Most Woodstockers are nostalgic about the monsoon, though we’d probably be a lot less so if we had to live through the entire season again!
I had not been to India during the monsoon season since 1981, and had forgotten how beautiful the hills are when they’re lush and green and wet. Every tree is covered in ferns and moss. And, after a while, so are you. Nothing ever dries thoroughly during the monsoon; bedsheets feel damp when you crawl in at night, and you have to keep a strong lightbulb burning in the closet so your shoes don’t go moldy.
Tenzing Nima, Woodstock alum, actor, and proprietor of Momotours, came over for dinner at Sharon & Steve’s, and regaled us with monkey stories.
There are two types of monkeys in Mussoorie, langurs and rhesus. Langurs are beautiful, graceful, and fairly shy of people. Rhesus are very aggressive and can be dangerous. So langurs are hard to get pictures of, while rhesus may attack if photographed.
These are sometimes called Hanuman langurs, because the monkey god Hanuman is often depicted as having silver or white fur and a black face (although he’s also often portrayed as hairless or human flesh-colored).
Most of the group left Mussoorie Monday morning in Sanjay’s buses. Anne and I took the Shatabdi back to Delhi that evening (about half the seats were occupied by Woodstockers), joining Marilyn at the Park Hotel where the three of us shared a room. Tuesday we shopped all over Delhi, visitedJantr Mantr, and Marilyn flew out Tuesday night after an excellent dinner at the Park’s restaurant. Anne and I were joined by Yuti on Wednesday for still more shopping, then had dinner, drinks, and music with Yuti, her husband Sumit, and Pinder (who had meanwhile been in Chandigarh, shopping for furnishings for his new home in Nairobi).
shot Nov 2, 2004, 1:15 mins, 3.9 MB
We wrote song requests out on napkins and gave them to the DJ, who was probably wondering who these old fogeys were.
Anne and I shared a car to the airport at midnight and kept each other company (thankfully – Delhi airport is awfully boring) until our flights left around 3 am.
Next?
We’re all agreed that we want to see each other again, often, and soon – and preferably more of us. The open question for the moment is when and where to do that. Sanjay has suggested a regular appointment each year in Mussoorie, around the first week in November. Which is certainly fun, but not convenient for everybody, especially those who have kids in US or European schools.
One possibility would be to piggyback on the WOSA-North American reunion next June 23-26, in Silver Bay, New York. And some of us are looking into other suggested reunion spots, such as Italy and Iceland.
Lots of broken image links to fix… when I have time. Meanwhile, you can see the full gallery here.
Hanifl Center terrace
We were the first large group to stay at Hanifl Center, and a very pleasant residence it was, with comfortable beds (some private double rooms, some with four or eight bunkbeds), incredible views, and almost enough hot water (entirely solar-heated) for everyone to take showers in the morning (or whenever they got up).
Sanjay had made all the arrangements, including bringing up three cooks and a busload of supplies from Bombay. Excellent hot breakfasts (pancakes – with peanut butter!, cereal, parathas, eggs, toast) were provided there at Hanifl, other meals varied, though many were in fact cooked by these same talented cooks.
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On the morning of Monday, November 1st, Dick Wechter invited us up for tea and biscuits to watch the sunrise over the snows. I didn’t wake up in time, so was a bit late for the actual sunrise…
After sack lunches (tuna fish sandwich, chips, apple, juice in a box), we trudged back up to the residence level, where all the dorms were having open houses. The newly-renovated Midlands was to be dedicated by TZ Chu (’52), who funded the renovation, and his sister Li Chu, in the names of their parents. I missed the ceremony myself, but heard it was beautiful and very touching.
The outside shape of Midlands is just what it was in our day, and the peaked roof of the tower has been reinstated. The tower is now home to four or five computer rooms, at every mezzanine level right up to the roof.
Lots of broken image links to fix… when I have time. Meanwhile, you can see the full gallery here.
walking up Frivolity to Midlands
shot Oct 31, 2004, 5:07 min, 7.2 MB
Midlands is certainly a lot more comfortable than it’s ever been, with central steam heating in public areas and a kitchen on every floor. It has lost its old funky charm and the deep window seats we all loved to sit in (and occasionally fall out of). Is it escape-proof? Time will tell.
You can see that twenty years have passed by the growth of the scrubby trees around the dorm – there’s no longer a view of Witches’ Hill from what used to be the senior wing, only from the Upper New Wing. Personally, I’d be in favor of trimming the trees, both to encourage them to grow wider (they’re very spindly) and to restore the view, but there are strict laws against tree-cutting in Landour, and in general that’s a good thing.
…and over to Hostel…
where very little has changed, except for a slow slide into decrepitude. Plans are under discussion for a complete revamp, as has been done at Midlands.
shot Oct 31, 2004, 0:52 mins, 2.3 MB
Making rumali roti for the banquet.
After the banquet, there was a one-hour wait for the closing ceremony, which included speeches from three current and former principals and some other dignitaries, songs by various groups, a mass group singing of “Shadows,” and some of the finest fireworks Mussoorie has ever seen.
However, the Class of ’81 knows all this only by hearsay. We were tired, cold, and too impatient to be speechified – we snuck back to the Hanifl campground for a warming bonfire and a midnight biryani feast. From the Hanifl campground we could dimly hear the speeches and singing, and got a glimpse of the fireworks through the trees.
 
