Welcome to Isheeria’s Healing Circles.

Welcome to the #FestivalofWords –  Come Join me and some brilliant writers of #writetribe as we #writebravely  on prompts which are interesting and inspiring & Fun (to write, and hopefully, for you to read [sce emoji=”smile”/] )!

Happy Rakshabandhan folks! Hope you had a great festival and enjoyed the holiday and Day off!

Our prompt for Day 3 is : Feature a map and write about a place either real or virtual

One of my all time favorite places to visit is Dehradun! As a young girl I used to make annual trips to meet my Great-Grandmother  & assorted relatives and cousins. While these were short trips (2-3 days), they were always filled with laughter and joy and the sense of being Welcome and Loved!  

There is something about the very Air in Dehradun! It fills up your heart and makes you Dream  [sce emoji=”flower”/]

Here is a quick journey on the map (of places of My interest [sce emoji=”wink”/] – look right at the center of the map – This is the heart of the city I knew, and where all the action was!

We would take the Overnight Bus from ISBT, Delhi (in those times, buses were the preferred modes of  transport from Del to Ddn) to Dehradun Bus Stop (Place in Map: Delhi Bus Stand).

The Clock Tower is a round about which is always bustling with activity and traffic! It could be easily called a HUB – for right behind it is a frightfully long & huge market place which goes on for kilometers and has shops selling everything from a spoon to Jewellery, from clothes to spices, to our favorites, pretty hair clips and softy ice-cream (We would visit everyday to have a different flavour! This was a special machine for ice-creams – I have only seen one other such machine in this one shop in Lajpat Nagar’s Central Market in Delhi) .
I wasn’t allowed to go alone to the market as I may get lost in its busy lanes and by-lanes. We were also never allowed to step out in shorts or sleeveless tops either, as it was though a town, yet still, quite a conservative one!

As we move from the Clock Tower (actually called the Ghanta Ghar – irrespective of the language you spoke) towards Mussourie, you find many shops which are GEMS on this road (not cadbury gems! dear reader).

Here is a List of my favorite THREE –

 1. Kwality Restaurant – A mainstay in my life for the utterly delicious sweets they, and only they make called KWAL-TOFFS (a.k.a. kwality toffees) – These have been around since the days my mother studied in school and are still there today! No trip to Dehradun is complete without these toffees and bringing back boxes for our own home and our loved ones!
((It is made in Desi Ghee, is sweet and chewy like no ones business!! But it is, a bite of heaven!))

2. Bakeries – Dehradun has many bakeries, but back then, we had our own favorites based on who made what best, and which cousin had a crush on which bakery owner’s son – so, our preferences changed every year!
Walk into any bakery on this road, and you will be amazed with the taste and yummy-ness of the stuff they make!

3. Stationary Shops – Probably I can attribute my love for stationary and Diaries to these shops – I have my personal favorite 2, but you can walk into pretty much any shop and find really nice and pretty stationary items and Diaries which are prices reasonably as well. (Back then, Delhi was more commercialized, and ‘pretty’ items and diaries were sold at a premium!)

Further up the road, we would take a detour to Rajpur which housed another relative of ours – as much as we children were the apple of their eyes, it was their Litchi Trees which I loved – There is only a feeling of poetry in my heart when I think back to summer days spent climbing trees, talking with my cousins and dreaming over freshly plucked Litchis. Later offcourse, we would be made to clean the mess from the ground, where the grass would be ridden with the skin and seed that we carefully threw down!

This is my journey across one of my favorite maps – I hope you enjoyed it too. 

Simply: 

Which is one of your favorite places? Do you use maps when you go exploring?

‘I am taking part in The Write Tribe Festival of Words #6′