Places named after sexual or autoerotic preferences—like Shag Island or Intercourse or Knob Lick—must, I suppose, draw a fair throng of oddball tourists hoping to grab a piece of the nomenclaturally suggested action. But believe me when I tell you that the reason I warmed up to a visit to Jilling in the Kumaon hills was not because the estate shares its name with female sexual self-gratification practices. What had me breathing heavy, instead, was the prospect of visiting one of the more outlandish outposts of what is today fashionably called ‘ecological tourism’: a 50-plus acre Garden of Eden off the beaten track, whose owner Steve Lall resists panchayat offers to build a road up the hill—with a theatrical bit of ‘over-my-dead-body’ grandstanding.
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Steve’s green politics has had a curious effect on guests to the estate, who have to hoof it uphill: it opens up their pores and gives them a ruddy complexion. From Matial, about 40km beyond Kathgodam on the road past Bhimtal, Madhu and I hauled ourselves uphill for about two kilometres, past oak and pine forests and bright-red rhododendron blossoms and armies of plum, peach and apricot trees in bloom. There were ponies and porters at hand, but in our excessive eagerness not to be seen as gradient-challenged, physically unfit plainsfolks, we passed them by like the chill mountain breeze. However, self-doubt crept in halfway up, in between lungfuls of laboured breathing: why would anyone, I wondered (pant-pant), pay good money (huff-puff) to torture themselves thus?
But that was on my way up. I didn’t know then, did I, that I would doze off in a daisy meadow—and wake up, sunburnt but rejuvenated, to the flutter of a thousand butterfly wings. And that I would soon be sucking the honey right out of a honeycomb dissembled only minutes earlier, dodging an enraged swarm of bees. And that I would be basking in the generous hospitality of Steve, his cowgirl-memsahib Parvati and their jungle-flower daughter Nandini who would, late one magical night, sing to us of sternly officious forest guards and flirtatious grass-cutter women…
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But for all its rustic simplicity, a sojourn at Jilling Estate is no pastoral picnic: it can best be savoured only if you’re bodily fit enough to do a fair bit of up-and-down walkabouts and your mind is expansive enough to delight in the splendid isolation of the place. Five cottages, dispersed in the forests, offer simple but comfortable accommodation: there are no televisions or phones in the rooms, and the caretaker needs an hour’s notice to rustle up hot water for your bucket bath. But what’s an hour in a place where you can hold Infinity in the palm of your hand? Early one morning, as I lay on a stone ledge outside my room with my head cradled in my arms, staring into a timeless horizon, the hushed ticking of my wristwatch, marking every frozen moment, gave rise to a curious time warp that my mind struggled to grapple with.
Steve too was recovering from a time-and-space displacement: he had just returned from a two-month-long motorbike tour of South India, and was catching up on the local news. A black Himalayan bear had mauled a woman in a neighbouring village. A leopard had broken down a cowshed door and made away with a calf. A grasscutter woman, eight months pregnant, had lost her foothold on the edge of a cliff and had fallen over 1,000 feet to her death: the villagers had surgically removed the smashed foetus, buried it and cremated the mother…
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It’s impossible to travel to Jilling and not be touched by the joys and sorrows of the local community. In fact, a guided tour of surrounding villages is de rigueur for most of Steve’s guests, and we headed out with Ramesh, our companion for the day, for Kanarkha village. With the earnestness of politicians on the campaign trail, we visited several homes in the village. We pranced around with pink-cheeked children, and gambolled with frisky, big-headed mountain dogs. And over endless cups of tea, we bantered with the villagers about Kumaoni shamanistic rituals, bizarre fertility rites, and the Congress(I)’s electoral prospects in Uttarakhand.
Back at Steve’s place, we sat around the fireplace, and drank deep at the Fount of the Old Monk. All around us were symbols of serene domesticity. The two resident dogs, Lalu and Jili, were curled up close to the fire, and Vikram the cat would colonise whichever chair had been momentarily vacated to get a refill. Soulful jazz strains flowed from a WorldSpace receiver, but that soon gave way to an impromptu Kumaoni live cultural performance. Steve, Parvati, Nandini and a couple of visitors from the village kept up a steady flow of folksongs, and Madhu learnt to do the Kumaoni Shuffle and Sway. Either that or he was staggering drunk.
The next morning, I was to join Parvati and try my hand at milking the Jersey cow, but the long walk to the village the previous day and the late night extracted their toll, and I failed to wake up early enough. Instead, we banded together under the generalship of Parmanand Bhatt, the local building contractor and Congress block-level leader, and launched an assault on a honeycomb after first smoking out the bees. The swarm came at us with righteous indignation and overwhelming air superiority, but it singled out Bhatt for punitive treatment—which led to some idle speculation about the political affiliation of the honeybees. Yet, the brave Bhatt soldiered on, his face and arms reddened by the stings, and ensured through his valorous efforts that we would have fresh honey for our wholesome breakfast.
Soon enough, it was time to head back home. The entire village saw us off with flowers and farewells—and an invitation to return to Jilling. I have to say I’m tempted: I may on honeydew have fed, but I’ve taken a raincheck on the milk of paradise. But first, I’ll have to milk that Jilling Jersey.
The information
Getting there:
By train—Take the Ranikhet Exp. from Old Delhi to Kathgodam and a cab from there to Matial. Jilling Estate can also pick you from Kathgodam. From Matial, Jilling is a 2km/1hr walk; you can also hire a pony or a palkhi.
By road—Jilling is about 300km from New Delhi. Take NH-24 past Hapur and Moradabad bypass; past Rampur, turn left onto NH-87; go past Rudrapur, Haldwani and Kathgodam; at Ranibagh, turn right to Bhim Tal; at Khutani trijunction, turn right towards Chanfi, go past to Matial.
The hotel: There are four cottages, each with attached kitchenette, on 50-plus acres: Family House (two living units, with a sitting room with fireplace); Top House (offers perhaps the best view); Wood House (built of pine wood; closest to the main cottage, where the Lall family resides). No TV or phone in any of the cottages; hot water on demand; bucket bath. Contact: 05942-246186, 94123-83348, 011-29813546, www.jilling.net
What to see & do: Walking through mixed deciduous forests to surrounding villages; bird-watching; wildlife animal sighting; Jilling Estate organises treks to Milam Glacier, Pindari Glacier, and Panchchuli. Steve Lall is a mobike freak, and occasionally organises mobike trips to Kumaon, Garhwal and Nepal.