Naina Devi

Baba did his tough unpaid apprenticeship in the hills of Uttarakhand in 1950. He was a tender youth of eighteen years then. Who starts work at eighteen these days? Our children are barely out of school at this age and undecided about future. But baba didn’t have the luxury to loiter indecisively. Like a precision surgeon mercilessly chopping off a redundant vermiform appendix he ruthlessly discarded his singular dream of becoming an engineer and took admission in Diploma of Civil engineering instead, after high school, because he had to start earning a livelihood as soon as possible. A laudable 39th rank in the High School examination of U. P. Board failed to bring him much joy or opportunity. The goal was within his reach but time was not. Doing Engineering would have delayed his entry in the job market by six long years, two for Intermediate and four for Engineering. Only if God had granted him six years! 

On successfully attaining his Diploma he began apprenticeship in difficult mountain terrain. He neither had money nor any hope of getting from his mother who, he knew, was struggling to run her household and bring up her three young children sans money. Baba had to walk long distances on foot, and do hard labor, on empty stomach, with hardly any nutrition. People easily warmed up to him because he was an unassuming, humble, hardworking, intelligent, thin lanky lad.

He kept an informal, erratic, irregular diary and jotted down his experiences in pencil. Often while clearing his papers I found those tiny fading sheets and read and had my heart clutched and squeezed constrictively and tears forming in my eyes on reading those simple unexaggerated accounts of his travails. If I had a magic wand I would want those cruel episodes to vanish from his memory and grant him those six years which would have made all the difference. 

Therefore, I wanted to take him to Nainital. He has visited Nainital many times during the past seven decades. I wanted him to talk about his experiences of changing Nainital. It was important for me to know his feelings which he is weary of sharing thinking the younger generation has no use of his wisdom and world view, no patience, no appreciation or value. I need to treasure his thoughts, cherish them and connect to them because those are my roots and make me what I am.

He was excited and happily looked forward to Nainital trip; so childlike was his glee that he asked me many times to confirm the date and programme. We started early on the appointed day hoping to reach by afternoon. But he got utterly exhausted by the obstinate static traffic jams, early on, in our journey. However, as we began the ascent he perked up. He knew the names of obscure villages. He recalled having constructed a cemented channel for carrying water without loss from up north to Ranibag for irrigating extensive potato farms. As we climbed higher the weather became cooler and exhilarated us. We opened the windows of our car to fill our lungs with the fresh fragrant breeze of hills. These mixed complex aromas took me back poignantly to my childhood years spent in the hills and must be the same for baba. My husband and son maintained a stoic stance, not susceptible to petty emotions like baba and me. Both checked the route on Google maps on their phones but baba could instinctively tell the correct direction. The names of places like Jyolicote and Bazpur jumped out spontaneously from the deep secure recesses of his memory. 

The first sight of Naini Lake dispelled our tiredness in a jiffy. We had to leave our car in the parking lot because between 6 to 9 pm vehicular traffic was not allowed on the Mall road. So we decided to walk along the lake and have dinner before going up to guest house. Walking on the Mall Road baba was light footed and elated; I realized my worry about his tiredness was futile and I should have had greater faith in refreshing salubrious hilly air. He told us, “Mall road used to be quiet and graceful. It was a joy to walk on it, ensconced within oneself, regurgitating one’s thoughts, mulling over one’s musings, undisturbed by noisy tourists or traffic. The Flat hosted both friendly and competitive football, hockey and cricket matches regularly.” “And every evening live band played at the bandstand”, he told pointing to a raised platform covered with an ornate canopy. The practice having long been discontinued we never knew the purpose of this canopied stage. Moving ahead towards Naina Devi temple he showed us a theatre where plays were enacted, often. Through the windows I could see a stage built in the front but the dilapidated unkempt condition of the stage and the hall was testimony to it having fallen out of favor and not being used any longer. Just for curiosity, I asked the local people whether plays were still held here sometimes, infrequently. So foreign was the idea of theatre for him that the poor uninitiated fellow couldn’t comprehend my question. He, never the less, helpfully informed me that it was a video games parlor. The hall lay unused but outside in the galleries a pool table had been set up along with video games kiosks. These were obviously more appealing modern media of entertainment for the uncouth masses visiting Nainital now. 

To mitigate his disappointment on the diminishing clientele for theatre I showed baba Capitol, the movie-hall, which had recently been renovated quite nicely. He was happy to see it look bright, clean and taken care of. He told us the names of some popular English and Hindi movies that he had seen here like Bicycle Thieves (1949) and Aandhi (1975). Noticing his eyes light up with nostalgia I thought of catching Kalank, the movie running currently, but long hours of sitting cramped in the car discouraged me from suggesting that we sit for another three hours. Naina Devi temple precinct had been cleaned and developed with care and love. It was spanking clean and baba particularly admired the abundant collection of potted seasonal flowering plants aesthetically arranged in the sprawling compound. He stood in the courtyard drinking in the scenery while temple bells tinkled and resonated in the lake and created a very peaceful atmosphere. Coming out of the temple we were overwhelmed with bright lights and much noise emanating from Tibetan market and the innumerable eateries selling tea, Nescafe, lassi, dosa, chhole bhature and softy ice cream. Baba was disgruntled with all these oily, unhealthy food choices and declined to have anything at all. He was also flustered with the thronging crowd jostling their way by pushing people.

