Mediterranean Maldives

(In one of those rare moments where my working life suddenly becomes all it's cracked up to be, Outlook Traveller magazine sent me to the Maldives for three days -- to review a Club Med resort. This is that piece.)

Trisha Gupta finds an island-wide watering hole to wallow in at Club Med Kani

I’m usually the sort of person whose holidays involve lots of seeing and doing. I’m the museum girl, the city wanderer, the excited jungler. And yes, sure, I love the sea, but I could never get myself to plan a whole vacation around being a beach bum. Until now.

At Club Med Kani, a swim in the sea is the most hectic thing you can do. Actually, no, I should take responsibility for my decadence: it’s the most hectic thing I did.

The tone of my holiday was set on the first morning. After a long and lazy breakfast, I was idling in the sea-facing pool when they announced aqua gym time. I considered the temptations of wa­ter aerobics, but my waiting gin and tonic won out. I swam one last lap quickly and got out, and didn’t get back in for the synchronised pool dancing or the water basketball game that came immediately after. Instead, I moved my deck chair into a carefully orchestrated patch of palm-tree shade and finished the last third of my David Mitchell novel. And more G&Ts, of course.

With a beach bar that opens up at 11 in the morning (and stays open until the action shifts to the evening bar), superb and varied buffet meals, and the gener­ally mellow vibe produced by a calm blue sea, Kani makes decadence seem normal. But Club Med’s all-inclusive vacation style caters just as well to the sporty, active holiday-maker: you’d certainly feel like you’re getting your money’s worth if you’re the type who goes sailing in the morning, snorkelling in the afternoon and kayaking in the evening.

I didn’t sail or go kayaking, but the snorkelling was a revelation. Two snor­kelling trips are conducted every day at Kani, and all you need to do to sign up is a basic swim test. An instructor (often two) accompanies each boatload of snor­kellers to a coral reef (there are over ten different spots in the vicinity) and keeps track of them in the water. I’ve only snor­kelled in India before, in the very shal­low, small stretch around Sindhudurg Fort, on the Konkan coast. I enjoyed that very much, but the reef in the Maldives is something else. I went thrice in three days, and before you ask: no, it doesn’t count as hectic. To float on the surface of a turquoise sea and let your eyes feast on the most spectacular-hued fish below, as the sun warms your back above: it’s as close as I’ve gotten to paradise.

The island itself is also quite lovely: great big bushes of cheerful red ixora act as buffers between one beach villa and another, and the path down to the villas is lined with fragrant frangipani trees, many-coloured hibiscus and multiple kinds of coleus. The beach is the classic palm-fringed variety, the water a perfect temperature and waves in the lagoon almost non-existent. The only thing you might complain about is that the sand isn’t powder-smooth, but I think that would be churlish. I didn’t spot a large variety of birds, though it was fun to watch the white-breasted waterhens chase each other and a solitary grey heron stood sentinel by the poolside for so long that I actually thought it was a life-size sculpture.

As with most Maldivian hotel resorts, at Kani the resort is the island, the island is the resort. Upon arrival, this can bring on the slightly surreal sensation of what I call ‘Hotel-California-ness’—the realisa­tion that unless someone sails or flies you out of there, “you can never leave”. But once you get over that and stop imagining  yourself in some postmodern version of an Agatha Christie desert island where people are going to start dropping off one by one, you could even begin to enjoy the resort’s rather predictable routine: large buffet breakfast, even larger buffet lunch, evening display of suitably tropi­cal cocktails and post-dinner display of artistic talent by Club Med staff, who go by the name of GOs (Gentils Organisa­teurs). And the opportunities for people watching are aplenty. The international beach divides itself neatly into West Europeans and East Asians, one group spreading themselves out en masse to receive the sun, the other swathing themselves in scarves and edging their chairs into the shade. The staff, too, feels truly international, and since GOs are meant to drink, dance and generally hang out with guests, you can actually have conversations with someone of a differ­ent nationality at every meal.

I stayed in one of the 24 beach villas, which are ranked between the more reg­ular rooms and the über-luxurious suites on stilts that are arranged at one end of the island in the shape of a palm tree. The first thing I did when I checked in was to experience that ultimate in ironic resort luxury — a shower open to the sky, with a high wall to protect you from prying eyes. The other highlight of the room for me was the wooden sit-out through which you can access the beach, equipped with its own long chairs and beach umbrella — and most marvellously thoughtful of all, a large earthen pot of water placed there with a coconut-shell ladle, to wash sand off your feet before you enter your room.

