MEMORIES OF RANIKHET

It is indeed my privelege to share with everybody, my experiences and exploits of my tour to Ranikhet,where I had been to very recently with two of my very close school friends,Suresh and Shyam to relive the memories of the past. Our journey had started at Kausani one fine morning, travelling down curved roads that twisted around bulging mountains, some mantled with forests, others with terraced mustard fields that rippled yellow like the waves of a golden sea. We passed the occasional truck driver hurtling down the narrow mountain roads; and forded green rivers that were spanned by metal bridges.

Our car zipped down roads bordered with trees daubed in a million shades of green, gold and rust occasionally spiked with the blood red hues of rhododendron flowers. In the distance small hamlets teetered on mountain ridges, seemingly ready to tumble off their precarious perch. Green wheat fields undulated on slim ridges and there was an air of explosive lushness about the landscape. The temple dedicated to Goddess Kali swooned in a grove of mighty deodars. We stumbled upon it on our way to Ranikhet in the Kumaon region of Uttaranchal. We removed our footwear, ascended a few steep steps and came upon a priest clad in saffron who sat in a wheelchair, and seemed to be in a deep trance.
The statue of the goddess in the sanctum was small and was heavily garlanded with bells and gold borders offerings made to the goddess for boons granted. Childless women conceived when they supplicated the Goddess; a sickly child grew strong and robust; unfaithful wives trod the straight and narrow when cuckolded husbands prayed for divine intervention.

We arrived in Ranikhet, located 1,830 m above sea level, encircled by tall pine trees and soaring deodars, commanding views of the Himalayas glistening white in the distance. We discovered after a two-day stay, Ranikhet has the air of a manicured hill station, with wide open spaces, a high altitude golf course and offers the tourist the gift of long walks in the surrounding forests. The Kumaon Regimental Centre dominates the town with its vast lush grounds which also house a museum and a memorial.

For us, the trip to Ranikhet was a walk down memory lane for we were returning to this idyllic corner of the country after a gap of 40 years, having been there as children. And while much had changed, there are parts of Ranikhet that seem to have been bypassed by time. In those days, Ranikhet was the place one went to, to view the Himalayas in their snowy splendour. That was the time when Almora, Binsar, Chaukori and Munsiyari were not part of the traveller's lexicon. In fact, Ranikhet along with Nainital, is part of this extended circuit that offers visitors different views of the Himalayan range.

Accommodation was scarce at the time and we had stayed at a guest house owned and run by an Anglo Indian lady. Each day at the crack of dawn we would sit out in the garden in cane chairs waiting for the first rays of the sun to gild the Himalayas. Our young hearts would pump with excitement even though we watched nature's pyrotechnics every morning ... a slow burst of colour would kiss the distant peaks with pink lipstick till the very heavens seemed to haemorrhage. The sight never failed to fill us with awe.

Forty years later, our early morning sortie into the garden of our hotel fronting the peaks did not yield the glorious vista of yesteryear. The Himalayas chose to play truant and were blanketed in mist. Later that morning we walked in the verdant embrace of the forests around Ranikhet and stumbled on quaint British estates with red sloping roofs and green gardens bordered with flowers of every hue. On our walk, multi-hued birds fluttered overhead in the green forest and deodar trees tall as totems from some pantheon of forest gods vied with the pines to needle the sky.That evening we sat by a crackling fireplace, warming our chilled fingers, revelling in the fact that the weight of history and the rush of modernity had not crushed the spirit of Ranikhet.

Fact file
This is a year-round destination but March to April are good months to visit as also the months of October and November when the snow-mantled peaks preen with unfailing regularity for the visitor. There are lots of excursions that one can embark on, to picnic spots in the area. By way of accommodation, there are the Kumaon Mandal Vikas Nigam properties, Chevron Rosemount Hotel, Trishul Lodge, Majhkhali (on the outskirts of Ranikhet), West View Hotel (in a pine grove) and a number of other options as well.