When the hills beckon...

When the Shivalik beckons, dare we say nay? When namma Bengaluru was blowing hot and hotter, the hills coaxed us to come visiting, and there was little we could do other than tempting ourselves to be lured. So off we went packing - bags and bums to Shimla.

The route.

There was no direct connection to Shimla, the nearest airport being Chandigarh. From Chandigarh, we drove up the mountains. The toy train was tempting, but it only takes you from Kalka to Shimla. Also, it takes about 5-6 hours by train. Tourists who take that scenic route vouch for the ride but our stay was in Kufri, so we’d be stuck with the pricey, money minting cab drivers in the hills if we chose to travel by train.  Hence the wiser option was to take a cab from Chandigarh and retain the cab for the duration of our stay. 


The climb.

Pine trees stand tall on the mountain slopes, defying gravity and as you go up the winding route, you cannot but escape being drowned in the sheer beauty of the Shivalik. Slowly, colourful houses in pink, green, orange, blue and every other delightful shade start making their appearance and one can only wonder how they manage to balance themselves so precariously on the slopes! 

The best time to visit.

You can visit Shimla any time of the year. 

The place gets covered under snow during December and January, and many people love visiting it during the winter months. There are a lot of activities such as skiing that you can do during the winters. 

Shimla is famous for its apples. If you want to take a tour of the apple orchards and the pomegranate-laden trees, June and July are the best times to visit. The apple trees start flowering by April and May and get fruit laden by June and July. 

And if you just want a place to cool off, summers are great.   

The best place to stay.

Our room

We stayed at Kufri at the Kufri Pacific resorts, which is quite a distance from the main town. But it is an idyllic place to stay, and the temperature is much lower than the rest of Shimla. It is also the center for adventure sports. So, staying here is fun if you don’t mind the ample travelling up and down the hills.

But if you are looking for a central location, Mashobra is ideal because it is surrounded by the other tourist spots and travelling is less stressful.

Shimla town as such is too crowded and I wouldn’t recommend it as an ideal place to stay.

The best things to see and do.

The climb up is via Solan. Mohan Shakti Heritage Museum is on your way up in Solan and is a wonderful place to visit. Your cabbie might have to take a slight detour for about 3 km but it is totally worth your time. Not many people know of this place and hence it is not crowded and allows you to admire the tall statues, the pristine cold marble, the chequered lawn, the landscape and the gardens at leisure!  

Moti, the white one and Tarzan, the brown

Kufri is home to the Himalayan Nature Adventure trek and sports. A 3km trek on horseback takes you to the top of the mountains. You’ll have to book your ride and the activities you wish to undertake before setting off.  

The real adventure is riding on horseback up and down the steep hillside. You aren’t sure if your horse will topple even as it gallops at a steady pace. There were a few mishaps, and we saw a lady fall down. But if you have a good guide, like ours, you are in for luck. Our guide, Satpal expertly ushered his horses, talking to them lovingly while familiarising us with them – Moti, Tarzan and Lovely, on which we rode. He offered us interesting tidbits about the place, about how to balance ourselves on the horse on slopes and luckily, we rode to and fro without any hitch!

The horse takes you to the telescope area, where you’ll see guides offering to show you around the place through their telescopes. I thought it’s more a scam, but look if you want to anyway. For 200/- per person, I thought the prices were too steep and the telescopes did not have the expected zoom. They showed us the Indo-Tibet border, which looked like a row of white coloured houses and nothing to prove that it was indeed the border we were looking at! They showed us the Shimla Vaishno mata temple, Kali mata temple, and the house of Ranchod Das of the 3 idiots fame, besides a few more spots.

That's me, zipping under a cloudy sky!!

A jeep takes you to the adventure spot. You can enjoy Ziplining, Valley crossing, Zorbing, go-karting (in winters), rope bridge, commando net etc. 

For about 2000/- per pack you can enjoy the whole gamut of adventures or even opt for a sharing pack if you wish.

Ziplining was on my to-do list and I did manage to get myself harnessed on the line in spite of the flicker of fear in my heart! But it was totally worth the effort! The adrenalin rush and exhilaration of gliding several hundred feet above the ground is something to be experienced in order to be felt! 

Atop a Yak!

Once you are done with the adventure sports, the jeep drops you back to the horse pick up point, where the yak men await you with their hairy beasts. 
You can take pictures dressed in Himachali attire, complete with a Yak, gun and hat to go with it! 