On my third and last evening, I signed up for something I’d never done before: a Balinese massage. Run by the Mandara chain that owns Balinese spas across the world, the spa at Kani is a calming space, with water gurgling gently into a little pool and therapeu­tic herbal smells wafting out of the curtained cubicles. The masseuse of­fered me a choice of four oils, dabbing my hand with them in turn. The one I picked turned out to be called Island Spice: a soyabean-oil base infused with ginger, clove and nutmeg, which I was told was a warming oil, good for ener­gising sore muscles. After being slowly kneaded with it for fifty minutes, my body felt both energised and perfectly relaxed. It was in a happy haze that I arrived at the open-air Kandu Bar for my sundowner. I spent another hypnotic hour or so enjoying Kandu’s most fantastic feature: a light cast into the water that turns the sea around you into an open-air aquarium. By the time the evening’s stage show rolled around, I was ready to roll into bed. After all, it had been a hectic three days.

  

The information

Location Club Med Kanifinolhu, North Malé Atoll; 35 minutes by speedboat from Malé airport

Accommodation 117 Superior rooms, 24 Beach Villas and 75 Lagoon Suites (also called Suites-on-Stilts)

Tariff Per person for 3 nights: $748 (superior room), $1202 (beach villa), $1634 (lagoon suite)

Contact +960-6643152, clubmed.co.in

Published in Outlook Traveller magazine, June 2014. 

Hotel Review: Amber Vermont Estate, Mussoorie

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Sleepy Hollow

Nestle-up in the Himalayan mountains in the beautifully serene rooms of the Amber Vermont Estate.

Neither bustling Dehra Dun, where we arrive by train from Delhi, nor the winding drive up through Mussoorie town, chock-a-block with hotels, leads us to expect the startling peace of the Amber, Vermont Estate. Barely 10 minutes’ drive up from the Mall, we find ourselves walking down a pebbled outer courtyard, the only sound that of stones crunching underfoot.

The hotel’s sloping green roofs sit serenely atop three separate blocks of rooms, all with glorious views of the Happy Valley. The older block, with three deluxe rooms and a luxurious suite that opens out into the flower-filled back garden, also houses a poolroom, a TV room, a private dining room and a chic but comfortable lobby. This block, we are told, retains much of the original structure, with the wooden panelled walls and some of the lovelier old pieces of furniture restored to perfection, but the rooms (apart from the suite) are usually reserved for the owner’s special guests. We are given a first floor room in the new block, a contemporary stone-and-wood structure built on the site of the old servants’ quarters. Fortified by a luxurious hot shower and a hearty breakfast of aloo and paneer paranthas with pickle and dahi, we deliberate the prospect of a walk, but are defeated by the combination of approaching rain and an irresistibly cosy room: wooden floors, a warm bed and a glass-walled balcony through which you can see the mountains whenever they choose to reappear through the fog.

Every room at the Vermont gets its own balcony, which is priceless. But the high point of the five-acre property is undeniably the Deck: an open area adjoining the lobby where guests are welcome to dine, read or just gaze into the distance, watching the mist slowly wrap itself around the mountains, or listening to the langurs chatter in the trees. There is a dining table for four, a space for low seating, as well as two reclining chairs.

A post-breakfast siesta is followed by lunch on the Deck, after which we are driven down to Mussoorie town (the hotel provides a very welcome shuttle service to and from Library Chowk). We walk first along the picturesque Camel’s Back Road, and then along the length of the Mall, stopping to look at the wrought iron bus stops, the tired ponies lined up for potential tourists to ride. It is off-season, though, and no hordes of cantering children appear. Business is slow in general, whether for ponies or cable cars, or the many photographers offering to capture couples at ‘Bunty-Babli Point’ — which turns out to be outside the Continental Hotel, where Abhishek Bachchan and Rani Mukherjee are shown conning a hotel owner in the 2005 film.

