Christmas 2019

 A Merry Christmas to every one from Nainital. Coming to Nainital is always very nostalgic and brings back a flood of memories of the beautiful childhood days spent here amidst this beautiful lake, jungles and the mountains. My dad was in the army and we kept getting posted all over India but when, I was in sixth and seventh class we stayed at Nainital and I had my schooling here. We would come running down to the flat from Nainital club where we lived. With the constraints of having money as children, the evenings were often spent in going to the flat, watching others  doing  shopping at the Bhotia market and just listening to the music being played at the Bandstand. Some times young people would shake a leg to popular Bollywood movie songs of the sixtees. When we could afford it and the children pooled the money to have a chat or tikiya at the stall in the flat felt like royalty. Before any exam or test, a visit to the Naina Devi temple was a must and one would pray to Hanumanji and Naina Devi for good marks. We would also spend time watching in amazement the skaters skate on the floor in Capital cinema. I have memories of some beautiful movies seen at Capitol and Ashoka. Today, the theatre at Ashoka is not there. Some times we would go for boating in the lake and visit the temple at Pashan Devi. We often saw the Ramlila at Bada Bajar in Mallital near the mandi and stayed awake for the nights. We would spend the week before the Ramlila preparing different kinds of churans to keep us awake and have it while shedding a tear when Ram cried in agony for not finding his wife Sita. We would also laugh and have this while Hanuman delivered his peppy dialogues and made every one laugh while he confronted the royal court of Ravan and burnt Lanka. Now, today, I went around the lake, the flat reliving those beautiful memories. Nainital continues to be a favourite place in the world and has an immense attraction unlike any other cith in the world.May be since this is associated with childhood memories. A time with out any care in the world. A time of fun and frolic amidst the lap of nature.