There was this woman with a basket nesting a python, offering to wrap the reptile around us for a fee! Ugghhh! I wanted to have none of that slimy, slithery, serpent near me!    

And did I mention that we got to enjoy a plate of steaming hot maggi and tea at the end of our trip?
Ah! The happiness of savoring hot food when you are freezing! 

Shimla is famous for the Mall road where you can shop, eat and visit the Hanuman temple at Jakhoo. Two lifts take you up to the Mall road. You’ll have to buy tickets to go up and down in the lift. Enjoy the fresh cherries, and shop for woollen clothes if you like, on the Mall road. There are some good eateries too. There’s an old Christ Church and the Ridge which gives you a lovely view of the hills. Then there’s Johnny’s wax museum, a la Madame Tussauds, on Mall road if you like to see.  

Near the church, you’ll get tempos that’ll take you further up to 8000 ft above sea level, to the famous Jakhoo temple. Here, the world’s tallest - 108feet Hanuman statue towers over in deep orange colour. Legend has it that Lord Hanuman rested here when flying to fetch the Sanjeevani mountain. 

There are plenty of monkeys who will not hesitate to rob you of anything ranging from your dupatta, spectacles, goggles, eatables, bags etc. So be careful.

There are plenty of museums, and the two worth seeing are the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies museum and the Army Heritage museum if Indian history interests you.

You could get a tour of the apple orchards if you visit in the monsoon. But, also be prepared for heavy traffic jams caused by apple laden trucks and slippery roads due to rainfall.

You can also go skiing in the winters, and enjoy other winter sports too.

Chail was on our way back to Chandigarh. So, we visited the Kali mata temple and the world’s highest cricket ground at Chail. I think you can give it a miss, because there’s not much to talk about it. The cricket ground does not resemble a cricket ground and is more like a school playground for the kids of the Army school in the campus. 

Overall, the experience was good. It was a break away from the scorching summer heat. But the winding roads did make me sick. So, if you are averse to the twists and turns of the mountains, take adequate precautions. A light meal and some sour candies should keep your tummy from flipping over.

Z - 5 steps to a catch some good Zzzzs!!

Sleeping well is quite important to our body. Doctors would tell you, that sleep supports your body’s circadian rhythm. When you sleep, certain body functions occur, which wouldn’t occur if you were to remain awake. Perhaps that is why it is important to sleep and wake up at the same time every day so that the body can perform to its maximum potential.

Repairing and relaxing the body happens during sleep and thus sleeping well is important to de-stress and rejuvenate your body. It is during deep REM sleep that our subconscious thoughts are manifested as dreams.

Here are 5 ways to help you get some great Zzzzs.

#1. Maintain a regular sleep cycle.

Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, so that the body’s internal clock falls into a pattern. What works for one person will not necessarily work for another, so choose your sleep hours according to your lifestyle. Having said that, the body needs 7-8 hours of rest each night- try to get adequate rest.

# 2. Eat a light dinner.

Heavy food, spicy food, and late dinners can make falling asleep difficult. Stick to a set dinner time, which should ideally be 3 hours before your bedtime. Eat light- preferably fill up on raw vegetables and fruits. Also avoid drinking too many liquids, especially alcohol and caffeinated drinks before bedtime.

#3. Limit technology at bedtime.

Limit your exposure to light at night-time. Bright screens interfere with sleep and body’s rhythms. So, avoid watching television or meddling with your smartphones and tablets late into the night. Keep away distractions at least an hour or two before bedtime. Use that time to read, or to listen to soft, soothing music.

#4. Relax the body.

Take a walk. Or better still, perform yoga. Shavasana or the corpse pose is quite a relaxing posture. All these activities relax the body and prepare it to sleep. However, avoid vigorous exercise before bedtime as it tends to have the opposite effect and keeps you awake.

#5. Create a proper sleep environment.

Before you jump into bed, draw the curtains to block out outside light from the room, light a scented candle or spray some sleep inducing fragrance like lavender or jasmine and switch on some light, soothing music at the lowest audible volume.

So, learning to sleep well is not really rocket science. Sleeping well is meditative and it can help your body to feel rejuvenated and be prepared for the next day. 

I think we'll all need this tonight!! 