We return to the hotel, where off-season manages to seem like a quiet state of readiness rather than despair or desperation. Yes, the spa is still being built, the regular chauffeur is unavailable and the continental chef has decided to take a holiday, but things seem entirely under control. The brisk and cheerful general manager doubles up to drive guests to town and the waiters volunteer desi alternatives to the western-style snacks we ask for (wonderfully crisp paneer pakoras). The service is slightly slow, but always courteous and mostly thoughtful — though someone needs to take care of the little things, like remembering to provide a strainer on the tea tray, and a tea cosy to ensure that the tea doesn’t get cold by the time it’s found its way up to the guests. The food itself is good: carefully prepared, non-greasy and spiced mildly enough to cater to the most sensitive palate. I recommend the tandoori platter, as well as the Kashmiri rogan josh with home-style tawa rotis. (Oh, and the gulab jamuns.) There isn’t any alcohol available, though the manager suggested he would arrange to have some bought in town if we wanted.

When it isn’t pouring, you can drive up to atmospheric Cloud’s End, among the oldest estates in the area, which seems less like a functioning hotel and more like a museum to Mussoorie past, with its tiger skins and sepia-toned pictures of the Mall and Kulri Bazaar. You could also spend a day in nearby Landour, visiting the old St Paul’s Church, the cemetery or, if you’re lucky, Ruskin Bond’s house. But if you end up at the Vermont in the middle of the monsoon, as we did, there are going to be long stretches of rain during which you can do not much except eat, drink, read, sleep — or watch TV. I watched more TV in two-and-a-half days than I have in a whole year. I also read half a biography of Samuel Pepys, feeling a strange link to foggy London as I sat in my cloud-sheathed balcony, watching the rain come down in sheets. And yet, life seemed to move much faster in 17th-century London than it did at the Vermont. How often does a contemporary holiday offer you such stillness?

The Information
* Location Hathi Paon Road, Mussoorie
* Accommodation 12 deluxe double rooms and one deluxe suite
* Tariff Rs 6,500 (rooms), Rs 13,000 (suite). Includes breakfast and dinner. Valid till last weekend of September. High-season tariff: Rs 8,500 (rooms), Rs 15,000 (suite)
* Contact 0135-2630202; www.theamber.in

High Table: Food in Manali

'Tourist Food' takes on many wonderful avatars in Old Manali.

(Click on the link above to see this piece with Sanjoy Ghosh's delicious pictures)

What cuisine did they have here? In Manali? Oh, nothing!” Mr Sud waves his right hand dismissively. “They were uncivilised, jaahil people. And anyway it was too cold for anything to grow here. Isn’t that so?” He looks for confirmation at his headwaiter, who nods gravely. Neither Mr Sud or his headwaiter—both of Mayur Restaurant on Old Mission Road—are from Kullu, the mountainous district of which Manali is part. The two men from Kangra confer briefly over whether there’s such a thing as local Manali food. A long description of something called phamra follows, in which an elderly British woman sitting at the next table actively joins. It’s a breakfast dish, apparently, involving a small-grained local dal called baat, a red millet called sil, and a leafy vegetable called sukhi saag, which grows in sub-zero temperatures, all simmered together for several hours. Just when we’re beginning to get our hopes up, though, he brings the topic unceremoniously to a close. “But nowadays you won’t find it anywhere. Not in town, anyway. The locals think that’s peasant food.” The old restaurant owner quakes with silent laughter. “They all eat tourist food now.”

Tourist food. It’s a term that one might think conveys nothing at all, but in fact it’s surprisingly descriptive. In India, at least, it conjures up a vision of pasta in white sauce (usually stodgy), chocolate banana pancakes (definitely stodgier) and mango lassi (often stodgiest) in an uninterrupted chain all the way from Kovalam to Pushkar.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m as fond of chocolate banana pancakes as the next Indian-tourist-adventurously-following-firang-backpacker-trail, and when I last passed through Manali on my way to Spiti in July 2006, I ate more than my fair share. Four years later, though, I’m back in town to find out if having a food-centric holiday in Manali is possible without entirely clogging one’s intestines with maida.

So, of course, the first thing I order is pancakes.

We’ve driven into Manali on a sunny April morning, ravenous after a 13-hour drive whose high points have not been culinary (though insanely sweet dhaba chai at 4am can assume an epic quality when you’ve finally found the right road to Ropar). An hour after Kullu, our nostrils are reluctantly letting go of the fragrant damp smell of pine forest when New Manali begins to sprawl around us, its uniformly squat ugliness relieved only by an explosion of signage: ‘Gujarati Thali, Marwari Thali.’ ‘Shere Punjab.’ ‘Kalinga Restaurant.’ ‘Madras Hotel.’ ‘Delhi Chaat Bhandaar.’ ‘Annapurna Bengali Restaurant.’ As the road curves up to Old Manali, the national diversity display of the honeymoon hill-station gives way to an exhibition of bohemian tourist fashion, interspersed with budget hotels in all shapes and sizes.

