Hotel Himland - Shimla Bus Stop -Hotel Himland ; 17.09.08
17th of September was one lazy day for the riders barring Jill who was up and ready by 1000 hrs. Jill had truly come to his territory - people, traffic, civilization. While the rest of us spent the morning lazing under the warm sheets, watching some good Dharmender-Jeetender-Raj Babbar-Danny flicks on the TV, Jill was impatiently trying to rejuvenate us into going out and explore Shimla. Sadly no one shared his enthu and we all laid back in our warm beds. Anshu, Kenny and Vikram in fact fell into deep slumber after their breakfast!! Jill was frustrated as hell , and he went out alone for a while, returning clean shaven and with a pack of masala peanuts after a while. He finished the remainder of the RS leftover from the last evening. I took a hot bath and was in the mood for the movie "Rock On". We enquired at the hotel reception about the cinemas and timings for the movie. The nearest was Shahi cinema, and we were told that the show timings for the movie were 1400 hrs, 1700 hrs, 1900 hrs and 2210 hrs. It was too late to catch the 1400 hrs show and so Jill and I decided we'd go for the 1700 hrs show. Not everyone wanted to see the movie, but I was determined to see it - there was nothing much to do in the hotel room and I didn't want to roam the crowded streets of Shimla.
Just before leaving we asked Anshu if he wanted to come for the movie. He replied he did and got ready in a jiffy and we moved downstairs. By that time I had taken the second suite booked by me and the hotel receptionist wanted me to sign the ledger pronto. I asked if that could wait cause we were getting late for the movie; He was polite enough to oblige and fetch a taxi for us. We made it just in time to the market that led to Shahi cinema. Not finding the cinema easily, we asked almost everyone on the way for the whereabouts of the cinema. Upon reaching the cinema, we found the booking stall relatively free , but the kind of people that were lining up for the tickets made me wonder if they were really going for "Rock On". It was only then we realised that "Rock On" was on 1400 hrs,1900 hrs and 2100 hrs - the 1700 hrs slot was for a B-grade porn flick "Fashion Show" or something like that!!! Sheeessshhh!!! We all looked at each other's faces and now we realised how all the people we asked about the movie hall must have thought we were some perverts!!!
We hurried away from the place and started looking for a place to sit and have our lunch. Not finding the typical restaurants that jotted the place near our hotel, we sat in a dhaba - Milap Dhaba, and ordered rice, chicken fry and dal. It was already 1730 hrs, and we had another 90 minutes to pass before the next "correct" movie started. We had one slow lunch, moved out to another dhaba for tea and finally it was 1830 hrs. We climbed again to the movie hall and took the most expensive tickets - 75 bucks for the balcony. The cinema was quite decent, probably recently renovated with plush seats and looked more like a multiplex theater. The screen was modern too - the movie was a digital print, the one that you download the movie via satellite up link into Hard Disks and then use a digital projector. Nice movie and we had the entire hall almost to ourselves - there were barely 15 people in total.
After the movie got over at 2130 hours, we picked up a bottle of Old Monk and a coke and set off for the hotel walking. Yep, walking. The taxis were quoting 80 bucks for a measly 1.5 km, so we decided to take a hike, which wasn't bad at all. We could appreciate the lights that seemed to sprout from every square inch of the hills. After a brisk walk, we arrived at the hotel and while I kept the receptionist busy with signing the ledgers and all, Anshu and Jill snuck in the bottle of rum and coke and the mehfil was set at the new suite. I suddenly didn't feel like taking any hard alcohol at all and made do with just one glass of light beer that Kenny, Gyan and Vikram had bought into the hotel. The hotel waiter, the one who had got us the RS bottle last eve, very very considerately exchanged their now-warm beer bottles with chilled ones from the bar!! How very thoughtful of him!
This time however we were wiser not to order too much food as there were plenty of leftovers of the extremely good food from last dinner. Everyone decided that they had enough of Shimla and it would be best if we left the next day for Panipat. Don't know whether it was the place or the ambience, but Jill went on an overdrive with the rum. The alcohol flowed like water down his throat until he was bamboozled to his nuts!!
I retired to the other room, but I could still hear Jill's laugh from one suite across!! And also some heavy wall/door banging that must have woken up entire Shimla!! After a while, I could sense someone climbing onto the bed and sleeping beside me. Judging from the lack of sounds I thought it was Anshu, but a little later a regularly irregular, off-scale, annoying snoring confirmed my fears that it was Gyan. I automatically reached out for my earphones, put on a playlist and tried to drift off to sleep!
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