NR Narayana Murthy (Infosys) and SN Subrahmanyan (L&T), citing India’s low work productivity, advocated for 70 and 90 hours of work per week, respectively, prompting Bollywood actor Deepika Padukone to comment on the latter’s Sunday shift as “shocking.” Despite the aforementioned opinions, I observe my daughter Neerja and son Gaurav diligently working in the private sector, using laptops and making global mobile calls, even on Sundays and holidays. Contrarily, if one ever visits any civil government offices, one rarely finds babus and lower staff holding on to their chairs during office hours. As per the Occupational Safety, Health, and Working Conditions Code of 2020, studies show that working over 50 hours per week negatively impacts health, leading to increased anxiety, depression, and cardiovascular issues, leaving many advocating a 4-day-a-week work schedule! In the armed forces, while on field/operational duties, work or no work, one was on call 24/7 and lived with work culture and ethics.
Lakes of Kumaon Hills
People often refer to Nainital as ‘The Lake District’ of India in Uttarakhand. There are four freshwater great lakes in the Kumaon Hills—Nainital Lake, Bhimtal Lake, Naukuchiatal Lake, and Sat Tal Lake. Sat Tal Lake is actually not one lake but a series of seven connected lakes, namely Ram Lake, Sita Lake, Lakshman Lake, Bharat Lake, Garud Lake, Hanuman Lake, and Nal Damyanti Lake.
And Why Naukhuchiyatal?
Around the end of the year, Neerja typically takes a week off from Christmas to New Year to unwind from the year’s accumulated stress. She particularly enjoys driving to the quieter, less frequented hill stations in the Kumaon Hills, partly due to her father’s fondness for his Kumaon Regiment. Since we have visited Ranikhet, Nainital, Bhimtal, and Cloud 9 in Ramgarh many times, roughly midway on Bhowali-Mukteshwar Road, we decided to spend our short 5-day sojourn in quieter, less frequented Naukuchiatal, just about 3 km away from Bhimtal. Naukuchiatal is an ideal, pristine, quiet hill station with a nine-cornered, pretty, deep, and clean freshwater lake evoking a sense of beauty, immaculate calm, purity, and untouched perfection. It is still in its near-original and perfect condition, despite the tourists’ invasion..
Naukuchiatal
Naukuchiatal is an ideal destination for those seeking a peaceful getaway. The place gets its name from the Naukuchiatal Lake, which, when translated, means lake of nine corners. The lake is pretty deep and clean, situated at the height of 1220 m in an enchanting valley offering boating, angling, rowing, paddling, yachting, bird-watching, paragliding, walking on lesser-frequented jungle tracks, or just basking in the sun over a cup of tea, glancing over a book in hand, chirping birds, and fauna and flora, or the sudden appearance of the ocean of cloud gently floating in the sky dotted with paragliders hurrying up to land safely in sudden poor visibility.
Dreaming, Driving & Discovering Delights of Naukuchiatal
After determining our destination, our daughter Neerja reserved a cottage for three of us at Ama Stays & Trails in Godhuli, Surai, approximately 2 km from the Tatas-run Naukuchiatal forested resort. It was the perfect idyllic location for stress-busting, except for the 200-meter sharp climb on a snaky, stony track. The older people, like me and my introverted wife Rajni, preferred to stay in the cottage till our stay, enjoying food, sun, sitting, bird and butterfly watching, and persuading the resort Mali with his cautions on the survival of the hilly flowers and plants in the plains, notwithstanding staying in Ranikhet for 7 years about half a century back during my two postings.
Having packed and loaded our car on the 25th evening, we left Noida for our destination the next day on a very foggy morning at 7:50 am. The road traveled nth times as I did my schooling in Bilaspur and Rudrapur and commissioned in the Kumaon Regiment with Neerja insisting on her dependency on GPS, stating a 295 km journey taking around 6 hrs. The journey was uneventful, with an elevated expressway winding around small towns and villages. While one misses the old eateries and dhabas, there are plenty of modern options such as McDonald’s, KFC, Sagar, etc., which offer better and cleaner washroom facilities. We enjoyed a light brunch before continuing our journey. At Rampur, I told my daughter to turn left onto the Bilaspur-Rudrapur-Haldwani road, but she insisted on trusting GPS, and it was for the first time in my nearly 7 decades of traveling on this road that she insisted on traveling via Pantnagar and NOT Tanda, thus missing Haldwani and Kathgodam en route to Bhimtal-Naukuchiatal. With GPS-navigated travels both ways and unabated construction and realignments of highways, I missed my alma mater, A N Jha Rural High School, an inter-college in Rudrapur. We took a short break around Bhimtal Lake in the bleakly cloudy, foggy weather before reaching the main gate of the resort. After a stressful, winding 200-meter climb to our beautiful cottage, we cursed the location of the lake. As soon as the clouds parted, the lake and a group of enthusiastic paragliders appeared in the clear blue sky.