The sunny first floor balcony that serves as the outdoor café of Drifters’ Inn (10am-midnight; 98050-33127) looks out over the Old Manali bazaar. You can also look up, up and away for a glorious view of sky and snow-capped peaks. Once the food arrives, though, there’s no looking anywhere else. The chicken stroganoff (Rs 220) is a bit heavy, though the creamy sauce with bell peppers and mushrooms will please those with a taste for Raj-style comfort food.

Our other main course is even more directly Raj: a whole Manali trout served with boiled vegetables and plain white rice (Rs 280). British anglers introduced brown and rainbow trout into the Beas in the early 1900s. A cousin of salmon, trout thrives in icy cold mountain streams. An abundance of wild trout still draws anglers to Manali, but the government is keen to up commercial cultivation. In 2009, there were 81 trout farms in Himachal Pradesh, with production slated to cross 100 tonnes by the end of the year.

The trout is grilled to garlicky perfection, but it’s the buttermilk pancakes (Rs 90) that steal the show: two perfect golden discs generously smeared with butter and maple syrup. The 32-year-old Nishant Singh, who runs Drifters’, tells me he has only recently switched to thick American-style pancakes. As I gratefully put away my second pancake, satisfyingly solid and gloriously fluffy at the same time, I ask why. “Because my menu is for a cosmopolitan crowd,” says Nishant. “Not the typical hippie tourist.” It’s a revealing answer. A Mumbai-based brand manager with Vodafone who decided that what he really wanted was to run a hotel in the hills, Nishant is equal parts dreamer and businessman.

He’s also part of an ongoing process: as Old Manali becomes more popular with North Americans, Europeans and upper middle class Indians, it has less of the doped-out hippie haven about it. Israelis, while still the largest single nationality among Manali tourists, have reduced in absolute numbers and as a proportion of the tourist population. Correspondingly, Israeli food, ubiquitous until two or three years ago, is less so now. You can still find it easily enough, at older budget places like Dragon Restaurant (7.30am-midnight; 01902-252790), where among others, there’s an ‘Israeli breakfast’ of pita, hummus, chips and salad (Rs 80), shakshuka (a spicy fried egg sandwich, Rs 90) and herbed zatar bread listed as ‘jatar naan’. The decent hummus (Rs 80) comes with a plate of fluffy pita that’s a lot like naan (“naan-like pita, pita-like naan,” agrees the genial waiter).

But newer establishments are making a statement by having sophisticated, highly selective menus rather than catch-all lists—and not including Israeli items. Other than Drifters’, there’s the Lazy Dog Lounge (10am-11pm; 254277), set up in 2008 by the spiky-haired Gopal, a chatty 30-something Delhi boy who abandoned a 15-year career as a television producer to do this. If it’s a cold evening, the cosy wood-panelled interior is the place to try their classic rosemary grilled chicken (Rs 170) or the more quixotic pineapple fried rice (Rs 170). But if the sun is out, get a table in the rocky outcrop of a garden out back and watch the Beas roar spectacularly past below you. The bibimkuksoo (Rs 130)—chilled noodles, thinly sliced vegetables and boiled egg, with a Korean hot sauce on the side—is served with ice cubes to keep the noodles cold and is fabulously refreshing on a warm afternoon.

The other hot-weather speciality here is the Vietnamese fresh spring roll (Rs 120)—a delicate rice flour parcel packed with chicken and slivers of carrot and cabbage, with a Thai sweet-chilli sauce. The veggie version (Rs 100) is almost as good.

The transformation of Manali’s culinary experience from generic ‘tourist food’ to a variety of specialised cuisines owes a great deal to the non-local who settles in Manali and decides to make a living selling his or her kind of food. Gopal’s Korean partner has much to do with the Southeast Asia-inflected menu at Lazy Dog.

That night, we follow the Korean food trail to Yun Café, a lovely old Himachali wooden house run as a restaurant by a local man and his Korean wife. There is traditional low seating all along the creaky wooden balcony, but it’s cold outside so we decide to move inside and warm ourselves, first with some splendidly potent soju (Rs 250 for 200ml) and then miyeokguk baekban (Rs 130), a flavourful soup full of dark green seaweed, which comes with white rice and four side dishes (the fried zucchini is superb). The tangy bibimbap (Rs 150) is a satisfying one-dish meal, as is the dongas (Rs 180), a fried pork cutlet in a sweetish sauce that’s a lot like the Japanese katsu-don. If it’s the trout trail you want to follow, try the maeuntang (Rs 250), a spicy Korean fish soup given a local twist with Manali trout.

