Mountain Do's

Finally, Blogger.com catches me in a contemplative mood. I have always wanted to write a post that would fire up the waterworks in the reader's eyes. And so it is today, that I give up jackassary, demon worship and relentless pursuit of arbitness in search of higher emotions- beginning with contemplation on the delicate aspects of life. Starting with Food.

You don't want to read this if you want to preserve your body fluids. Drool, mostly.

WATCH OUT trip, Sunday the 26th: At the crack of dawn we trooped out of the Bhawan even as the first rays prepared to start their 8 minute journey to earth. Deprived of morning coffee and breakfast, I was desperately low. This led me to consume a certain super-saturated sugar solution, sold as Coffee by the Marketing Division of Bus-T In Mussorie, someone comfortingly remarked, we would get awesome food. For it was to Mussorie where the 17 early-rising WONA folk decided to head to.
The coffee sloshed in my innards merrily as our bus twirled and pirouetted across the mountain roads. Everyone responded rather differently to the ballerina moves of the bus. Some nodded off, some like me stuck their necks out and drunk in the beautiful view ( with the steadfast gaze of a pigeon), some turned green with sickness.
A final grand jete and the bus threw us out. Into Mussourie, the land of breathtaking views.
Mussourie is a lovely hill station dotted with confectionery shops, expresso machines and ice-cream parlours. It understands the growing appetite of its tourists very well and as you walk up the Mall Road from the Bus Stop, the density of eating joints grows in delightful numbers. Anyone with the fatal Chocolate Deficiency Disease will find instant cure in this heavenly abode.
The smell of roasted coffee beans, bittersweet chocolate and of rum-raisin whiffs fight for space up your olfactory machinery as you walk by. Shepherding us was our Great CheerMan, who seemed immune to the intoxicating caffeine-scented air. Immune and impatient.

Ah, caffeine...
[Citation Needed]
The historic goat-herd beat the Zero-inventing Indian Nerd to the Greatest Discovery, when he stumbled upon the magic coffee bean. Lore has it that his goats went for a change of diet and grazed on some unknown herb. The goatherd went bonkers when he saw the herb transform his usually lazy goats into active, lithe and frollicky creatures.. So he went and sold his goats, pocketed the capital and started his own chain of expresso shop, which we all today know as Costa Coffee.

Every calorie of the chocolate binge was required when we took a detour from the plain path and took the primate-friendly path, negotiating precarious footholds, slippery gravel and itch-causing plants. Successful in getting ourselves lost, we also stumbled upon some ruins. Of course, death lurked in every move we made but what better place was there to die than this untramelled sliver of the mountains. Poignant yet timeless, deserted yet alive, Steep yet inviting.

I was still thinking about the very awesome trek or whatever it was, when we returning back. People again walked coldly past the choc shops, the famous Cheese Omelette shack and the expresso shops.
Such a cold attitude towards food comes handy in Roorkee though, especially towards the blistery chap at Happinezz or the Waste Reusal Dept of the Mess. WHEN will the entrepreneur within us open the patisserie we need? When will Italian Dining at Roorkee stop meaning Cheese Pizza at Prakash? On this quavering note, the post draws to its end. Burpbye.