Y - 5 things to tell Yourself

I don’t know about you, but I talk to myself a lot. I believe we have two voices, the one in our head and the other in our heart. The rational head can give you tons of solutions but it is based on what people say and how your previous experiences have been. And it is always peppered with doubt. On the other hand, the voice in your heart is full of hope. 

Here are 5 things you should tell yourself, i.e. things that your heart should tell your mind.  

This too shall pass.

Our life is full of ups and downs. But sometimes the bad phases are so painful and dark that it seems like we are stuck in that rabbit hole forever. But remember, that no matter how long the troubles last, it has to have an end. When the days seem dark and there’s no ray of hope, don’t give up yet. 

Tell yourself, This Too Shall Pass. Trust me, it will.

I can do it!

Often, we want to do something, achieve our goal, or take a risky decision. But there are people around you who tell you that you cannot, or you shouldn’t. Your mind too keeps rationalising your indecisiveness. When you are stuck with a decision, when in doubt about your ability, when the whole world seems to weigh you down, don’t give up on yourself yet. 

Tell yourself, I Can Do It. No one knows you better than yourself.

It’s my life.

Yes, it’s your life. You have the right to live it the way you want to. Don’t let other people influence or dictate how you should live, what you should do and what decisions you should take. Don’t let others tell you when or whether you should get married or have children, run a business, see the world, or paint, what kind of relationship you should be in and so on. Life is short. You don’t want to die with regrets, do you? When someone’s interferes with your decisions, don’t be forced to comply. 

Tell yourself, It’s My Life. I’m going to live the way I want to.

I don’t have to be perfect.

Are you trying to a perfectionist? Is the illusion of perfectionism making life miserable for you? There’s no perfect skin colour, there’s no perfect profession, there’s no perfect house, there’s even no perfect relationship or children! Similarly, you don’t have to be a perfect parent, perfect spouse, perfect child, perfect employee, perfect host, perfect yada, yada… No, you don’t.

Make it about gratitude and happiness than about perfection. When thoughts of perfection plague your mind and you feel you don’t have the perfect things or people to make life wonderful, don't fret.

Tell yourself, I Don’t Have To Be Perfect, neither do people and things around me.

I love you.

We always tell our loved ones that we love them. We pamper them, make them feel good, and make them feel loved. But what about you? Are you treating yourself well? Like they say, charity begins at home, love begins with self. Love yourself, keep yourself pampered and happy. Unless you love yourself how can you love others?

Tell yourself, I Love You. Every single day. 

X - 5 Xcess baggages you needn’t carry...

When you fly, the airlines specifies the weight of baggage that you can carry. Anything more than the specified weight, you end up paying an extra tax for it. As with the airlines, so it is with our lives. All our lives we walk around carrying a lot of xtra baggage. It does nothing except make us pay for it by eroding our own peace of mind. What are these xtra, xcess baggages?

Here they are-  

Expectations.

We all have expectations from people in our relationships. We do something for them, and we want them to remember what we did, and give it back to us when we need it. And when they don’t, it doesn’t go down well with us. Expectations in a husband-wife relationship, child-parent relationship, or in friendship, are quite common, but they end up ruining the relationship.

Don’t carry that xcess baggage of xpectations.

Do your deed and forget about it. If you aren’t likely to forget it, don’t do the deed. Don’t give yourself an xtra baggage to carry, by counting your favours. Karma has its own way of finding its way back to you and repaying you for all that you did, good or bad.

Anger –

Anger is like a piece of burning coal. The longer you hold it, the more it burns your hand. It will leave you charred and worthless. Yes, circumstances make us angry, people make us angry, and many a times we have no control over those umpteen things that make us angry.

But don’t carry around the xcess baggage of anger.

Instead, whenever you are angry, don’t react. Pause for a minute, take deep breaths and do nothing until you are calmer. An angry mind is prone to taking decisions that we might regret later. But also, remember not to leave the issue unresolved. Talk it over, take appropriate action, but resolve the matter. Otherwise, you will still be carrying that anger in your heart!

Feeling of hurt –

People have the ability to cause hurt to each other. They say or do things that leave us hurt and upset. The feeling of hurt is more when people whom we love and trust are responsible for it.

Don’t carry the xcess baggage of hurt.

If someone has hurt you, do this analysis. Is the person a loved one, someone who’s presence makes a difference in your life or is it some random person who merely has a passing presence in your life? If they belong to the latter category, there’s no point carrying the hurt. If they belong to the former category, ask yourself if you want forgive and forget, talk it over or give up on the relationship. You will know what to do. By carrying around the hurt and not doing anything about it, you are doing a great deal of harm to yourself.  

