Midsummer Night's Dream

Just returned from office.  I usually do so by 6 or 6:30. I came in.  Relaxed. My room had been a mess for the past two days.  This is not usual for an organised person like me. I started cleaning the room when a pair of boots kept in the corner caught my attention. A pair of dirty, ankle length,  brown boots. Who wears boots in this stinky summer unless you've travelled far.. far away from this over-crowded,  noisy,  polluted city to a place where even your breath echos :) 

My face lit up with a smile. A remarkable trip of my life Mcleodganj. 

On a friday night five of us had set on a voyage.. Yes it was no less than a voyage. It took us 12 hours to reach mcleodganj..  I can travel the world twice in that span. It was veryyyy long,  but that was what we felt at the start. As we travelled, the roads started feeling like our second home. Our trip started with dinner at Murthal,it is one the famous foodie hub on the outskirts Delhi.  People make sure they eat here at least once before they die.. I don't know why.. But yes it is famous for the parathas. All types. 

We haulted at 70 Miles Restaurant (I like the look and feel of this place), had our dinner. Did some warm up for the trip and sat in our hatchback.The trip had started. 

The highway gives the best feeling when you're on a trip.  The roaring trucks that pass by you, sometimes you're surrounded by them on all sides.. And sometimes you're the only car 🚗  that's travelling on a full moon night. 

We passed through cities,  crossing tolls, state boundaries. 

The atmosphere inside the car was low.. Ani was driving,  I was texting,  Muddu was our DJ that night,  Gulati was yawning and Sivi wasn't talking much and it felt we had kidnapped her and were fleeing. 

No road trip is complete without good songs and our Muddu was a walking BillBoard International  himself. 

The songs ranged from the 80s to the latest bhangra numbers. Sivi wasn't impressed.  She still had that intense expression until her playlist was played "Achaa tbhi chup baithi thi.. " The journey was joined in by music from all genres, from classical to patriotic. Debates on all economic and global agendas.

Kya kre ab time to pass krna hi tha. We had covered half a journey by now and everyone else had taken turns to take naps except me. We had entered Punjab border and were greeted with thunderstorms and lightening and then we were travelling on a rainy night through the deserted roads of Hoshiarpur. 

Narrow lanes converging into national highways, I was witnessing how the pace of life was slowing down as we were moving away from the hustle bustle of metro cities. We stopped at Bhakra Nangal Dam just to revisit our geography lessons from childhood.. This is the beauty of a trip you actually get to see things that you only heard or read about.

The sounds gurbani from the nearby gurudwara was echoing in the air.. We never realised that these things happen every morning at its usual time but only today we felt that mornings can be so beautiful.  All that we hear every morning is punching of IDs, logging into our systems, noise of copier machines and the formal greetings of 'Good Morning'.  We say good morning without feeling good about it.

As I leaned back into my chair to inhale the aroma of the muddy fields that were wet from the rains from last night, the thoughts that had clouded my head were clearing up. With every breath that I took in I released the stress I was carrying like a baggage up here. Sometimes we just need to get away. You've been suffocating for so long that all you want is run away from all this chaos. I wasn't willing to go on this trip but now I feel it was all worth it.

You cannot make every one happy so I chose just one person- Myself.

   

     At 5am we reached Himachal. We started travelling uphill. Morning was still waking up from its slumber. Few people had started their routine of feeding the cattle, fetching water from the well. This is elementary life. But nothing could be more peaceful. I realized though they had little,  they were happy. It was us,  who had all the latest technology but no peace and we are travelling in search of some positives to their place. It's us who is underprivileged.

 Life hasn't changed much since evolution. Broomstick made of dried palm leaves, women carrying heavy mutkas on their head to fulfill the need of water for the family,  schools providing elementary education.  But it seems people are still content with what they have and we as tourist despite having all facilities at our place come to seek salvation here.. At a place with scarce resources. 

  

   The views of the mountains were breathtaking.  I had never seen anything so beautiful..the enormous mountains looking down at us, the clear skies, the green pastures and the cool breeze. 

During the British role in India , the town was a hill station where the British spent hot summers, and around the late 1840s, when the district headquarters in Kangra became overcrowded, the British moved two regiments to Dharamshala. We were greeted by the men in uniform as we moved towards Mcleodganj from Dharamshala. 

Mcleodganj is one of the best places I've visited so far. After a full night's journey we reached Mcleodganj early in the morning. Welcomed by the rain Gods we were overwhelmed by the view Mcleodganj was offering us. I was stunned by the beauty of the place. The town is flooded with foreigners. You can see them all over the place. They've readily adapted to the Indian culture and you can see them wearing OM written kurtas,  bindis, bangles and rudr mala. Other than foreigners you can also see monks walking up and down the streets. Though one cannot distinguish between a male and female monk. Both have their head shaven, wearing their traditional kasaya robes. They spend the day serving the Lord and carrying their out their odd chores. It is not easy to walk up and down those hilly lanes,  but for them it's a routine,  not only them the foreigners also treat Mcleodganj as their home. You'll find a lot of refugees who have set up their own business here.  People from around the world, who have been displaced from their land find their refuge here and live here in rented apartments. 

It is ironical who have lack of shelter in their own homeland make Mcleodganj their own home.

