A Walk In The Clouds

Escaping to the hills to beat the summer heat, Parmesh Shahani pens his notes from languid Landour

- Parmesh Shahani

On the very first day of my visit, somewhere in the middle of a Landour chakkar — the circular route that loops around the hill station in the shape of the number 8, passing by the Kellogg memorial and St Paul’s churches, a graveyard and homes with fancy names, ending in ‘glen’ or ‘burn’ or ‘ridge’ or ‘ville’ — i pause for breath. The road is steep, and my city-spoiled lungs and legs are really not used to so much climbing.

With hands on waist, panting, i close my eyes and smell the forest all around me. There is a crisp stillness that amplifies the sound of birds chirping. Five minutes later, i open my eyes and realise that i am suddenly in the middle of a moist cloud that has silently floated in and embraced me with such tenderness that i can’t wipe the smile off my face. The monkey on the tree next to me grins approvingly. Welcome to the mountains.

Twenty minutes later, at the quaint emily’s café at rokeby manor, Landour’s fanciest hotel, my spoon eases into a toffee pudding and as the hot caramel drizzles down my throat languidly, my smile grows even wider. Landour is a small, sweet slice of heaven on earth. Why in the world have i not visited it earlier?

The name Landour is derived from Llanddowror, a Welsh village. The British established the cantonment as a base for a military sanitorium in the hills above Dehradun, and subsequently invited a few maharajas to build their summer holiday homes there. Today, the tiny town counts literary and film royalty as its residents — Bill aitken, irwin allan Sealy, victor Banerjee and vishal Bharadwaj to name just a few and of course, the omnipresent big daddy of them all, and his name is Bond…ruskin Bond.