Delhi redux and on to Shimla

Nepal was a much needed tonic. We'd hit Kathmandu having both got ill in Varanasi and at the end of 2 days of travel via the dusty, bleak roads of north-east Uttar Pradesh on one barely-held-together tin can, two serviceable but no less bumpy/leaky buses and one night in a border town dive. We were more than ready for the break and for some mothering by the lovely Samiksha Rai on our arrival.

On our return, though, having had a wonderful first Nepali adventure (the next already taking shape in our mind's eye...) I was rested and ready to hit India anew. And our wallets, having taken a sizable hit, were definitely ready for Indian pricing. Racing back down to the Sonauli border from Pokhara to keep our one and only deadline for these 3 months - meeting T's mum Kate in Delhi for her two week holiday - we mixed things up a little. Pushing straight on through the border we accepted seats in a shared jeep for the 3 hour drive back to Gorakhpur. Quoted little more than the bus fare by intense touts, our healthy skepticism - even as we agreed in the spirit of adventure - happily turned out justified only in so far as our broker managed to squeeze (by both persuasion and straight up physical coercion at times) some dozen of us in, so unutterably tightly - even by Indian standards - that we had our work cut out recovering circulation. The journey raced by in a whistling scenic belt of hot dust whipped through glassless window (my blanket still tied to my rucksack on the roof, a trauma it remains unrecovered from) as we passed miles of farmland, villages and border towns. 

Fortunately, good travel karma reigned despite the odds and, down to our last 80 rupees, we hurtled into Gorakhpur in plenty of time to get cash, gorge on cheap dhaba fare (after a week or two of reverting largely to Western food in Nepal, our Indian appetites were back with a vengeance and knew no bounds, no dal fry overlooked, no stuffed parantha left behind). 

Our overnight sleeper train, complete with teenage cricket team slumbering two to a bed in our 6-person berth, had us in to Delhi by mid-afternoon; giving us a much needed day and night to recharge from another epic 30-something hour trip - 1 train, 2 buses, 1 jeep, 2 autorickshaws and 1 cycle rickshaw and counting!

This would be our last of three stays in Delhi and I felt some guilt at treating the venerable city as a such a transit - first on arrival, then on our return from Ladakh and now, as the first stop on our trip with Kate. But a fantastic dinner in Pahar Ganj's lovely, if slightly over-priced, Tadka restaurant, a rooftop movie at old-favourite Ajay's on the Main Bazaar and a long sleep followed by a leisurely day visiting the Qutb Minar - the impressively well-maintained monument complex of the 'slave kings' of medieval Delhi (long before the Mughals left the steppes) - and we were ready for the next leg, in that weirdly resilient way that prolonged travel eventually breeds.

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We began the fortnight with Kate by gorging unashamedly on the Grand Godwin hotel's breakfast buffet (we were in at the cheaper Amax Inn just down the street, which despite LP's rave reviews, I was fairly underwhelmed with for the price and would probably revert to the slightly cheaper Ajay's in future for that 800-1000 price bracket- already a big step up on our usual budget) before exploring the Red Fort and Humayan's tomb. For whatever reason, the former felt more run down to me this visit than the last time I'd been, unfortunately - but the latter was as thrilling as ever and I honestly think I'd pick it over the later Taj any day. Lunch was a pretty phenomenal spread at Karim's near the Jama Masjid, which we were excited to find as more than living up to its veritable reputation. Which from a vegetarian commenting on a predominantly carnivorous menu is saying a lot. I will tell you this, the naans were the size of a house and my paneer palak had a kick I've not found anywhere else. 

Exiting Humayan's resting place (and indeed, that of his barber - let no man brave the underworld without his hairdresser), the heavens opened - a white dust bowl sky began to swirl ominously and we were drenched before leaving the park. Submitting to the inevitable 'rain tax', we made our way to Nizamuddin by cycle-rickshaw and, welcomed in by its owner, camped out over chais in one of the dhabas that line the streets of this ancient mohalla. The shrine to Sufi saint Hazrat Nizamuddin itself was kind of a delight - I'd hoped to catch the Qawwali singers at dusk but even without that treat, it was an exquisite den of colour and serenity, buried deep in a muddle of narrow alleyways that we followed barefoot along rain-drenched muddy marble floors. It was also movingly impervious and yet tolerant of our presence which is always an unexpected joy in India.






And so to Shimla.

It was Shimla - or rather a small hamlet called Charabra around 20 km outside - in which I spent three months when I was 18 on my first trip here. And funnily enough, I'd never felt much urge to return, despite it's beauty and the seminal impact of my time there. However, it was one of the places Kate was most interested to see and I was very happy to visit again after so long, particularly as it would make such a good contrast with the second week, which we planned to spend a world away in Kerala. We'd hoped to arrive in the quintessential way with the still-ticking toy train of both Raj-era and - more importantly - Dil Se (yes, that again) train-scene fame. Alas, tardy planning and heavy autumnal bookings meant it had to wait until our return journey and we instead flew up out of the plains to Chandigarh and wound our way into the cool mountain air by taxi. 

