My earliest memories are of flowers, of fragrances and of sirens. There was a burst of colour everywhere, in nearly everything I saw
My earliest memories are of flowers, of fragrances and of sirens. There was a burst of colour everywhere, in nearly everything I saw. Gardens were commonplace and gardening, a household activity. Winters were the longest and brought with them outdoor activities to have most of the sun, gardening being one of them. The blazers made their way out of steel trunks and evenings were spent looking at snowcapped mountains from terrace and spotting the first few lights on the hills above. It was the time for radishes and mulberries in the backyard and geraniums in the garden. Hot water baths came with the comforting fragrance of eucalyptus. It was in fact all about the fragrances.
You could close your eyes and tell when you had arrived at the place with a recall of its fragrance. The ones that come from the flowers and the small bakeries that spread the whiff of freshly made cakes and caramel chews.
It was then that the sirens began, far apart initially, intermingling with the fragrances, and more dominating later. They came announcing a curfew sometimes, processions at others andu00a0 incidents of violence too. Schools closed down and there was a time when we sat huddled in a single room, quiet, confused and afraid. Outside, a mob waited to be let in. We were told they wanted a new state they would call Uttarakhand and our Dehradun for its capital. The whys and hows that followed were drowned in the sound of the sirens.
Time passed and Uttaranchal was formed, Dehradun like other unassuming small towns turned into a capital city overnight. Uttaranchal moved onto being called Uttarakhand and we, the people of valley, watched besotted as our town sprouted new buildings, chain restaurants, cafes and traffic jams.
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On my recent visit there, I spotted a few high rise apartments; something the people there could have hardly imagined a few years ago. The modest landmark, The English Book Depot, now couldn't be entered without passing through the adjacent Barista and smelling chain-made coffee. Malls, multiplexes and hotels now line the narrow, curvy roads of doon and the town now keeps awake much after the earlier self imposed deadline of 8 pm. What are out of sight now though are the lights of the hills and Mussourie in the distance.
The smells have altered; the Raat Ki Rani is laced with a hint of smoke. Dehradun remains and so does everything old that was cast in brick and stone, I still feel disoriented and no longer keep my eyes closed on the way back home.
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