In February 1966,my father was transferred as Principal Govt Intermediate College Narayan Nagar in distt Pithoragarh in the erstwhile Uttarakhand region in the hills of UP. I and my sister Kumud were students of class XIth at Kanpur then and were finding it extremely difficult to cope up with the pressures of the biggest city of the state ! The transfer of our father to Narayan Nagar, thus, came as a blessing in disguise for both of us although it meant a lot of difficult time ahead for our father !
We set our foot for the unknown but seemingly very beautiful destination on Sunday the 6th February 1966 by an evening train starting from Anwar Ganjstation. We were to get down at Pilibhit in the wee hours next morning and were supposed to take a bus for Pithoragarh for our day long journey.
We did get down at Pilibhit at about four in the morning but missed the bus for Pithoragarh which had already left by the time we came out of the station. That was the only bus to Pithoragarh. We were advised to spend the day at Tanakpur, the last rail head on that route, as there were two buses from Tanakpur to Pithoragarh and the chances of missing the bus were thus much less !
Much to our pleasure,Tanakpur turned out to be a very beautiful place ! Situated at the feet of holy Himalayas, Tanakpur also has the vibrant Sharda ( to become Ghaghra a little ahead ) flowing across the town ! We were lodged at the Sharda Temple by the side of the river. It was romantic ! I had never seen hills earlier ! They were just a few meters away ! I had neverlived by the side of a river earlier ! The river was even closer !!The steps of the temple were going straight down intothe river !!I had never seen a foreign land in my life earlier ! And Nepal was just across the river !! It was more r o m a n t i c than it could have been !!!I vividly remember the day that we spent at Tanakpur, playing, running, entering the waters and climbing the top of the temple a thousand times in the day !
Nothing better could have happened to us that evening when we learnt that next day being a Tuesday (8th Feb`67), no buses would ply as the `gate' remains closed on Tuesdays ! ( I later learnt that `gate' meant the `crossing point' of the entire traffic moving on that route from the two opposite directions as crossing mid-way was not possible because of narrow kachchi' roads ! ) Thus, by the time we went to sleep, we knew that the following day would also be spentin the beautifulsorroundings of Tanakpur ! I do not know, how does the place look like today, but till date, I feel mesmerized by the beauty of the place in those days !
( To be contd..)
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