Rediscovering Shimla was quite dream-like - half-forgotten, I'd already squinted at guidebook maps, trying to square my own hazy memories of distance, layout, favourite spots onto those in front of me. Yet so much came flooding back, even within my first wander up through Lakkar Bazaar and onto the Ridge, as I went from our pre-booked guesthouse for Kate to hunt down budget accommodation for T and I (no mean feet in the Himachal Pradesh capital). Indian families wandering the Mall; kids taking pony-rides slowly up and down the cobbled streets; ice creams everywhere despite the fierce pre-winter chill; Shimla-styling of suit trousers or salwar kameez with woolly jumpers and warm beanie hats pulled on tight; endless promenading and hanging out people-watching, whether crowds of teenagers, honeymooners or old gents of the town. And goodness it was cold - perhaps more so than September Ladakh had felt. Though perhaps it was just the wind rattling through our drafty bedroom at the charming old ramshackle YMCA that overlooks town - and the feeling in Shimla of being perched literally on a ridge, a vertiginous 2200 metre precipice of surreal Little England-on-high; with the foothills rolling down to the plains on one side, and on up to the Himalaya on the other. 

We spent a peaceful few days exploring town: the steep hike up to Jakkhu temple, the old Viceregal Lodge, the state museum - and above all, just strolling the streets and rummaging through the bazaars. Beers in faithful old Himani's - a quintessentially Indian bar (solely populated by men, in pairs or alone, the drinking done in gloomy backrooms far from the respectable streets and served with touching formality by attentive, bewildered uniformed waiters); a masala dosa breakfast in the Indian Coffee House; the first night a celebratory birthday meal in the Oberoi Cecil - Shimla's luxury hotel - with the untold thrills of both a pre-dinner cocktail and wine with dinner. (A vodka martini! In India!!)

It wasn't just the nostalgia which was so compelling for me in coming back - or its unexpectedness, for I'd had few assumptions about returning and had actually been oddly unreflective about it in advance, such that the rush of warmth I felt for the town caught me by surprise It was also the sense of seeing Shimla clearly for the first time; in focus. When I arrived there in 1998, it may as well have been - for all it's anglo-legacy and genteel trappings - another planet. Never having been outside 'the West' before and knowing almost nothing of India, apart from the whim to go there, my immersion for those 3 months came prior to any real context and so I took everything at face value. I that sense I think I missed Shimla's very real eccentricity; it's anomalous character and quirks. 


Because despite what tends to be thought and said of it, Shimla is not 'English' and it never was - even as it came into being as the summer capital of the Raj (even when the capital remained thousands of miles away in Bengal, a detail which had escaped me before). It was, rather, a space of the 'unruly' subcontinent the British made out to cultivate as a corner of England - of English orderliness and temperate domesticity in a vast, extraordinary land which defied British classifications or systems of order. A place where English country flower gardens and stately homes could be tended, the business of a universe could be conducted from a drawing room and where Indians - India itself, really - could be banished from the upper reaches of town, its Ridge and Mall, to the bazaars below. While the hierarchies of power and status are no longer so transparently spatialised, you still descend from the Mall, as you walk around town, into India proper; where wide cobbled walkways give way to narrow, bustling markets, Western-style ice cream parlours morph into sweet shops with rows of gulab jamun and rasgullah and cafes give way to dhabas, tailors and silk shops, spice vendors and stores heaving with cooking equipment and bargain trainers - an original Petticoat Lane.


Shimla is a resort, not just a state capital where people work, sleep and study, but an Indian resort above all. That was a clear and refreshing find about our stay. For all its anglocentricities and heavy imperial legacy, there's seldom a banana pancake or lemon-ginger-honey in sight - and few backpackers to eat or drink them. The town is neither 'British' nor India-doing-British. It is a quaint hybrid, a rather beautiful and strange little world, now thoroughly reclaimed. A stunningly situated little hilltop outpost from which, as signs remind you, around a quarter of the world's population was once ruled. From where in 1947 in the Viceregal Lodge amidst its landscaped gardens on the hill, a deal to butcher the subcontinent in two was struck, a cataclysm as defining and decisive a shift as Independence itself.

And on a much more insignificant scale, it was also the place where I first met India. On our last day we hired a taxi driven by a brilliant guide called Cucky and headed into the surrounding countryside. Reaching Narkanda and driving up to the Hata peak we met with breathtaking vistas and a box-fresh new Durga temple - sitting, of course, next to the original temple where the fearful lady herself still resides within a corrugated iron shed. On our way out we ate one of the stand-out breakfasts of our trip at a roadside snack joint, thanks to Cucky - gigantic puffed up puris and spiced chickpea looking out on the mountains.

And on the way back we stopped in Charabra where I wandered down the village strip, now thronged with textile stores, and up to the school I had stayed in. In Simla my memories have been more tended because they are shared with Kate, another student volunteer teaching in the town: unbeknown to either of us at the time, we would go on to be travel then university buddies, flatmates and ultimately life-long friends, with all kinds of other fortuitous connections and bonds having grown from and around our meeting. But for Charabra, since I lost touch with my co-volunteer, the place and time really has become transposed in just 15 years into a place which exists only in my mind, a parallel plane. And returning was both disarming and powerfully poignant. Like finding out that Narnia really exists. (For example....)

And the monkeys! Again, in my mind's eye I hadn't realised the uniqueness of Shimla's simian population: it's India, but of course monkeys will dart through your window to steal your clothes or grab food from your hand as you walk up to Jakkhu (truly the hill of Hanuman). But having travelled more widely, I can't say I've encountered such monkeys as these anywhere else. All sizes and shapes, hammering on drainpipes, galloping along rooftops, howling and scrapping, nitpicking in the sun and hissing at passers by: it is they who hold Shimla. Empires will rise and fall, partitions will give way to partitions and the tourists change with the season. But these guys will outlast all and they know it well.