I saw “pots and Stones” a small but elegant, continental cuisine restaurant which had a clean toilet and using a toilet had become an emergency with all of us. So we went in, selected a dainty corner with comfortable low seating and sat down; then, one by one, we all made quiet surreptitious trips to the toilet.  I had liked their soup last time, so we ordered soups. After a little rest and nourishment we were reenergized to resume our leisurely saunter. Spotting a gay and inviting Punjabi dhaba on the Mall road we went in for an early, quiet dinner. By the time we finished dinner the car curfew also was relaxed and we could go up to our guest house. We took a stroll to admire the full moon reflecting in the gleaming and sparkling lake from high elevation of rest house compound, before retiring.

Baba was up early and I found him walking outside. I invited him to the jetty to sit and have morning tea. It was early yet the sun had risen and was lighting up the mountain tops little by little.  Baba and I talked and relaxed. A motor trip to Rajbhawan was planned after breakfast. The one hour conducted tour of Rajbhawan was good. We took pictures and baba said he had been inside the Governor’s residence earlier. He recalled having met a very unassuming humble K. M. Munshi, the gentleman who pioneered “Vanmahotsav” and also a young charismatic leader Atal Bihari Bajpeyiji, hereabouts. We listened to him in awe when he told us how pristine Nainital hills and lake were seventy years ago. He recalled yachts wearing colorful masts racing in the lake.  

It would have been better if we could have walked down but baba would get tired so we simply drove back to the guest house for lunch and siesta. Boating was the agenda for the evening but my son got urgent office work to do so all afternoon and evening he sat with his laptop, collecting and analyzing data and dispatching results. We did not want to go for boating without him so we went to the temple to offer Bal Mithai for Prasad. Then we saw the library and the shop that hung over the lake. The library was shut for renovation and the shop had exorbitantly priced merchandise. Baba remembered reading news papers held in huge cardboard files and also many other periodicals in the library which wore an erudite air in the days of yore.  Naintal club and boat club had both lost much of their erstwhile grandeur. I showed baba where Mall road had caved in last monsoon season; it was easy to spot because there were no trees in that stretch and the railing appeared new and temporary. Walking ahead I pointed out the few old buildings which had withstood the great onslaught by Delhi chchole bhature eateries. Baba told us about a movie theatre which existed there and also a place where one could play Billiards. We could see the remnants of a box office window and I tried to imagine how it must have looked more than half a century back. The billiards place was there still though it looked tattered and dismal. 

Ours was Good Friday weekend trip so the next day we had to return. We went down after breakfast and hired a pedal boat and went boating. Baba showed us Mallital where the local people lived and did business. He showed us Thandi Sarak and other landmarks. He remarked that just a few years back also there were only rowboats here and no pedal boats. He remembered the traffic jams we had to cruise through and suggested that we begin the return journey sooner than we had decided. But before leaving Nainital we wanted to enjoy kullhar chai on the Mall road because in last two days we had observed huge crowds at the chai shop, every time we walked past. A very pretty young girl with unmistakable Kumayuni rosy red cheeks was serving fresh customized tea with a smile. We chatted while our tea brewed. I told her, “I really appreciated that on a noisy pretentious street chock-a-block with chchola bhatura eateries, coffee shops, chat shops you are single handedly selling ubiquitous tea and had made it your unique selling preposition.” I complimented her and admired her for holding her own in male dominated business. With a happy, feel-good disposition we began the descent down to plains. 

On the way we got talking about near complete geographical migration and disappearance of the local populace, local eateries, local crafts like candle making, hand knitted woolen garments and local culture. If one wanted to taste local food one would have to go and search for such a place in more proletariat Mallital. I asked a person who was selling mulberries and strawberries where could I find Kaphal. With a dry mirthless laughter he said Kaphal is exported at a high price of Rs. 500 per kilogram. 

This really pained us. One goes to hills for natural beauty and natural flora and fauna but if those become extinct then why would we want to go there? A few years back we had gone to Mashobra and were quite hopelessly disappointed when we saw that all the way from Shimla to Mashobra we could see only hotels and parking lots; apple orchards and Devdars were uncaringly cut to make place for more and more hotels. Similar was the case of Nainital. In Shimla, at least they have forcefully preserved the Mall road but no such effort was made in Nainital consequently all the original shops have been replaced by shimmery shiny showrooms of international apparel brands, shoes etc. 

The lone, young girl selling tea was an admirable example of grit and the only beacon of hope!