out of delhi, up into the hills

i left delhi at daybreak, lurching out of my room with my excess baggage and trundling it all down onto the sidewalk and out of the complex, a bulging bag under either arm and my suitcase trailing grumbly unhappily behind me. it was all still half dark so i didn’t even notice pascal-ma’am out there on the bench until i was almost right on top of her.

caught off guard i open up with an awkward and confused, ‘oh, hello, i didn’t see you! good morning.’ to which she gives me such a look, and, cutting to the chase, says, ‘where are you going?’ feeling a little criminal, caught in the act, although i had totally cleared leaving today with her the evening before, i say simply, tho a little embarassed, ‘dehra dun.’ she nods, thoughtfully, her brow slightly furrowed, perhaps trying to figure out how dehra dun might fit into my whole kathak back-story. then she starts, ‘well...’ taking an awkward pause of looking, before she culminates with the classic indian (unless americans say this all the time and i have been missing it?) all-purpose expression of good wishes, ‘best of luck.’ she gives a matronly nod of her head, and i am dismissed.

i had always been nervous of pascal-ma’am, always looking, watching, sometimes there being a little half smile there at what really you don’t know, but mostly some unreadable blank. her coming out like this to see me off, or at least to watch me as i lugged all this weight on past her, wobbly and all, caught me by surprise. this display of that kind of feeling of maternal responsibility to her charges. it left me almost getting prematurely nostalgic and sad at parting this working women’s hostel.

then i called back to myself the memories of all the sloppy platters of dal and potatoes day after day, the big slippery cockroaches hidden in corners, the bread and butter breakfasts. thus cutting my nostalgia to size, i gave one last smile and a ‘thank you so much!’ over my shoulder, and was outta there.

outside of the gate on a big empty bhagwan das road there was not an auto in sight, and only the distant sound of long-haul trucks and maybe a few buses with the blueline out perhaps for an early killing. i was about to start cursing myself for not calling a cab and thinking an auto could be managed, when out of the distance appeared the light of a single vehicle, coming towards me from the blackness of mandi house. i squinted and scrunched my eyes to look into the glare, and to my excitement there it was, an empty auto prowling the empty streets. i stopped it, laughed at the bloated price offered me, told the auto-walla what price it was going to be (no argument, tho i imagine not so much from his intimidation so much as my just wanting to get out of there and so giving him a totally generous/fair price) and with his help piled all my junk in. and we were off. we flew past men asleep in their autos, autos in line for gas, a few other vehicles but mostly the streets were empty and before i knew it we had reached new delhi station. seeing my wheeled luggage most of the coolies kept silent and curled their lips as i went by. another lost job.

i was way early, i watched a couple other shatabdis come and go before mine came, the 6 50 to dehra dun. with a little help from the guy sitting next to me, solicited in my baby hindi, i got my suitcase aloft and sat down proud in my aisle seat. it was an uneventful ride for the most part, altho there was the issue of the cockroaches. i had noticed a couple coming in but thought it only cuz back there were the cooking areas. but then i saw them in the coach itself. first crawling up the walls, then crawling up some man’s chair and then quite suddenly right in front of me upon my newspaper. the rest of the ride, all six hours of it, i spent either peeking around to make sure none had come to crawl on me or else telling myself pointedly not to look, focus on newspaper, focus on music playing in my headphones, focus on scenery flying by outside. i had never seen roaches on trains before, the numbers of them were so confusing, especially considering these shatabdis are expensive and at least supposedly of a higher class, fully air-conditioned as they are with free meals free newspapers and free water... but anyway. you did not find me touching my lunch that is for sure.

at length we arrived in dehra dun, and successfully i made it out, and down the congested path to the government-operated taxi stand. just as i was loading myself into my ambassador of choice, i saw standing right there another foreigner girl, and as our eyes met we asked the simultaneous question that came to mind: landour? i told her to pile in to, much more simple than me cuz she came lightly luggaged only. suzanne from holland, here for a month, with a week doing the hindi study thing in landour. our driver was mercifully safe and conservative, honked at always by those behind him who would rather have him making dashing passes of other vehicles around sharp turns into the blind beyond.

it only took an hour to get to landour, curling up around the hills, bouncing down the narrow cobble-y streets. my guest house is at the bottom end of landour, called northern store. except that its actual name seems to be terrace cottage guest house, at least on all official documents. i am sure they have all the good reasons. it is a family home with i think only four rooms available, tho i am the only guest at the moment. the room is big, homey i suppose, with a cozy rug over the poured concrete floor an enormous bed a lounge-y chair for reading, a fireplace, a painting of a couple of terrier dogs and a cute little paper indian flag by the door. there is a door to a room with a broken sink hanging off of the wall, and a tap for running water and a bucket, as well as some old abandoned furniture and a full length free-standing mirror. out the door from there around the corner is the toilet, kind of an outhouse really, and then a huge tub of water with a baby bucket to make use of (no flush, just water thrown into it afterwards). this tub is so old and rusted and the whole thing so rough hewn and ramshackle that it really does give that funny feeling of some other century... when they delivered to me my first morning a hand-formed metal bucket of boiling water with which to take my bath it reminded of some scene from the little house series.

so mostly the place seems nice, a little musty (a fact the proprieter denied when i asked when someone would be in to do some dusting, but proven by my resurgent asthma since i have been spending time in this room) but cozy. i was surprised to find a dead mouse in the room with the watertap, in one of the abandoned cupboards there, but the fact that there was nothing live, and it seemed nothing had been there to munch on the creature’s remains somehow made me feel better about the whole thing.

after this i went to see the layout of landour, and most importantly, to figure out where the school was and find myself a meal. it was a serious steep climb for twenty minutes fore i reached char dukan (‘four shops’) but reach i did, and sat down for some food. then i wandered some more uphill, found the school, and sat for a while out by it, looking down the steep incline at the mist breathing in curls and swirls all slow between the tall and slender trees that shot up from seemingly impossible footholds on the hillside.

finally after some time i started to get chilly, and decided it was time to go back down to my little home. i descended again thru the layers of mist past the drama of the trees and sudden steep slope, my path curling down it safely to my place. where after dinner i curled up in my comfy chair by the (nonfunctional) fireplace to read myself into sleepiness...