By Ganesh Saili
‘Does it still snow in December?’ asks my friend Shiv Sharma, whom I have known since our college days. With no job openings in the hill station, he had succumbed to the sirens’ song and left for the big city many years ago. He asks, ‘Do you folks still have a White Christmas?’
How I wish I could take him to his old home, the two small rooms that the family had rented at the Mussoorie Cooperative Club. Today, there are no traces except for happy memories; the building has crumbled.
Some, in their memories, can still hear the manager of the Rialto cinema, Mr Arora. His rich baritone rose above the general murmur as he dipped into a bag, produced a chip and said:
‘Murgi-chor! Number four!
Lovely legs! Number eleven!
Ulta-pulta! Sixty-nine!
Back to back! Thirty-six!
Two fat ladies! Eighty-eight!’
He was the master of ceremonies for a game of housie, or tambola, surrounded by a gaggle of housewives with children in tow.
You could not be faulted for thinking that the men had vanished. They had slunk in through a side door and were huddled around a card table. This hill station was famous for having once been a gamblers’ paradise. Some stories survive of duels where a summer palace had been won and lost several times.
But let us go back to Christmas Eve of 1970, where you would have found us, college students, on our way to the club. Arriving there, we were soon lost in a game of skittles.
After midnight, we stepped out to wend our way home and sank into a foot of fresh snow. Around us, a deep hush had settled. Not a word was said. We had come to the club in one kind of world, and a few hours later, we were stepping out into a magic world that unfolded before us: rows of trees, laden with snow, leaned low, touching the ground, and roofs rounded off with berms of snow. Whilst we had been inside, the usual drum beats that would have announced Gen. Winter’s arrival in town had been absent; not even the vaguest hint of pitter-patter of rain or the steady beat of hailstones pounding the tin roof.
Pic courtesy: Author’s Collection.
Years later, I’m still amazed at how surprised we were. Could we have been so engrossed in our game on the beige billiard table that we had heard nothing? When I look back over the years, I can only recall some of the breathtaking wonder of that night. Stepping off the verandah, we were in the middle of a perfect whiteout – fresh snow all around, over two feet deep in places, it crunched underfoot. It reminded us that walking on fresh snow is a privilege denied to many.
Once past the old Picture Palace cinema, we saw the town drunk, curled up, deep asleep, in a pile of snow. His thick mop of hair and his white trailing pyjama cord gave him away.
‘Can’t leave him here! We must take him home,’ said one of us, ‘Otherwise, he will freeze to death!’
Pulling him out was hard. He was too heavy to carry, so we frog-marched him home through the lanes of Landour all the way to the chowk and struggled up to the flat where he lived. A knock on the door produced a little boy who eyed us suspiciously and blurted, ‘Which one of you fellows got my father drunk?’
What could we say?
We retraced our steps through the snow. It was a different world outside. It seemed as if someone had waved a magic wand over the garbage of our hill station. Everything was covered, albeit temporarily, in a pristine white sheet. Silence reigned supreme. No cars, no horns, not even a whisper. Just pin drop silence. Wafted by the breeze, the aroma of Sitab Singh’s Allahabadi Christmas cake lingered in the air. So confident was he of his baking skills that he was not in the least fazed by the newer bakeries that had sprouted all over town, dismissively saying, ‘They are toadstools; here today, gone tomorrow!’
Ganesh Saili, an author-photographer, has written and illustrated twenty books, some of which have been translated into over two dozen languages. He belongs to those select few who illustrate their writing. His work has found publication in periodicals, columns, and journals.
