The peace, tranquility and cleanliness almost slams my senses as soon as we cross the green and yellow gateway of the Kumaon Regiment Centre (KRC) into Ranikhet. The ethereal beauty with a majestic deodhar (perhaps the first on the 9 hour drive from Delhi) to our left welcomes us in. Since the time the Britishers discovered this celestial piece of earth to the outside world, the ambience of the place seems almost unchanged. Norman Troupe, who built his homestead, Holm Farm, here, would probably agree, a 130 years later. His estate, now converted into a heritage hotel, maintaining its olde worlde charm, still stands atop a hill surrounded by coniferous forests.
Aah, no hustle-bustle of a busy hill station. No touts offering the best accommodation bargain in town, or cajoling us to book a sightseeing tour for the morrow, or offering to escort us to ‘sunset point’ or ‘himalayan point’ in the evening. When did you need to hold another hand to discover nature in all its purity and grandeur? I don’t want this 14 km drive from Ranikhet to Majhkhali, to end. All thoughts of reaching our destination before dark vanish. Had we not already ‘arrived’?
My eyes rove through pines ringing verdant meadows (to later discover that it is a golf course), wooded slopes of stately deodhars standing sentinel to the winding mountain road. As the car negotiates a bend, a silver streak hits the sky. With a sharp intake of breath I slowly brake, bringing the vehicle to a smooth stop, almost guilty for the noise the engine was making.The romance of Ranikhet keeps unfolding. We stop to admire an old church only to discover that it is now a factory, with the war widows of the KRC operating looms to knit Australian Merino wool into shawls with ethnic patterns. At another place, a winding path into the forest brings us to ‘Carpentree’, a workshop where Kumaoni youth are engaged in making designer furniture, of legally felled pines, deodhars, surai. Employed are contemporary design and traditional techniques of solid wood craftsmanship and also the likhai craft – decorative wood carving that goes into ornate doors, beams and pillThank you, city stresses, that I find all this so very magical!