kishorebhargava

Last week a bunch of us (4 to be precise) decided to head out to the hills to get the last bit of winter before the dreaded Delhi heat starts. Gora, Raj, Tirveni and self went to Manali. Well, technically Manali but in actual fact just close to it and in a lesser inhabited area called Naggar. For some reason, some portions of Himachal Pradesh seem to have the most unimaginative names, and the village of Naggar is just called that. One of the neighbouring villages is called Sunder Naggar, though it was not really very “sunder”.

ILUG-D has had this long standing plan of heading out to the hills. Somehow whenever we plan the trip someone or the other drops out. Last week the four us managed to make it and hired an Innova and dashed off. We left Delhi on Saturday 24th, February and the drive was quite long. With all the stops and the hill driving we finally reached our destination in about 13 hrs. It was a comfortable drive though and once we reached we were ready to catch up with some friends who have a home in Naggar, so we called Ashish and Barkha and told them to meet us for dinner. Barkha was smart and had already gotten our dinner organised, one of the best dishes in this area is the fresh river trout and the place we went to eat it at “Alliance” makes it rather well. Hira Devi and Gilbert who run the place really had a spread ready for us. In fact, they had too much food ready, chicken curry, daal, red rice and of course the fish. We must have sat around there for at least 3 hours enjoying the fresh mountain air and catching up chatting. Finally we called it a night well past midnight.

The next two days were both great. Bright sunshine and dry and we made the most of it. Walking around, driving around and soaking in the wonderful snow veiws from a distance. We managed a quick visit to Gulaba which is the highest point open right now on the road to Rohtang Pass. Thats where we saw some snow up close. After this we went to Vashist, where we sat up for a few hours soaking in the sun, the beer and the food, apart from generally lazing around.

Monday night the weather decided to change, not that we really got to know, but Tuesday morning when I woke up and looked out the window, I was pleasantly suprised to see the whole place was white! It had snowed pretty much all night long and the place was looking amazing.

The snow was great and we were really happy to see so much of it. We were told it was the first snowfall of the season, so we did consider ourselves really lucky. A few hours later we lost power but we did not mind it too much, though we kept wondering how we would get our phones, music and computers to remain on. Although, this was supposed to be a holiday, we were carrying enough equipment to setup a network and catch up with work as well. When we realized that the power was not coming back in a hurry, we slowly started rationing our laptop and phone time as well, which in afterthought turned out to be a wise descision. For the rest of our stay there was no power. In fact, after we got back, we have been in touch with people there and were told that power would take several days (at least 5) to return. Essentially, because many of the electrical poles fell victim to the snow and collapsed, cutting the wires off and rendering the place powerless. It snowed all day, and all night long, and it snowed the next day as well. We were sort of trapped but it was great. The main concern was where our next meal would come from and thats when we discovered “Tutu” and his tea stall which basically kept us extremely well fed. Tutu was a saviour, he brought us food and an endless supply of “chai”. Not only that, he made us cheese toasts, mutton curry, vegetable thukpa and some great cheese omelettes for breakfast. I’m sure we all put on tons of weight.

Now came the tough part, should we try and leave as soon as the weather clears or not? Technically, we were snowbound and powerless but we were having fun. The only danger was if we decided to stay and weather got worse or if it continued to snow then we had no idea how long we could be there. So we waited for Wednesday morning when the snow actually stopped and we got only a few light showers. Tutu again came to the rescue, he went and organised a team of MCD workers to come and clear the roads for us. One would think that clearing roads would basically involve a snow plough, but not here. In Naggar its done the old way, sheer manual labour and a shovel. A few hours later we sort of had a track. The driver Daljeet got brave and asked us to walk down the hill to the clear area (the chowk) while he would drive the car down. He did later mention that he had one 360 degree turn but apart from that he deflated the tires a bit and carefully and slowly drove down.

In the meantime, the four decided to walk down and have a couple of snowball fights on the way. We were down at the chowk in less than 20 mins and kept wondering if we should really be leaving so soon. Though we did regret leaving we decided it was best to go back home! After a fairly uneventful drive back and a night halt just outside Chandigarh we were all back home. Rumour has it that Gora and Raj are actually planning another trip next week! I envy them, but can’t join in. Back to work for me!

Cheers…Kishore
–
PS: more photos at Raju’s site.