Memory III: 27 years of Nainital!

One of my earliest memories of Naini is of a horse that I was riding - and the reason why I remember it still is cos I wasn't enjoying myslef at all. Somehow trusting horses to carry 4 years old safely on a narrow hilly path doesn't seem like the smartest decision to me!

Maybe it was that trip or a few years later (to be fair to myself I have been to Naini at least 3 times every year for the past 27 years i.e. 27x3 = 81 times atleast - so my memories might over lap a few times!), some scarwny horse man was telling us some gruesome story about a British women named Emily who killed herself for her lover(?) by jumping off the cliff and since then that cliff has been named Emily Top! Ya Ya whatver - you have those stories of mystical white mems in every British colony!

The first 10 years of my Naini visit memories revolve around Elphinstone Hotel - the first hotel you encounter on the hotel- filled mall, with its bizarre sense of color coordination, long damp dining hall, a damper table tennis room but a lovely sunny balcony facing the blue green lake and green side of the mountatins. I loved it there esp since all the managers, chefs and even the waiters had become uncles and bhaiyas with the frequency of our visit. P & I would take our walk (1.7 miles- we learnt that by heart!) up and down the mall, checking the same old shops, hotels and restaurants every single day.

Naini is a strange place - for tourists who come for just a few days and stay in one of the hundred hotels lined adjacent to each other on the mall - it has very little to offer. The lake and Tiffin top and for the real adventurous ones a horse ride to Cheena peak. Summers look like teh whole sweaty karol Bagh has been picked up and planted in the mall road. These misplaced Karol Baghians shop in the Tibetan market, complain that Sarojini is cheaper, eat their aam papars, candyfloss, bhutta and Butter chicken at Sher-e-Punjab and go back home and say "Naini was great, we didnt even need to turn on our car AC!"....

Thankfully there is much more to see than the Mall.