Past mistakes and feeling of guilt –

Who doesn’t commit mistakes? No one is all-knowing, or godly enough to have never committed mistakes in their life.

But don’t carry that xcess baggage of guilt.

It was a mistake, you realise it, you feel bad about it and swear to never repeat it again. Leave it at that. What’s the point in going over past mistakes, ruminating over it and killing yourself with guilt? What’s important is to learn from your mistakes and get on with life.  

Revenge –

Don’t hate someone so much that you wait to exact revenge from them for the misdeeds they have done unto you. Someone might have broken your trust, or tampered with your emotions, but is revenge the answer?

Don’t carry that xcess baggage of revenge.

Even if you succeed in taking revenge and destroying the other person, you aren’t going to feel better. Forgiveness, on the other hand, is the best revenge.

Whether it is an emotional baggage or moral one, xcess baggage is xcess. You have to stop continuing to carry it. Leave it on the ground, and save yourself the trouble and pain.

No matter who is responsible of the action, in the end, your response is about you. Make that count.

W- 5 ways to stop Wasting Time

If there’s something that runs away in the blink of an eye, it’s Time. We often complain that we have no time but if we’d just pause and look at what we have been doing, we have probably wasted away ours when we had enough.

“Every day you waste is another day you won’t get back” ~ Anonymous

Here are 5 ways to stop wasting the precious hours of our life.

Get off social media.

Social media has become the biggest killer of time. Whoever named it the World Wide Web, knew what a web it was going to turn out to be. Like a fly caught in the web of a spider, we go round and round, unable to break free of the tangle. With smartphones notifying us of everything that’s happening around us, we don’t even need to be logged into our PC.

So, we are either going green eyed at that cousin who’s having a destination wedding and posting hourly updates, or getting into unwanted arguments posting our point of view on topics that are irrelevant and a total waste of time, or busy updating the world about what we ate and if we burped and whether our dog barked. To add to it we are in umpteen groups on our phone and the poor thing keeps beeping the whole day delivering you useless forwards that you forward it again till it comes back to you!

How to stop wasting time on social media? The best thing to do would be to uninstall every dam**d app from the face of your smartphone. Impossible, right? I know! The next best thing would be to turn off notifications when you are completing your work or studies. Avoid looking at the phone every now and then to know who did what. Deactivate once in a while. It is a good detoxifying therapy. The world will not come crashing down if you don’t immediately like someone’s status or post pictures of the food that you are eating.  

Get off the endlessly long phone calls.

If social media is bad enough, the long duration phone calls are even worse. They sap your energy and time. But when it’s your best friend or close relative or the love of your life, you cannot just tell them off. Your parents or sibling might understand if you tell them not to call during working or studying hours, but friends often do not.

How to stop wasting time on calls? If you are studying for an important exam or are neck deep in work, the best thing would be to switch off your phone. If that’s not possible, let the calls go your answering machine. Put in a message that you are studying now or are working and will respond to their calls after a particular time, say after 7 pm.  

Stop procrastinating.

Putting off things that you can do today to another day is such a waste of time. Sure, it might not be urgent and it can be put off, but if there’s time today, the best thing to do is finish it off. Completed work equals that much less stress.

Don’t do unnecessary things.

Don’t go and clean your garden when there are more important things to be done. Don’t sit and gossip when you need to devote time to something else. Don’t watch back to back movies on Netflix when your attention is needed elsewhere. There’s a time for everything. Relaxing is important too, but relax in between work, not vice versa.

Make a to-do list.

A to-do list is an effective way to get things done. I stick three different colored papers on my board, green for work that needs to be done urgently in a day or two, yellow for work that can be stretched to a week and pink for work that does not need immediate attention yet needs to be done within a time frame. I keep ticking off the ones in green as I finish and move to the yellow and then to the pink.

The Eisenhower matrix is yet another way that I use to prioritise my work. It let's me slot my activities into four categories -urgent and important, urgent and not important, not urgent but important, and lastly, neither urgent nor important. Once work is slotted in one these four categories, it gives you an idea about which work needs your attention immediately, which work can be delegated, which ones can be put off for later and which ones you can skip doing completely. 

What's your mantra?