New Year

Here is wishing the patrons of this page a wonderful 2007.

Wifey and I celebrated the arrival in Nainital. I went there after 14 years. So much changes and so much remains the same. The shops in Bara Bazar were the same and the faces manning those shops familiar but all of those faces had grown old. There is a motorable road right upto 'Snow View' now.

My school has changed quite a lot but it still seemed as if I was there only yesterday. We met my House-Master Mr. Pande who is still as moody as before (initially gave us permision for 20 minutes to show wifey around the school premises and then himself sat us down and talked for an hour in his office). He retired last year but is on an extension. Good to see the new principal exposing students to the world 'outside' by sending them to compete in extra-curricular activities around the country.

Also met Shravan Nagpal, the bloke from my class who teased and troubled me quite a lot in school days. He is running a cloth business in Haldwani along with his brother and is doing rather well (bloke supplies uniforms to 50 schools in the region). We enquired about his shop and stopped there on our way back. I knew that he would certainly meet me extremely warmly but the way he welcomed me was truly extraordinary... with such warmth and compassion :-) While the two of us talked, wifey decided to make good use of her time and started looking at some of the sweaters in his shop and picked one and dear Nagpal refused to take any money for it as this was our first visit to his shop.

I showed wifey around to so many places where I did so many firsts of my life... where I played Billiards first time... where I tasted butter chicken first time... where I tased fried fish first time... where I learnt leg-spin bowling... you get the point, dont you !

The Mall Road has become so commercialised. It is decorated with lights and there are megaphones around playing music... Rowdy elements stop their bikes in the middle of the road and dance vulgarily!!

People are discouraged from using plastic bags to preserve the lake. You get your stuff in good old paper bags and if you buy a few things then unless you are carrying a hand bag or something, you have a problem carrying the multiple paper bags around.

All in all a nice visit to my past and an excellent way to welcome 2007. Lets hope this year also brings in its path memories as cherishable as the ones this trip of mine brought back to me.