The oldest and best-known of these establishments owned by non-locals is the Italian restaurant and pizzeria Il Forno (12.30pm-10.30pm; 9816922481). Located on a picturesque bit of hillside on the way up to the Hadimba Temple, Il Forno, too, runs out of an old wooden Himachali house. Paolo, a small man with wispy hair and a nervous energy that makes him seem a little like the White Rabbit, started it in 1995 with his wife Roberta, when the USP was (as it still is on the card) ‘Imported Ingredients Italian Chef’. Today, much of what they use is local, and the acting chef is a Nepali who’s trained with them for 15 years.

The saffron mushroom risotto (Rs 210, but you can’t order less than two plates) is fragrant and flavourful and creamy without being too dense. The chicken escalope with lime and brandy sauce (Rs 240) is succulent and perfectly marinated, though one finds oneself wishing it were veal. The wood fire-oven-baked pizzas are, without exception, superb, though my pick is the ham and mushroom pizza (Rs 230). Do not leave without dessert—the tiramisu (Rs 90) is moist and lovely, but for sheer decadence you can’t beat the fiametta (Rs 50): a large disc of biscuit, with a huge dollop of dense chocolate mousse atop it.

Of course, the authenticity of a restaurant’s food doesn’t always depend on the owners being born into the cuisine. Il Forno and its Nepali chef are paralleled by Pizza Olive and its Tibetan owners/cooks. An atmospheric little place in a garden set back from the road, Pizza Olive (9am-11pm; 9816191541) serves high quality pastas and pizzas. Then there’s People Café (10.30am-11pm; no phone), a family-run Russian establishment whose Russian items can be terrible—give the fish salad a wide berth. The food is otherwise unremarkable, but the ambience is cheerful and welcoming, with guests given crayons and invited to draw something for the wall collage.

My search for ‘local food’ has gone nowhere since my lunchtime conversation with Mr Sud at Mayur (8am-11pm; 252316). His restaurant’s perfectly executed aloo palda (Rs 70), potatoes in a light but somehow creamy yoghurt gravy, and the excellent sepu bada (Rs 80), dumplings made from a combination of soaked chane ki dal and mah ki dal and cooked in spinach with fennel and garam masala, are adapted from Mr Sud’s family recipes—which means that they are from further south in Himachal.

The sleepy and bureaucratic staff at the Kunzum Hotel (253197) say the Himachali food on their menu would need to be pre-ordered a day in advance. I say, fine. They look a little alarmed at my persistence, and now say it would need to be paid for in advance as well. I laugh, but don’t call them.

My final meal is at the magnificently laid-out Johnson’s Café (8am-11pm; 253764). Touted as Manali’s first trout speciality restaurant, it certainly has the largest range of trout dishes in town—from tandoori trout with kachumber and apple chutney (Rs 300) to wood oven-baked trout fillet with sage and butter sauce (Rs 350), not to mention Jimmy’s crispy fried trout with green apple salad and chutney (Rs 300). The eclectic menu displays a mix of culinary influences, but with a focus on fresh ingredients and an inventive use of local produce, like trout—and also Himachali apples. Try, for example, the rucola, apple and parmesan salad (Rs 160), with the rich, mellow flavour of the parmesan beautifully set off by the crisp tartness of the apple.

Just when we’re about to leave, we discover the Manali local trout curry thali (Rs 350)—a stellar meal of red rice called ukhara chawal, a lovely local green called madara palak, paneer ki sabzi and a large bowl of flavourful trout in a wonderfully full-bodied haldi-mirch-dhania gravy. As I mop up the last of the famed local lingri fern pickle with a superb fermented local flatbread called bhaturu, I think to myself, if this is tourist food, I’m glad to be a tourist.l

