All of us felt so glad when the huge
building loomed up before us. The tiring steep climb had drained us completely. It really looked grand in its expanse and size,
just like its name- Hotel Grand. Overlooking the famed Mall Road, it gave a
beautiful view of the verdant Shimla hills. Full of giant chinaar and deodars trees, the
hotel had put up boards warning the guests not to entertain monkeys which were
there in the premises in large numbers. After settling in the huge suite we decided to
roam out. A nice cup of tea was what we
required to energize us. The hotel one
had been tepid and tasteless.
As one descended the hotel complex,
the immediate street below was lined with small kiosks with a varied fare.
Having a penchant for exploring foods typical of a place, I find the street
side and the unbranded eateries the best for it. The fact is that even a simple
thing as aloo paratha tastes differently in the different parts of the
country. Our eyes however searched for
a tea-stall, and there was one, a few steps away.
The sixty year something shopkeeper
welcomed us with a smile. Warmth oozed out as he lovingly asked- ‘Tea? The parathas
are not yet ready. I am going to knead dough for them.’ ‘Yes, two cups of tea’, I said. The kids had
their chips packets to munch on.
A large wooden box with an aluminum
sheet top doubled up both as a store and a kitchen countertop. There was a
kerosene pressure stove on the side. A
big aluminum bhagauna with milk in it, a pan for preparing tea, a
rolling pin and, an iron griddle for frying parathas stood on the
countertop. On the side were a few
plastic jars with eatables like freshly prepared mathri, a few disposable paper cups
and glasses for serving tea and, a weighing scale. But the most interesting thing along with
these things was a gun and a sling shot!
‘Why this?’ I asked pointing to the
gun. ‘Is it a toy?’
‘No babu’, he replied as he grated
ginger to put in the tea-pan. ‘It isn’t a toy-gun. It shoots rubber pellets. This
is to scare the monkeys away if they don’t stay away with the sling shot.’
We could hear the shrill cries of the
monkeys as they ran, played and fought among themselves on the corrugated roofs
of the nearby buildings and the hotel above.
‘There’s one’, my younger son said pointing to one lurking behind a huge
deodar tree on the mountain side at the back of the tea stall owner... He picked up the gun and gave it to my son. ‘Take
this and point it towards it’, he said. ‘It has no pellets in it because having
had the taste of this earlier, now they scamper away by the mere sight of this
gun’, he laughed. And true! As soon as
the monkey saw the gun it immediately leapt away.
The tea was nice and endearing and so
was the ambience. We became its regular
for the next few days of our sojourn.
It was the third day of our stay.
Early morning. The quiet of the place
broken only by the sounds of the swaying branches of the cedar and poplar in
the mountain winds, twitter of the birds and, the screech of the monkeys. The
hills were waking up for work, while the tourist, perhaps, still enjoying the
languor of their warm beds. My wife and
I were sitting on a makeshift bench, a plank of wood resting on two rocks,
waiting for our tea as the stove was being pumped to be lit. The shop had
already been spruced up for the day. The
distant hills were draped in mist. The Shimla railway station was visible and
we could see an engine coughing up puffs of smoke and sounding its horn as it
lunged with all its strength. Soon the morning trains from Kalka would be
chugging in and I could imagine the porters on the platform waiting anxiously
for the passengers to strap their heavy luggage on their back and bring them up
the steep mountain-roads.
A group of about six people suddenly
descended on the stall. They all had
their luggage with them and I could gather from their talk that they were on
their way down to board their train.
‘Can we have tea?’ one of them said.
‘Yes of course’, the shop-owner
replied. ‘Give me a moment. I am already preparing for those two persons. I’ll
make fresh tea for you all after this’.
‘We are in a hurry', he said
impatiently and looked around, perhaps to see if there was any other tea stall
nearby. Unfortunately there wasn’t.
‘We will wait. Please serve them
first ‘, I said to the shop owner from my perch. I thought they had their train to catch;
besides I was enjoying myself, immersed in my surroundings and I could wait in
that serenity forever.
They were served their tea and I
busied myself again in the quietude as our tea was getting prepared.
My reverie was broken by a slight
commotion. The shop keeper was holding a
note of rupees 500 and was asking for a smaller denomination note. None in the
party seemed to have a smaller note than that.
The shop owner said that it was early morning and they were the first
customers of the day, so how could he have change for that big amount of money.
But finding them adamant he started rummaging in every nook and cranny. Finally
he could muster the required change in various denomination notes and some
coins.
The young man painstakingly
counted it and then remarked- ‘It’s one
rupee less’. The shop owner asked him to take that one rupee later in the day
because he didn’t have it at the moment. ‘But I am going to board the train’,
he replied. And then suddenly a coin lurking behind the stove caught the shop
owner’s eye and he gave it to him.
It was later in the afternoon that we
again got a chance to go to the stall. We were done for the day a little too
early in our sightseeing and decided to get back to our hotel to rest. Climbing up the hill, a nice cup of tea was
the thing we desired. The shop was empty of customers and instead of the
elderly gentleman we were wont to see there was an elderly lady with that same
warm smile spread all over the creases on her chubby face.
‘Yes?’ she asked affectionately. ‘Tea
for the two of us’, my wife said. ‘Okay’, she said and set about the
preparation.
‘Where has uncle gone? Do you keep
the shop in the afternoon?’ my wife asked.
‘No, no’, she replied. ‘Actually he
has gone to fetch some material for the shop and that’s why I am here’.
‘Won’t you too have tea?’ she asked
my kids.
‘No, we don’t drink tea’, the younger
one replied.
‘Oh! That’s so good. Tea is not good
for children’, she smiled to them.
She handed over two paper cups of tea
to us in a short while and then took out a sizeable helping of fresh namak
para from a punnet on a paper plate and gave it to the kids. ‘It was prepared just half an hour ago. You
will love it’, she said.
She asked their age and class and
where were they from as she carried on her work.
The paras were really crispy
and tasty as we also partook a little.
‘How much? , I asked the lady handing
her a fifty rupee note after we had finished our tea.
‘Twenty’, she said as she returned me
rupees thirty.
‘You forgot to add the paras',
I replied.
‘What paras?’ she a smiling
frown. ‘I have grandsons of their age. How could I let them just sit having nothing
while you too had you tea? That was from me’
I seemed to hear the bells ringing at
the Shyamla Devi temple below.
Dr( Skand Shukla)
