It’s been couple of years since I had been to Manali. First thing that came to my mind last time was the keenness in which shop keepers were giving away things in paper bags and not in plastic bags as you would see in many other parts of the country. The idea is en-grained well into the visitors as well as they are enjoying this way of transaction. So today, when we went out shopping in the evening, it was a pleasure to see the same practice continuing. Though we didn’t get much time to move around the town, whatever we saw looked clean, (compared to an average Indian town), there seems to a visible Governance and people’s participation. If Manali can do this, why not other towns in India?
However, what was missing was the local food. My practice of religiously tasting local food came under tremendous tension as we couldn’t find a single ‘local’ eatery even after searching in about 20 restaurants in the vicinity of bus station and market. Most of them had menu describing Punjabi, South Indian, Gujarati, Bengali and Italian cuisines. Some restaurants had menu printed out in Hebrew as well; clearly showing the pattern of visitors to the hill station. Why would I want to come to Himachal Pradesh and have a Masala Dosai? Wouldn’t I rather have my Chicken Tikka Masala elsewhere? As for an Italian pizza, this isn’t where I want to explore.
Though it was raining cats and dogs, we didn’t want to give up looking for local eatery. Finally we found David’s café, a tiny eatery on Hadimba temple road. Run by a family, they basically serve what they eat. Though we ended up eating chappathi and zubji for the evening, Sita , the proprietress of the eatery told me that she still continues to cook ‘Maahni’ and ‘Madra’. May be on the way back to Delhi, we should stop by to check her culinary skills.
When every tourist destinations look like the same, and the food taste the same, wouldn't people just stop travelling?
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