PURIS or POORIS

MAY 15: TAWANG
I wrote in the previous Blog that I was eating Puris. Perhaps not all of my readers have eaten Puris or know what they are. For those interested, here is a recipe:

2.5 cups chappati flour
2/3 cup water at room temperature
ghee for brushing the bread while rolling out the dough
Oil for deep frying

Method to roll out the dough
Make stiff but pliable dough.
Cover the dough with damp cloth and set aside for 30 minutes.
Knead dough a little again. Dough should be stiff enough to roll without extra flour.
Make small balls of the dough and cover them with damp cloth.
Take one ball of dough and dip a corner of ball in melted ghee or oil and roll it out into 4 to 5 inches round.
Repeat the same process to roll out all puris.

Frying the Puris
Heat plenty of oil in a kadhai until very hot.
Put in a puri and immediately start flickering hot oil over the top of it with a spatula so that it will swell up like a ball.
This should take only a few seconds. Flip the puri over and cook the other side until golden brown.
Serve hot with curries or vegetables.

SATURDAY TAWANG

MAY 15: TAWANG
6 a.m. no power and a light drizzle. I hobble up a side street armed with my splendid new umbrella (red on red). I am due to meet Passang Tsering outside a one-burner open-front cafe. The loaded vegetable truck is parked across the street. A couple of landslides blocked the road yesterday for a few hours and the driver reached Tawang late. The cafe's cook is my informant.
How is the road now?
The cook shrugs. Heavy rain fell most of the night.
And the power supply?
A second shrug.
I sit at the only table and order tea and puris. The cafe is a good spot from which to watch Tawang awake. Brushing teeth out in the street is a common habit. Women with their hair uncombed scurry to the baker or collect puris from the cafe. The drizzle is heavier now. Bare feet in sandals slosh through puddles - so much for the Old Maid's warning against wet feet: You'll catch your death of cold. Two indolent bullocks sniff at rain-melting cardboard cartons of vegetables in the back of the truck.
I ought to be worried and miserable. I am content. The upright wooden chair is comfortable. Tea is hot and sweet. Puffed-up puris are fresh from the pan, dipping sauces laced with hot chili. I can't control the weather or fix the road. Passang Tsering will negotiate the truck rate. What ever will be will be...
Meanwhile I am doing what I enjoy most (other than eating prawns): watching people.

MAY 15: TAWANG
Thank the Lord for my Leatherman flashlight. What else works in Tawang - other than my bladder? I light my way to the bathroom, no power, limp back to bed, huddle under duvet and two blankets, listen to the rain, hope for more sleep.
4.30 and faint daylight seeps round the curtains. I peek down at the wet street. Nothing moves. Why would anything move? A gap in the clouds shows fresh snow on the peaks. Tawang is not my favourite place.

BACK TO BED

MAY 14: TAWANG
Thunder and the beat of heavy rain wakes me at 6.15. Still no power. A single candle on the counter dimly lights the telephone central. The angel assures me that power will be restored at 7 p.m.
I call the Colonel in Kolkata. Where are you? Tawang. You are enjoying yourself. Not exactly.
Power returns as the storm intensifies. Thunder echoes continually from mountain to mountain. Lightning lights the underneath of almost black clouds. A massive thunder clap and the light fails. Steel shutters rattle shut. Tawang is closing down for Friday night. I make am umbrella-protected run for the bar-night club and order chicken kebabs. Not even a Tawang cook can produce chicken-free chicken kebabs. So where to go next? Back to bed, listen to the storm, worry that the road will fall down the mountain...

