{"id":749,"date":"2021-01-23T16:51:52","date_gmt":"2021-01-23T16:51:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/?p=749"},"modified":"2021-01-23T16:51:56","modified_gmt":"2021-01-23T16:51:56","slug":"when-we-met-the-deodars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/when-we-met-the-deodars\/","title":{"rendered":"When We Met the Deodars"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Devika Singh<\/em>
Delhi Public School, Sector-45, Gurugram<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The whitewashed house curved like a Spanish dream with green doors and a single wind chime in the veranda. The taxi driver tilted his head back, and I could tell he was quite proud of his homegrown Mussoorie mind maps although I still claim much credit was due to some of the older locals. Even now, as a young adult, I cannot quite believe the charm of such a cottage appealing to one of the world\u2019s most famous authors. But charming it was, with the deodars looking on as dignified faerie sentinels to the house that seemed a most cherished child of earth, far away from the rest of all of us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018How long must I wait?\u2019 the driver now took the whole affair in his prestige, \u201cI haven\u2019t got all day, madam and sir\u2019, this last part directed to my equally flabbergasted parents. Though, all the curiosity of seven whole years, my brother looked at it all as he would at any great monument. All of my spirits seemed to squeal giddy out of my body with every step to the gate and up the stairs. I can remember the door’s exact green because I bored my eyes into it after ringing the bell and when it was swung open by his son, I let my father do the talking. I chimed in with some quips of politeness, but I couldn\u2019t tell you what I\u2019d said any more than I could gather my nerves back then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I\u2019m afraid you\u2019ve caught us on a bad day. He isn\u2019t feeling his best, \u2018said his son, \u2018although he\u2019s humbled that you\u2019ve come from Delhi. I might get you a signature though; do you have a piece of paper?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The little travel journal now sits in my closet, encasing all my childish poetry and whatnots, but a single page was torn out to be glued in my diary. I wondered if the trees had disapproved of my absurdly sudden visit. I wished their family the best and looked at stilted rooftops near Domo\u2019s caf\u00e9 a little differently. Or perhaps, a little more similar to how Ruskin Bond lived it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

*****<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My mother, our designated guide to all the sunset points in Mussoorie, named the next destination to mark the evening’s end. This particular attraction brought on a passionate monologue from our driver. The soliloquy was very welcome if not polished but are not all good things, incredibly joyful when spoken of with careless warmth?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBrilliant choice, madam, Char Dukan is famed for its sunsets and its chai, all the same, you\u2019ll see this great spiralling white structure that kisses the sky but don\u2019t climb it, any of you who may have vertigo; a big, black telescope too but I\u2019m afraid it stopped working some years back. I know the man who owns it, of course. But do you know how it came to be so important at all? Not many people know, I\u2019m sure otherwise I\u2019m sure it\u2019d be more crowded all year round.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mother knew, of course. There was less she didn\u2019t; though she let our self-anointed guide have the honour of shocking us all. My father whipped his head back at us three in the faux leather seats so violently; the ramshackle little black car was veered sideways by the blindsided driver. The commotion was certainly not helped by the seven-year-old screeching at the top of his lungs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSachin Tendulkar? The Sachin Tendulkar? I can\u2019t believe we\u2019re on the road he must\u2019ve driven on.\u201d  \u201cHe spent his childhood around these trees, and that little shop is quite his personal favourite, so take a good look now, all of you.\u201d And so, we did. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The roads were decidedly the same, as were the mountains but the pinecones hung in the air as if mid-song and the trees looked expectant. It was all the same but entirely new all over again. It cannot be d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu if one sees and hears the love of great men echoing off the same cliffs’ valleys. Then beauty cannot be in the eye of the beholder, but rather in lapping thoughts of all whom we meet and admire. Science proclaims your centre of gravity moves with motion and the roads winding uphill atop the green Mussoorie peaks give a heart lurching jump which may be thus explained. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We reached the quaint shop and the telescope, a few meters away from it. It nestled among the clouds but was no different from other beautiful scenic routes I\u2019d seen before. But there was that there, in the easy laughter of the school children and the smiling men and women, the quintessential personality belonging to the ground itself; before that, I associated such silent loudness of a place only in my own beloved Delhi. Mussoorie was, from that moment on, a topsy-turvy labyrinth of hotels, greens and naked rock. It was a shy, new home. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Devika SinghDelhi Public School, Sector-45, Gurugram The whitewashed house curved like a Spanish dream with green doors and a single wind chime in the veranda. The taxi driver tilted his head back, and I could tell he was quite proud of his homegrown Mussoorie mind maps although I still claim much credit was due to some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[243],"class_list":["post-749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-natures-lap","tag-devika"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=749"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":752,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749\/revisions\/752"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}