Shakumbri Devi

Ever since our return to India, Dehradun is a place we have been visiting with clockwork regularity. My aging (now widowed) mother-in-law resides there in Defence Colony and we make it a point to visit her every few weeks. In the past, the journey was usually by train. The early morning Shatabdi Express from New Delhi brings you into Dehradun in comfort and style, and one is home before lunch. But this requires pre-planning, reservations inwards and outwards, and offers no flexibility. We also came by road a couple of times,usually by Taxi, and I even came by the Volvo Bus once. We used the highway while it was still under construction, and it was a nightmare. The journey of roughly 300Kms took close to 8 hours, and there have been occasions when we have been stuck in the congestion for several hours. Which is why the train made a lot more sense. Of course, there was a time when even the train which started from Delhi in the morning, got abruptly terminated at Saharanpur (short of its ultimate destination – Dehradun), because of floods on the tracks. Added to that, there was a landslide which had blocked the road traffic too.  All the passengers were offloaded and I remember having to make my way back to Delhi in a dilapidated Roadways bus, which rattled its way through the villages stopping every few minutes for passengers.

Still, we also saw things evolve in front of our eyes.  The highways slowly got functional, dual carriage 6-lane roads with excellent surface where speeds of100-120 Kmph were comfortable. A journey which could take from 8 hours to infinity, now took no more than 5 hours on an average.  I have always been fond of driving, and soon decided that I would like to make this road trip myself, at my own pace, often going off the highways and driving through the green farm-filled villages, stopping and admiring the landscape, enjoying the drive. We were going from home to home and hence a couple of minutes this way or that was not an issue.

Over a period of time, the road has become as familiar as the back of our hand. Just short of Dehradun,  between Chutmalpur and Mohand, we would never fail to notice a turn off towards the Mata Shakumbri Devi Temple. Uttarkhand is well known for its religious shrines, and for a while we believed that the road probably led into the high mountains, not something we could undertake without a plan. But a little research and we realized that the temple is just about 40 Kms from the turn off and can easily be done either en-route or as a half-day trip from Dehradun.  On this visit, we decided we’d make a trip there. We learnt that the road, though good for most parts had some really bad patches, and not being familiar with the road, we decided we’d take a taxi from Dehradun to make the trip this time. A two hour drive to the temple, about an hour out there, and another two hours to return. Sounded good.

So in the morning, we set off from Defence Colony and headed past the ISBT, downhill towards Delhi, past Mohand, for about 30Kms, till we reached Sunderpur where we turned off to the right on to the Jasmour-Biharigarh road heading to the Shakumbri Devi Temple.The road started off well enough, a good surface for about 8Kms, then we reached a river – now completely dry, probably due to a dam somewhere upstream. We could see there used to be a bridge across it and we could also see that it has been washed away, probably in the floods some years back. It didn’t look like it was being re-built any time soon, so now one has to cross the riverbed which is full of stones and which doesn’t do the car or your back any good. But once you cross the bed, the road becomes good again even if it is narrow and winding as it traverses through various villages. At the early hour of the wintry morning, there was a light mist in the air, and the mist covered green sugar cane plantations stretched on both sides. On the road, we felt really pleased to see children, especially lots of girls in neat proper school uniforms, happily making their way to school. The importance of education for the girl child has reached these villages. We instructed our driver Javed to drive slowly and carefully. He was a good driver not prone to rash overtaking or speeding.

We drove thus for about 20Kms, and then about 9.5 Kms short of the temple, we cleared past all the villages and reached the T-Point at Jasmour. Here we meet the road coming from Saharanpur to the temple. And here we also met the tourist crowd. Most people visiting the temple come from the Delhi side, hence they don’t need to come to where we turned off but can turn off from Saharanpur, just after Chutmalpur. The rest of the road to the temple was excellent, wide and dual-laned, and I’m sure this is how it would be all the way from Saharanpur, unlike the road from Dehradun which meanders through villages. Ten minutes later we were at the Bhura Devi Temple, which is about 2Kms before the Mata Shakumbri ka Mandir.As soon as we reached there, our car was surrounded by touts, who wanted us to visit this temple before we proceeded further. This is what the religious norms require., so we were told.  You can’t visit that temple without going here first. We probably would have, had we not been out off by the loud touts. We therefore continued and arrived at the main Mata Shakumbri Devi Temple. We were early, and ahead of the crowd, so we were able to explore the area and do our ‘darshan’ well before the hordes came.

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The temple is by itself quite an unassuming place. But it is a temple devoted to Mata, also manifested as Vaishno Devi or Durga Mata,  and hence attracts a lot of believers. There is a small market just outside the temple selling the usual pooja ki samagri, religious souvenirs, and other trivia. There are also three food stalls all selling the same stuff – Kadhi Chawal which is a specialty of the place, Pakoras (aloo, gobhi, palak – no onions), and bread pakoras, along with piping hot sugary milky tea. The market covers the whole facade of the temple, so you really can’t even see the building from the outside.

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About 2 Kms further is another temple. Itis called the Prachin Shri Rakt Dantika Maha Gauri Mandir. Not many people visit this mandir because it is probably accessible only in the dry season, entails a 2Km walk along a cobbled river bed, wading through water at places. But we needed our morning constitutional, hence we took the walk there. An interesting place, not a soul to be seen except the pujari who saw us coming and hoped we would make an entry, but we just paid our respects from the outside and headed back. We had left home on an empty stomach since that is what is appropriate when you visit a temple and by now we had built up quite an appetite. So we headed to one of the food stalls where we had one plate of Kadhi Chawal (you can get a half plate too), a plate of pakoras and two teas all for the princely sum of Rs. 100. The waiter was surprised when I gave him a tip of Rs. 10, it is not expected.

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Then we began our return journey. By now the day was young, it was close to 11am and all the village activities were on stream. One major cottage industry along the route is making ‘shakkar’ and‘gur’ from the abundant sugarcane which is grown here. We stopped at one such plant and watched the process of converting the sugarcane to shakkar and gur.The master brewer was at the edge of the boiling cauldrons and would throw in the right amount of baking soda or the red color at the right time to process the gur as desired. They receive bulk orders from various other villages, and even though all the stuff is made in the same place, each village requires its own distinct color and taste. The master brewer has to make it exactly that way. We bought 5 Kgs of the stuff, after spending so much time there it would be rude to just walk off. It would probably last us till next winter, but we plan to distribute it.

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From there it was a  straight drive back home, and we were glad to be back in time for a homely lunch. It was a day well spent.