Nestled amidst Himalayan cypress, the Tata’s Ama Stays & Trails in Godhuli provides a unique luxury homestay experience in the heart of nature. There are five cottages apart in an undulating Himalayan cypress with natural elegance and serenity. The resort staff was monitoring our movement constantly, and utmost courtesy and personal attention not only got the car parked but also assisted us in carrying our luggage to our allotted Timor cottage. While my wife and I were surprised to be served with hot tea and pakoras as our weakness, the local fresh lake water fried fish so often served as snacks and meals was a sheer culinary delight. Later I learned, while booking the cottage, that the staff enquired about food preferences and ensured serving the guests’ delight. Each cottage is meticulously designed, offering comfort and luxury in typically Kumaoni style love, warmth, and hospitality of ‘Atithi Devo Bhava’ (अतिथि देवो भव:) meaning ‘A guest is akin to God’—the dynamics of the host-guest relationship as embodied in the ancient Indian traditions, culture, and way of living so that families/tourists unwind stress in the natural Kumaoni Himalayan foothills.
We had the opportunity to dress informally in a relaxed, quiet, worry-free environment and enjoy complete privacy thanks to the room service. This luxurious Kumaoni resort provides an escape from urban stresses with panoramic mountain views to refresh the soul and spirits. While Neerja enjoyed long mountain walks, reading a book, or simply gazing around the valley admiring exotic, colorful plants and flowers, I strolled with her, panting and puffing, or peeping at the well-laid library or the yoga studio, disconnected from Noida’s hustle and bustle and pollution in natural surroundings.
Poverty and a lack of health, education, and employment opportunities are devasting our beautiful hills. Massive deforestation, construction of broad multiple roads, dams, and concrete, multiple-storey monstrous buildings and hotels in connivance with the greedy local politicians, contractors, and forest and administrative officials’ mafia. The neo-rich Indians from the big cities, industrialists, and business houses have invaded these fragile hills with endless cottages, resorts, and guest houses in severely earthquake-prone Himalayan zones, adversely affecting the local economy, ecology, culture, traditions, and social values. It has led to the squeezing of farmlands, fruit gardens, forests, and habitats for birds, butterflies, freshwater fish in lakes, and wildlife, creating constant conflict between them and humans. The provision of health, education, and jobs; the development of forest- and fruit-based cottage industries; and putting an end to unabated deforestation and the construction industry can only bring HOPE to these hills presently under man-made devastation.
After two days, we drove through the small and sleepy Naukuchiatal township, full of all sorts of homestays and hotels to the lake for every budget and with many paragliding joints up-hills along the roadside. I felt a bit gloomy as during the off-season one sees more of these vacant hotels and restaurants staring nowhere than the locals around! We also discovered that very close to Naukuchiyatal, there is Kamal Tal, or the ‘Lake of Lotuses,’ that blooms to glory in summer but does not give a pleasing look in winter.
On December 30, 2024, early in the morning, we thanked resort staff for their hospitality and care, as Neerja had planned our departure from the resort to avoid heavy traffic near the NCR. While vacationing in the Kumaon Hills and having served in ‘The Kumaon Regiment’ for over three decades, our family developed a fondness for ‘Baal Mithai.’ Neerja advised us to buy it from Bhimtal during our drive down, unaware that all shops would be closed at that time. Regrettably, despite carrying a wealth of memories, this was the first time in my 65-year association with the Kumaon Hills and the regiment that we returned home without the Bal Mithai. We also missed seeing rhododendron trees bloom with red flowers in the forest around that make rejuvenating juice. We will not repeat such mistake(s) in our impending visit to Sat Tal!