minutes for our driver to coax Dhanno to move.It moved finally and moved till Ambala the place we ate lunch…thereafter dhanno’s engine was smoking ,,,, it was throwing up hot water.So , what next ? nothing we were stranded on Chandigarh highway with no public transport , no help…nothing.After a long long time and a huge gesture for help …did an autowala stop. How far is nearest mechanic from here ? asked mum….”almost 6 kms from here “ was his answer.No choice , so we had to tow away dhanno for 6 km’s on an auto… now who can imagine that…so we reached a mechanic’s shop and he looked at the car …looked at us and smiled and said..its better you guys dump all your hopes on this car as its engine has knocked off.Some hearts had almost berped , mine was one of them.So the oberoi’s were spotted unloading stuff and walking to the nearest stop to find any bus , taxi….rest is history….bus then a cab…finally reached HOME at 1pm.

Again said to myself “ better late than never “

No regrets , no worries , a lot of questions but now answered..All is well if it ends well…God doesn’t offer absolute happiness , there is nothing as absolute or complete or full..it may have a tinge of darker shades for us to appreciate the brighter side of life and thank god or whoever for the merrier times we have had..

As they say”for everything you have missed , you have gained something else ;And for everyting you gain , you lose something else. Its about your outlook towards life.You can either regret or rejoice”