Me.

Illiterati: The welcoming McLeod cafe

Some cafes deserve a story of their own.

By now I’m habituated of spending my new year’s eves in commute, returning from my travels over the year-end holidays. The end-year 2017 was no different. If only…

My sharp ever-on-the-lookout-for-cafes gaze had spotted its object of affection while on the way from Dharmshala to McLeodganj, and my brain had made a mental note of this discovery. So, that 31st day of December, when my group of 4 found itself with some time on its hands before taking the bus back to Delhi at the fag end of the trip, I knew where I wanted to spend it. The opinion among the group, however, was divided: One of us wanted to visit the cricket ground in Dharmshala to indulge in some photography, another wanted to just visit ‘some cafe’, while the third was undecided. The group split, the two of us started afoot towards our destination – that cafe. There are two roads that run between Dharamshala and McLeodganj, and I wasn’t even sure if we were on the right one – the one where this cafe was located. Nor did I know the name of the cafe. But my characteristic adamance – if I want to do something I do it – wouldn’t let me return to Delhi without giving ‘finding this place’ a shot.

And so we walked. As it turned out, the other two also decided to join us after a while. Cafe calling, after all.

The road we walked took us to that cafe.

My adamance took us to Cafe Illiterati.

Where they serve the best chocolate pastry I’ve had. And I’ve had quite a few so far through my life.

Cafe Illiterati is a snug, cosy, warm, friendly, inviting, and cheerful European-style cafe. With a sweet aroma of freshly brewed coffee and baked cake, bright incandescent lighting, light music in the background, and to go with the name – walls lined with row upon rows of bookshelves occupied by, well, books of all sorts, this place is heaven for the tired traveller who likes his coffee and loves his books. And so we were.

While all its walls are covered with bookshelves, the one facing the entrance to the cafe has huge French windows leading out to a balcony. These windows are the gateway to the splendid views of the mountain range in the distance, which were covered with snow at the time of our visit. The balcony is spacious, has a few chairs set out for the view, and offers a good locale for the photographers to set out their tripod cams.

But the main action is indoors.

Frequented by stylish young folks from around the globe and monks alike, the place has a relaxed feel to it. While the ambience and the aroma give it a very cafe-y feel, the presence and sight of the book-laden walls lend to it an air of, well, literati. Being a coffee-and-book-lover myself, this was a pitstop straight from heaven before taking the bus back home.

And so, that cold December evening, we took in the views of the snow-covered Himalayas from the balcony as much as we soaked in the cosy warmth indoors. We placed our orders, snatched up a book each and took our places. And waited in anticipation for that of which the sweet aromatic precursor wafted through the air. I don’t remember much, however, apart from that piece of decadent chocolate cake. Melt-in-your-mouth soft and spongy, this scrumptious treat stood at a mere 100 bucks. If Illiterati was the find of the trip, this chocolate cake was the Kohinoor of the discovery.

Our dinner done, we didn’t want to leave this place yet. Our bus was scheduled to depart from Dharamshala at 10 PM. We pondered over our options: I suggested extending our stay and counting down the minutes to midnight at this cafe, but some of the rest of us couldn’t afford such a luxury of time. With some imploration, however, I managed to convince them of the benefits of choosing a warm, comfortable and pleasant cafe over a bus to welcome-in the new year.

…if only.

If only Illiterati were open till midnight.

Illiterati operates, for some strange reason, only till 9-9:30 PM. Nicely in time for us to catch our return bus. Only that, we didn’t want that any more! Having convinced everyone of extending our stay by a day, the short hours of operation proved a dampener, and we ended up ‘celebrating’ the arrival of the new year in our bus. Wasn’t the first time for me, and would prove to not be the last either.

Some cafes deserve a post of their own, and Illiterati was one such gem. I usually don’t repeat places (Pondicherry is an exception), but if I visit Mcleodgaj again, it’d be just for Illiterati.

Pondicherry and the Yellow Bicycle

The joy of walking through the lanes of a city cannot be matched by visiting its tourist spots.

One of the core differences between a tourist and a traveller, for me, is that while the former sees the advertised ‘highlights’ of the place he is visiting, the latter gets the ‘feel’ of the place. Being a tourist means visiting only those places that the tourism department of the government want you to visit, places that millions before you have set foot on, attractions captured umpteen times in the reels, physical or digital, of cameras. These are the places that are over-crowded, so much so that one, one has to wait for his turn to visit/view the monument/waterfall/insert-your-tourist-spot-here, and two, the real feel and peace of the place is lost out in the din of the crowd and the noise made by it.