NO WELCOME AT THE BAKERY

MAY 14: TAWANG
The glass-fronted bakery counter protects trays of multicoloured cakes and bread rolls of various shapes. The woman behind the counter is seated on a fold-up chair and in earnest conversation on a mobile. She talks. And talks. And talks...
Various customers enter the bakery, wait a while while the woman talks, leave without being served.
Early afternoon and daylight is minimal with cloud tails trailing between rooftops. I sit in the window and scribble a while in my notebook. A jeep pulls up to the curb. A middle-aged man and a late teenage girl scurry in out of the rain. The man goes directly behind the counter and stuffs rolls into brown paper bags, twenty of this, twenty of that. The teenage girl fills a plastic container with pastries before studying a tray of cup-cake chemical creams. The two she finally chooses seem to me identical to the others. What would I know?
I choose a pastry and a chocolate cake before the woman can get back on her mobile. The cake is for the angel at the telephone central.
A man, probably the mobile-addicted woman's husband, enters with a small child. He shouts at the woman. The woman shouts back. The man leaves without the child. The woman returns to her mobile. I take the cake to the angel, then return to my bedroom and climb into bed. Where else to keep warm? Maybe the power will come on in a while. Maybe not.

HAIL

MAY 14: TAWANG
Back at the telephone central with rain falling, call Baby, tell her that I'm returning to Assam by truck. "The Sela Pass was too much."
"That road was making me nervous for you," says Baby. "In the back of my mind I was thinking that you should stay here. So many interesting places and people you can talk to."
But no challenge, no chance to prove to myself that I can still hack it.
Hack it aged 77? Who am I kidding?
The power cuts out. I glance out of the window. The road is two inches deep in hail. Bloody Hell!
I scuttle to the neighbouring store and buy an umbrella, then to the Chinese restaurant for a bowl of soup. Three kids enter, smoking.
Apparently the NO SMOKING notice is merely for show.
I cancel the soup and take my custom to the bakery.

MAY 14: TAWANG
Fish smells. Passang Tsering favours the vegetable truck. He will talk with the owner. Clouds close in as I walk back up the hill to the Tawang hotel. Walking up hill at 10000 feet is moderately exhausting. I sit on a wall a while in company with a nanny goat and kid. The nanny goat is demoniacally possessed - or a close ancestor posed for medieval paintings of the devil. Wicked eyes accompany horns and a beard. Perhaps I should visit the monastery to pray for protection. A thin drizzle falls. Stupid not to have bought an umbrella...

DEEP THOUGHTS ON FISH TRUCKS

MAY 14: TAWANG
Passang Tsering runs a small store the left side of the road. A son home from college in Delhi speaks reasonable English. A younger son wears rubber gloves to hand print Buddhist prayer flags. The father is the strong silent type. Ask him a question and he ponders deeply. Waiting for an answer, you wonder whether he has lost the thread - or succumbed to boredom. My question is the cost of a truck to Assam. Son inks wooden prayer blocks. He has printed sufficient prayer flags for a summer solstice celebration in London's Hyde Park before Dad replies: a truck fetches fish every day from Tezpur. Another fetches vegetables. Trucks travel empty of cargo south to Assam. Passenger passage is 500 Ruppees. Say a further 1500 Rupees for the bike.

TOURISM IS DISRESPECTFUL

MAY 14: TAWANG
I have the telephone number of a friend of a friend, Passang Tsering. An angel runs the telephone central below the Tawang Hotel. I tried calling my wife last night. The land line refused to cooperate. The angel lent me her mobile. Now she telephones Passang Tsering and gives me directions to his store a kilometer down hill in New Market. Sunshine improves Tawang - not much but enough to make the walk enjoyable. Wild yellow Primulas grow on the grass bank above the road. Tin cans planted with garden Primulas splash balconies with rainbow colour. Tawang monastery up on the right dominates the route. Second largest Buddhist monastery after Lasha, it is home to 450 lamas. Have I visited? No. Will I visit? No. Monasteries and churches and temples are for prayer. Tourism strikes me as disrespectful.