And there was more

Dylan’s Roasted and Toasted Started in 2006 by Rajan Nalwa with two friends (who went back to Israel the next year), this relaxed outdoorsy space serves a variety of well-made coffees (Turkish, Rs 40; French Press, Rs 60), melt-in-the-mouth chocolate chip cookies (Rs 20 each) and perfectly good snacks (cheese and olive toast, Rs 70). Dylan’s rapid cult following got them an invite to run the café at Israeli House in North Goa in 2007. There is now a branch in Arambol. It’s a true travellers’ café, with even the signature Bob Dylan mural attributed to the collective efforts of tourists down the years — when we went, there were two English girls adding their own touch. 8am-11pm; 9816054041

English Bakery and German Bakery Several different shops that attempt to distinguish their wares from each other along imagined national lines, but sell more or less the same cakes and pastries. Try the gloriously decadent bhagsu cake (Rs 30): a layer of pure, buttery chocolate set atop a biscuity base and chilled.

Shesh Besh This ageing hangout advertises itself as a “Fresh and Funky Restaurant”. The outdoor seating area is lit with low, hanging lamps by night and has a relaxed vibe that makes it popular with all kinds of visitors. The owners have a bit of a Mickey Mouse fixation: there’s a large Mickey Mouse illustration on a board propped up at the back, and every bill comes with a painstakingly drawn Mickey Mouse face with the words, “Keep Smiling, Stay Happy”. 9am till late; 9882337320

Open Hand Café A newly-opened outlet of the sophisticated café chain that opened in Varanasi and also has two branches in Delhi (in Paharganj and at the American School). Run by a South African partnership, which decided that selling Indian-made home furnishings to tourists would be made easier if they had their own cafés-cum-display showrooms. They sell high quality coffee, cakes and sandwiches, with a few carefully chosen South African dishes like bobotie (spiced minced meat baked with egg topping, Rs 180) and sosatie (grilled marinated meat with apricots, Rs 220). 8.30am till late; 9871909777, www.openhandonline.com

NEW MANALI
New Manali is generally filled with eateries that cater to middle class Indian tourists who’re used to their own kind of food and might wish to avoid culinary adventures. Often the owner is local, someone who used to serve standard North Indian restaurant fare until he realised that there was a niche market for Gujarati food, or Bengali food, or whatever. The Himachali owner of Himalayan Dhaba (9am-11pm; 9418719313) reels off his eatery’s Bengali options (rui maachh thali, Rs 70) at top speed and with accurate pronunciation, then reveals he has had a Bengali chef for 10 years. Aashiana Family Restaurant (7.30am-11pm; 252232) serves a Gujarati thali (arhar dal, aloo tamatar, seasonal vegetable, rice and two tawa rotis for Rs 99). The addition of khichdi, karhi, papad and a gulab jamun makes it a special thali (Rs 150).

There are also such long-serving standards as Chopsticks, an extremely popular Tibetan-Chinese restaurant, known for its superb momos and large portions (The Mall; 11am-11pm, 252639) and Khyber (The Mall; 11am-11pm), which does a good job with North Indian non-vegetarian staples and serves Himachali fruit wines as well.

Published in Outlook Traveller magazine, May 2010.

Kasauli: Wintering Grounds

A piece for Outlook Traveller, on finding warmth in a Kasauli winter. 

"If you had come to buy these same gloves a week ago, they would have cost you Rs 90,” announces the woman, holding out a pair of black gloves with a wavy pattern in grey. Perhaps I appear puzzled, because she looks at me with the air of one explaining something to a very stupid child. “Because it was snowing, madam. You couldn’t take your hands out of your pockets even to pick up a cup of tea, without these. But now the sun is out, so...,” she trails off half-heartedly.

With minimal bargaining, we acquire two cheery woollen caps and three pairs of gloves: two black-and-grey ‘Chinese’ ones, one bright blue and hand-knitted. Once breathing into our cupped hands is no longer necessary, we return to our slow amble down the cobblestoned market street that does so much to maintain Kasauli’s reputation as North India’s best-known hill-station-in-a-time-warp.

Family friends and websites alike have told me that Kasauli has “a British colonial feel”, so I’m expecting the cobbled road, gabled roofs and potted geraniums, and even the sight of bread and butter pudding on the Hotel Alasia menu doesn’t surprise me. But it’s the angrez-style weather talk that catches me unawares. “Kaise ho, aunty?” calls a young woman to a sari-clad lady. “Kya thandi hawa chal rahi hai na?” A hotel waiter describes in unsolicited, sorrowful detail at exactly what hour of evening the wind will start to blow, and when a slippery frost will form on the road. 