So, I like to take in the un-visited, the hidden, the real sights a place has to offer; I like to ‘go local’, visit the areas where locals live, where they shop, to take in the culture of the place I’m visiting. It is with this objective that I ditched the team buses going to Auroville on that 1st day of December 2018, while on an office-organised trip to Pondicherry, and set off on my own to explore the streets of the French town.

‘Explore’. I was visiting Pondicherry for the sixth time. Some call it, jokingly, my second home. Others ask me why I like this place so much; “I’ve been there, there’s nothing there, worth a day tops”; I’ve been told. See it from my eyes, ‘do’ Pondicherry like I do, I tell them, and even six visits are not enough. If it were not for all the other uncountable places to visit, I’d go there again. I’ve some fond, sweet, heartwarming memories of Pondicherry, yes. But I’m digressing here. This is about the sixth and last time I was there.

December of 2018.

The joy of walking through the lanes of a city cannot be matched by visiting its tourist spots. And so, having refused to come with the rest of the team to Auroville, I set off on foot by myself.

The plan was to re-trace some of the streets I had visited on my earlier visits, pay homage to a few of the cafes I remembered from back then, and revive the memories I had, still fresh, of my five previous visits. Numero uno on this plan was that little cafe that serves the most scrumptious Chocolate Spoon – and – Molten Chocolate Drink in all of Pondicherry – Zuka la, and its sister cafe next door, Cafe Ole, that claims to serve the second best coffee in all the town. (Second, yes. Who the first might be, is a game I like to play with people. Feel free to post your guess in the comments below. I’ll let you know if you’re right). And so, with Google Maps as my guide, I set out from my hotel situated in the Indian part of the town (Pondicherry, for the uninitiated, is divided into the Indian and the French towns).

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Mission Street. It runs through the heart of the Heritage Town, the French part of the city, and has several cafes and shops lined up on both sides of it. It takes its name from the Immaculate Conception Cathedral situated on it. Zuka la also is situated on this street, and so my journey took me to this lane. And here, I chanced upon, on a crossroad, a bicycle rental shop.

‘Cycling through the Heritage Town, crisscrossing through the neatly laid out streets and lanes, that sounds fun.’ With that thought in mind, I stopped at the shop to rent a bike. I had walked the length and breadth of White Town (another name by which the French Town is known) on my past visits, but the charm of cycling through it presented a different allure to me that I couldn’t, nay, didn’t want to, resist. And am I glad I didn’t!

The joy of walking through the lanes of a city can perhaps only be matched, even be bettered, by cycling through those lanes.

The freedom and the thrill of being able to cycle through a city, a well-laid out town with good roads and minimal traffic, was liberating. One does not normally get to cycle in the major Indian cities and towns, mostly due to the traffic, but also due to the heat and the pollution. And if opportunity does present itself, then the roads do not play support. I’ve found, apart from Pondicherry, only a part of Lutyen’s Delhi ridable so far through my life. The joy of cycling, of exploring a city on the pedals, of the flexibility it gave me to cover the city as I wanted to, of biking up and down the same streets again and again, of doing a recon for the cafes and the restaurants where I could eat with my friends once they were back from Auroville, and yet of stopping when and where I wanted to, for as long as I wanted to, without worrying about parking my vehicle, this joy alone, made this trip a standout for me. It was not so much Pondicherry I enjoyed, love it as I do, during my sixth visit there, as was cycling through Pondicherry. Seeing Pondicherry in a new way, covering much more of it than I could on foot. Yes, a motor vehicle, a two-wheeler, would have afforded me much of the same opportunities, but it does not give the same feel as a bicycle for the most part. Besides, this was an avenue I had already explored in my past visits.

And so I crisscrossed through Bussy Street and Mission Street, rode up Rue Saffron, and down it, and up again (and found an enchanting little place called Cafe Des Arts in the process), and into Dumas Street, and out of it onto the Goubert Avenue. There was not a single street that I did not cycle on. I had not covered this much of the town on my previous visits, whether on foot or on a two-wheeler.

Cae Des Arts

Pondicherry 2018 was a good trip due to several reasons, but it was a memorable trip due to that Yellow bicycle.