LAST HURRAH

MAY 14: TAWANG
4:30 a.m. and the concrete bumps in the mattress win. I take a hot bucket bath, return to bed and face reality. I am beat. Definitely beat. Totally beat. My back hurts. My ankle hurts. My hands hurt. Everything hurts. The Last Hurrah was the Last Hurrah.
6 a.m. and I search for breakfast. A newish lodging house up a side street advertises Chinese. The door is open. I order Nescafe and a plain omelet as probably safe and ask the kids running the place the cost of trucking my bike back to Assam. These are bright kids. They can spot a score. They quote seven thousand rupees as the norm - though a friend of theirs might do it for six.
I respond with one of those patronising smiles with which Oldies of what ever century infuriate young whippersnappers.

HOT NIGHT SPOT

MAY 13: TAWANG
I have discovered Tawang's hot night spot. Or may have. To be certain, I need more light than a lone candle. And maybe a few people. Fortunately I came armed with a Leatherman torch. Flash it round and I discover an untended bar, a couple of plastic-covered sofas and a dozen square tables each with four chairs. Decor is Western pop star posters. My sons might recognise the music. I share the table with the candle - not much of a conversationalist and I'm too tired to talk to myself. Voices come from behind a door. I tap. Then tap more firmly. Then bang. A head appears above a fake leather bomber jacket, middle-aged with glasses.
Does he serve food?
He thinks a while before answering in the affirmative. He even switches on a light above the bar and turns a dimmer switch controlling ceiling lights from zero to .5 on a scale of zero to ten.
I order a bottle of strong Fosters (he doesn't stock normal). The beer alone is warm in Tawang and the chicken chowmein would please a vegan.

DINNER IN TAWANG

MAY 13: TAWANG
Power returns. I take a bucket bath and dress in everything that's dry in my rucksack. I need an umbrella. Maybe tomorrow, if the rain continues. I make a run for an Chinese restaurant three buildings down on the same street. A notice on the wall forbids smoking and alcohol. Two tables of inebriated chain-smokers provide local colour. I cross the street to a second choice. The choice is up an exterior circular steel staircase. My ascent is watched from the balcony by the owner. I reach the top. He says, "Restaurant closed."
Yes, Tawang is fun.
The last option is an archway lighted with multi-colour bulbs. Can't be the local whore house. Whore houses don't advertise. Possibly a night club?

INDIAN MATTRESSES

MAY 13: TAWANG
I am wet and cold. There is a promise that Power will return to Tawang at 7 p.m. One hour to wait and a further half hour for the geyser to heat sufficient water for a bucket bath. The Tawang hotel has mattresses that Indians believe to be orthopedic and a nail-bed Fakir might find comfortable. Normal mortals prefer something with more give than a concrete roadway - roadways liberally spread with bumps. I drag one mattress on to the other, spread the padded cotton duvet off the spare bed on top, change underwear for dry and cover myself with the second duvet and two blankets. How is it?
Cold and damp.

SPECIALISTS IN CELLAR AMBIANCE

MAY 13: TAWANG
Tawang in the rain does not impress immediately as a party town, wrong vibes.
A few open umbrellas scurry up Main Street. Very few. A bright tartan number covers two soldiers holding hands. A good friend from Assam recommended two hotels. I choose the Tawang as the cheaper of the two. It is a modern building and should be waterproof. Two young women show me a single room at the back on the first floor designed by a specialist in B movie cellar ambiance. The women apologise for that old Indian faithful, Load Shedding. I point out that a window might help. They show me a double room with twin beds and a hot water geyser in the bathroom that will heat water once the Power provider stops shedding load. The room opens off a covered walkway and on a fine day would have a fine mountain view. For now the view is black cloud, rain, parked eight-seater jeeps and even fewer umbrellas.

WATERPROOF KEEPS OUT WATER

MAY 13: TAWANG
$7 WallMart waterproof trousers give adequate protection against a light drizzle when strolling slowly round a municipal golf course on a warm summer's evening. I am riding a motorbike (all be it a small one) up a cold mountain in a downpour. Maybe I should be grateful that the pants act as a sieve and break some of the force of the storm - or learn to buy upmarket, say $10, or even $15. The final kilometer into Tawang is a mud slide. Tawang would look less depressing in sunshine - though not much. Tasteless concrete construction is tasteless concrete construction. Cheap paint is cheap paint. My wet WallMart pants should feel right at home.