Later that afternoon, when Father Ashanand, the gentle young priest who’s just been posted to Kasauli’s old Anglican church, excitedly shows us a musically-annotated video recording of last weekend’s snowstorm on his cellphone, I’m convinced. In Kasauli, the weather is the only news. 

To give Kasauliwallahs some credit, though, winter here does have many shades. It can be wet and windy, grey and gloomy, or as crisp and golden as a crunchy slice of toast. We have good luck—it’s a bleak, grey morning when we arrive, but two almost-toasty days follow. The wind stays sharp as a whiplash, but the sun warms your back as soon as you’re out of the shadows. “Arrey, madam, I can’t tell you how lucky you are,” gushes Aruna, who helps run the reception (and much else) at Ros Common, the Himachal Tourism hotel where we’re staying. “It was raining, then it was snowing. Grey, then white, then grey again—no blue sky. We’ve been aching to see this for two months!” ‘This’ is pronounced while waving expansively in the direction of a semi-circle of snow-clad peaks that seems almost to surround us as we sit in the semi-paved garden of the restored colonial bungalow. I’ve never been much of an enthusiast for mountain views, but this is simply stunning.

Aruna points out the Dhauladhar range and the famous peak called Choor Chandni, all the while providing tidbits about Ros Common’s previous lives. “This used to be a girls’ school, and then a CID office. The hotel started in 1983. I first came here from Shimla with my uncle, in 1987—it was my first posting. There was none of this cement and paving then, it was a garden: a mass of creepers, and roses and ghadi phool (they look just like the dial of a watch) growing all over the roof. I just took one look at it, and at this view, and fell in love. I’ve been here ever since,” she laughs. The old mali responsible for that glorious garden retired a few years ago, and the riot of life and colour has since receded into a more subdued, matronly existence: black wrought-iron chairs and tables, with only the odd yellow cosmos peeking through. “Lots of things have changed here, even though we tried to preserve everything,” muses a pensive Aruna. “This was built as a private house with interconnected rooms, but we walled up the doors—guests complained about the sound travelling. We replaced the old wood pelmets with curtain rods, but they keep falling off—today’s nails don’t stick in these walls!”

Kasauli has many buildings dating back to the 19th century, though they’ve been through several incarnations since. The imposing grey stone structure of the Protestant Christ Church was erected in the 1840s, and although the fittings were redone over the next 50 years, a lot of the woodwork—the pews, the gallery and the altar—is very old. (There’s also the stone engraving of the Ten Commandments, whose sonorous magic can only be absorbed by reading them aloud when you’re there.) The Lady Linlithgow Sanatorium for tuberculosis patients is now the Research and Training Wing of the Central Research Institute. The Kasauli Club was founded as the Kasauli Reading and Assembly Rooms in 1880, while the twin hotels now known as Maurice and Maidens began life in the 19th century as the Kasauli Hotel and Hotel Grand. The faintly seedy Kalyan Hotel used to be Kali Charan and Sons, a fancy store which stocked French wines, Scotch whiskies, Swiss dry fruits and British cakes and cookies. All that remains of the original owners is the statue of a black cocker spaniel outside, presumably the likeness of a loved pet.