We found a guest house nearby and settled with our luggage there. We just had the weekend to ourselves so there was a lot to explore in a short time. The place was bustling with visitors, especially from Delhi. It was the pet place for every corporate bound individual who's looking for a quick "getaway" into the lands of Himalayas. Drink, smoke weed and party. That's apparently the idea for the best weekend for every Delhiite. However for people living there already, it is different. They don't have anything to unburden. They were already so light headed and loved their lives. More so they disliked the people from the Delhi NCR area owing to their 'bad behaviour' and rowdy nature. They nearly abhor their visit to Mcleodganj and nearby areas (no offence).

Mcleodganj is not very widespread and you can possible walk through the entire place. I did not see any mode of transport and people themselves preferred walking up and down the hill. Here I am talking about kilometers. Our guest house was located near a Buddhist temple. I had never seen a buddhist temple before, it was beautiful and you could hear the sounds of Om Mani Padme Hum echoing in the temple. 

Om Mani Padme Hum is a six-syllabled sanskrit mantra. It is commonly carved onto rocks, known as mani stones, or else it is written on paper which is inserted into prayer wheels. When an individual spins the wheel, it is said that the effect is the same as reciting the mantra as many times as it is duplicated within the wheel.

You hear it echoing in the valleys and it somehow soothes you down. I remember we asked Anirudh to turn this hymn off while we were enrouting to Mcleodganj calling it vague and boring and now we were humming it ourselves.

It is not really difficult to find a place to stay in Mcleodganj. You will find a lot of makeshift places along the road. Small guest houses, resorts. We just needed a place to freshen up and revive from our 11 hour long drive. But seriously it was all worth it. We got a place as cheap as 1500 for two days, I got to know later we could have found a much cheaper place had we gone uphill towards Dharmkot. Our plan was to visit major attractions of the place we just had the weekend to ourselves and we had to travel again for 11 hours.

The first attraction is the waterfall. It is a decent walk but the beauty of the place is such that you wouldn't mind walking and inhaling the authenticity of the place. The water was really cold here and we were told that the fall of the water looks like a lady standing.. weird I couldn't figure that out.

After the waterfall darshan we started our trek towards Dharmkot. Visiting the famous Shiva Cafe on our way upward. The trek is really narrow and you might forget your way, It is advisable to ask a beautiful Russian girl on your way when you see her, because we did that. She'll guide you to the perfect joint..Pun intended.

Some fun facts about Dharmkot. It is a small village 4 km above McLeodganj. It is known to be hub for all hippie stuff thereby it goes by the name of Hippie Village. The refugees are living there since ages, they have made a community of their own here. They have opened small businesses, some cafes some massage parlours, some are peddlers. They have been living in guest houses paying a rent of Rs.300 or even less per day.We have no clue how are they earning their living and they chose not to disclose but surely they are living a far better life than all of us.

They do odd jobs. Work online. Are peddlers maybe. Sing unrational songs at their makeshift night clubs. Our expectations were that we will be seeing a bunch of people grooving to Dum Maro Dum with chilam in their hand. To our surprise we saw them practicing juggling, nunchaku and some kind of MMA using a cane.

We sat there watching them and realising how they have been thrown out of their houses, some have left their countries, some have lost parents and here they are at one place and making the most of their opportunity away from the materialistic things of life and living life just to make themselves happy. Their sorrows have not become the bane of their life.

We thought , now we should make our way downhill it was getting dark and all that we had imagined, Dharmkot is nothing like that. They are just a bunch of Happy Hippies in here. No maal No drugs. We were then approached by a girl who was more than happy to see us.. especially Sivi. She was fascinated by Sivi's beauty. LoL. Although she wasn't that happy to know that we were from Delhi, itni raddi image banayi hai Dilli waalon ne waha.. Bhagwan jaane aise kya kaand kiye hain..Khair, She told us that she will be singing in this cafe and we should come there. We entered the cafe. There was some crowd. Dimly lit varandah.. decorated with old curtains, posters of Sri Sri Bob Marley (you'll find him in all the cafes there), rice lights, dupattas it was poorly structured but this was giving us the vibe of a rave Hippie party. We thought to ourselves, maybe this is the secret place where they all gather and get stoned.

                   

There were posters of No Smoking and everybody was looking sober but as soon as the live music started, out came the joints and drinks. We were like "Oh Yeah! We are at the right place baby"

The songs had no meaning, the lyrics were not rhyming. What do you expect? Not everybody can be a Bob Marley after getting stoned. There was a guy sitting next to us rolling a paper. We asked him what was it. He said "Marijuana" jo ankhei chamki hmari. We asked if we can score. He said "No."
We told him we would pay him. He said, "Money is not a problem, I want money I get money"
He rolled out a joint and offered us. Said, "keep it, careful or you'll be knocked out for two days"
Man, it was good!

The party was getting groovier and crazier. There were more people, more singers and no one had a clue of the other. I don't know about others but I was having an all new experience of my life. I was partying with the hippies!

We wanted to stay longer but had to travel back to Mcleodganj. It was already late. We made sure that whenever we come back next time, we will stay at Dharmkot. That was much cheaper and we can party all night. Due to time restraint we couldn't trek to Triund. That will be another trip in another blog. 

Our down trail wasn't that hard. We landed into the main market in 15 minutes. Had our dinner and strolled back to our hotel. We were so exhausted that dozed off soon after. The next day we explored the market in Mcleodganj. To be honest the place is such that you wouldn't want to come back. We were so heavy hearted on our way back, we would have cried.  This the best weekend getaway someone can ask for. The people there do not wish for the worldly pleasures that we are running after. They never get bored of their mundane life. They are happy with whatever they have.

Maybe it is rightly said: Money Can't Buy Happiness.

Do Visit Mcleodganj Once In Your Lifetime :)