KICKED IN THE CROTCH

MAY 13: UP TO TAWANG
The ride down from Sela has been too joyous. Punishment is inevitable. Look across the valley and a faint mist smokes the road up to Tawang, a climb of 5000 feet in 34 kilometers through steep fields and villages. The town is shrouded in dark grey cloud. So, now, is the Sela Pass. Down in the valley an iron girder and steel-plate bridge spans true white water. The road up is mostly rock, mud and potholes. The tires slither and bounce. The seat kicks me in the crotch. I got my second wind riding down. Second winds are temporary. Tired? Very...
Rain falls. The road has collapsed in a couple of places. Women road workers carry baskets of aggregate on their heads. Others squat beside the road chipping boulders in the rain. Female liberation to do a man's work – or a machine's work. Children too (why aren't they at school?), armed with a heavy hammer. Their homes, shacks built of rust-decayed tin made waterproof with road tar. Hill people, they grin as I pass, answer my greetings with a lifted hand and a Hi. My anger on their behalf won't improve their lives...

TRIBALS?

MAY 13: SELA PASS
Lunch is rice with vegetables midway down the Pass. Passengers from two eight-seater jeeps crowd the three tables in a tin-shack cafe. Two girls serve and wash plates outside at a hand pump. The girls are joyful and pretty – surely qualifications for Tribal status? I pose for cameras while waiting my turn for a seat. Look, guys, this is me with that bearded foreign Oldie and this is so-and-so sitting on the seat of his bike. The photographing happens everywhere – and more often now than in the first weeks. People recognise me from TV and newspaper coverage. Fame? I don't believe so. More a freak status. That's OK...

GOOD-NATURED YAKS

MAY 13: SELA PASS
The mountain has got bored with being kind. No more gentle slopes, more a sheer drop and an end to the good road (good as in reasonable rather than good as in actually good), mostly dirt with 350° hairpins ripped to bits. Yaks grumble good-naturedly at being requested to move aside. Brave enough to peek over the edge and there's a village within spitting distance. Getting there takes half an hour as the road zigs and zags a half K one way, half a K the other and so on and so on. The first few fields are bare reddish earth. Drop further and a few green shoots grab for sunlight and white rhododendrons are in flower. Down another thousand feet and the fields are carpeted with emerald green while harvest is approaching near the valley bottom, the fall approximately 8000 feet in 38 kilometers - the climb to the Pass from Dirang was steeper by 8 Ks.

DOWN IS EASIER THAN UP

MAY 13: SELA PASS
The ride down begins in sunshine with an easy stretch of reasonable tar down a glorious upland valley, two lakes on the left, a few stunted high-altitude pines, a proper mountain burn with short, white-water runs over smooth boulders into crystal pools where a worm dangled might tempt a trout. Drop a little and the road begins to zigzag, at first only a few small rhododendrons all in bud, then a couple of deep reds in bloom. Minute almost white, wild flowers speckle the turf, moss on rocks, a few tiny ferns.
Drop further and I am in yellow rhododendron territory, small and bright by the road, tree-size and pale pink through the scattered pines above sheets of drum-stick cowslip primulas the far side of the burn.

SELA PASS

MAY 13: SELA PASS
I've been on the road two and a half hours, uphill all the way. And I've been scared much of the time. Now I've made it. I am at the top, the Sela Pass.
The pass is the narrows between two mountain peaks.
My legs threaten to crumble when I dismount. A cafe on the left advertises tea and food. A woman serves at a small shop counter inside. A corridor leads to a circular space with seats and tables and with windows all the way round. I sit there a while. Nothing happens, no tea. I don't have sufficient energy to go find someone. I sit a while longer, then go back out to the bike. My legs are steadier. I lean against the cafe wall to steady my arms and photograph the sign board as proof that I made it. Then I mount, press the start button and ride on down the mountain towards Tawang.