*** The old may not have stayed unaltered, but not much that’s new is allowed in. The town is administered by a half-military Cantonment Board, which is fairly strict about what it permits. “Construction is not banned entirely, but new properties are not allowed. If you have existing property that you want to build upon, you have to submit a plan of the proposed changes, and a maximum of 10-15 percent increase is allowed,” explains old Mr Gupta, who’s been running Gupta Brothers, Kasauli’s most well-stocked all-purpose store since 1978, and was once elected Vice President of the Cantonment Board. “You see, there are more than 60 bungalows owned by really big guns. And they don’t want anyone new to come in.” Mr Gupta is still smiling sadly when a burly gentleman in the store jumps into the fray. “Hah! All these folk supported the British and got a knighthood,” he smirks, “They don’t want anyone else to get a piece of the pie. The idle rich, y’know, they don’t want the hoi polloi around.” It’s certainly incredible how many recognisable names from Delhi and Punjab own summer homes in Kasauli. There are the khandani rayees—like Khushwant Singh, whose house is inscribed with the name of his grandfather, Teja Singh Malik; the army-wallahs—a host of generals and brigadiers too numerous to name; the artist-intellectuals—like painter Vivan Sundaram (who recently lent his house to actor Pankaj Kapur when Kapur had trouble finding a place to stay); not to mention doctors and lawyers. More recent arrivals—politicians and cricketers— have to settle for what they can get: a mansion, but outside the town. Surjeet Singh Barnala’s massive estate is on the way down to Parwanoo, while Yuvraj Singh is building his home in Jagjit Nagar, 8km away. The other source of visitors to Kasauli are the nearby boarding schools—earlier Lawrence School, Sanawar, but now several others. “People come to get their kids admitted, then later to visit them,” says Jai Kishan Thakur of Daily Needs. Thakur and his son Akhilesh are the third and fourth generation to run this popular shop, still remembered for its ham sandwiches and hamburgers by nostalgic old Sanawarians. “Earlier the kids used to come down every Sunday. But recently there have been problems—too much money, drinking, misbehaving with elders. Now students are allowed just one or two trips monthly, and then too accompanied by their teachers,” rues Thakur. New Sanawarians may have been partially barred from the town, but plenty of the old ones can be found looking down from the walls of Sharma’s Photography Studio. A curly-haired, impish Pooja Bedi (next to her mother Protima) shares space with an impossibly young Maneka Gandhi and an equally unlined Sanjay Dutt. There are also gorgeous portraits of Farooq Sheikh and Deepa Sahi, though it’s only when I see Shah Rukh Khan circa 1990 that I realise why they’re together here. “Yes, Maya Memsaab was shot here,” smiles Mr Sharma. “That house at the corner, opposite the church, was Maya’s house. And Paresh Rawal was the dukandar of the shop next door.” I summon up my memory of Ketan Mehta’s film, and it’s true, it’s all echoing streets and swirling mists. The mists are missing, but this is certainly the same place, in the same season. We walk all the way up the Upper Mall without meeting anyone except the crotchety old Sikh gentleman who guards the entrance to the Kasauli Club. There’s no sign of students (rowdy or otherwise), or parents, or even the odd brigadier walking his dog. Best of all, there seem to be barely any other tourists—except on the obligatory but pointless trek up to Monkey Point, where a whole busload of college girls were being shepherded along. We see no tourists in two days. But we decide to spend the third morning in even more splendid isolation—walking along Gilbert Trail, a pine-fringed hill path that veers off the tarred road just above the Army Holiday Home. I tread carefully, imagining some memsahib a century ago walking the same path. We walk for two blissful hours without meeting a soul, listening to the wind whistle in the pines. Maybe, I say to myself, Mr Thakur at Daily Needs has a point—“Yeh badal jayega toh phir Kasauli nahi rahega!” THE INFORMATION: GETTING THERE  BY TRAIN Your best options are the Kalka Shatabdi, or the Kalka Mail. From Kalka, the fastest way to get to Kasauli is by road—one hour on a bus, or an overpriced taxi (Rs 700-800). A more picturesque option is to take the Kalka-Shimla ‘toy train’ till Dharampur, from where you can hop on a local bus for the remaining 12 km to Kasauli (Rs 8).  BY ROAD Kasauli is a comfortable 6hr drive from Delhi (325km). WHERE TO STAY Hotel Ros Common (Rs 1,550-2,350; 01792-272005) is a lovely old bungalow converted into a comfortable six-room hotel by the HPTDC. Glorious view, laidback but friendly service, and great chicken sizzlers. Hotel Alasia (Rs 1,650; 272008) is old and atmospheric, though the lawn looks rather sorry for itself and the old games room hasn’t recovered from a fire a few years ago. There’s an almost-Victorian carpeted lounge complete with a piano, and functioning fireplaces in some rooms. Hotel Anchal (Rs 400-1,200; 272542) is located at the end of the Lower Mall, Anchal and its competitor Gian provide options for budget travellers. Basic, clean rooms with attached baths. The incredible ‘family suite’ sleeps eight and has its own balcony overlooking the valley.

WHAT TO EAT Eat a bun-sum (a hot samosa stuffed in a bun) at Narender Singh’s shop in the bazaar. If you’re feeling intrepid, try his other ‘special item’—bun-gulab jamun (“Woh jam jaisa ho jata hai,” offers its inventor). Try the Daily Needs burger, with its peppery ham and perfectly toasted caraway-strewn bun (tell them to go easy on the ketchup). Definitely stop by the chai shop at the end of the bazaar for a plate of pakoras in the evening—superb by any standards.

First published in Outlook Traveller, March 2008 issue