The village of Okhalkhanda lay perhaps in the Ramgarh District of Uttar Pradesh way back in 1976. Since it has been a long time since I visited there, the details are slowly being erased from my memory. It was an idyllic village in Kumaon Himalayas and had a Forest Rest House that was quite comfortable. Since I was a student at that time, I was not given permission to occupy the main rest house, but was given a small room in an annexe. A local person, Ram Singh by name used to prepare a few chappathis and a curry for lunch and dinner. The treks used to be quite exhausting, as it involved a descent and climb of about 3000 ft every day. Evenings would have me in the only teashop narrating various stories and facts about other parts of the world to the keen villagers who would lap up the stories in great eagerness.
The villagers were disarmingly innocent! For instance, when I told them about New York and the Empire State with over 100 storeys, they would ask me in all innocence “Sab, New York, Okhalkhanda se kitna door padtha hai?!” I would be tempted to tell him ‘Eleven thousand three hundred and twenty five miles, four furlongs, 143 yards, seven feet and three inches!’, but I would answer them without ever being patronizing even to the slightest degree. They were extremely hospitable. The men-folk were by and large lazy, but it used to be the women who were very hardy and put in all the strenuous work
This was the area that Jim Corbett in his book ‘The Man-eaters of Kumaon’ referred to as ‘The Chowgarh tigers’. Those days, I am sure it must have been covered by a dense mixed jungle, but now, sadly the whole forest was denuded and we saw the hill-slopes covered extensively by pine trees. The year I visited the place there was no electricity, but I heard it arrived shortly after I left the place. As there was no electricity, there were no televisions either. I am sure, by now the whole scenario would have changed and the villager of Okhalkhanda may have a thing or two to tell us about the outer world!
About 12-13 km east of Okalkhanda was a small cozy forest rest house nestled in a valley in a place called Thakura. I was lucky to get an accommodation over there and I stayed perhaps for over ten days. It was one of those old British style resthouse, with very antique and heavy teak wood cots and various rosewood furniture. It had quite a few large armchairs with high backs and spacious arm rests that could be spread out in a circular motion around a pivot. There were two rose-wood almirahs – one with antique porcelain cutlery, steel knives, forks and the works. The other almirah had many ancient copies of ‘Strand Magazines’ and other British magazines. That was where, I distinctly remember, I read P.G. Wodehouse’s ‘Mulliner’s Buck-u- Uppo’ in one of the old Strand Magazines.
For days together, I never had much contact with the outer world. Back home, my parents would have got a postcard just before I left Delhi, but for the next three months, they just would have no news about me, nor I about them. I had an old Murphy-minimaster transistor-radio that kept me briefly linked with the outer world, and I would get to hear my favourite Hindi film songs on it.
In a place near Babiyar, I was staying in a solitary dilapidated primary school that consisted of two small rooms with heavy doors but no latches. The school was about a kilometer from Babiyar and about 800 m upslope from Pokhri Pher and on a hump. Not one soul would venture near the school after dark...
( ….. to be continued in the next entry..)
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