(Mussoorie/Dehradun): Soaring temperatures, rising mercury, dirt and dust and a four-day long weekend is all that is takes to have Mussoorie undone at the seams. From crack of dawn, the residents of this sleepy town awaken to the constant throb of cars and motorcycle horns, hooters and the all-pervading smell of cordite. Clutch plates burn, brakes squeburn vehicles try to maneuver their way through the narrow lanes. To take things from bad to worse, from order to chaos are the wrongly parked vehicles, abandoned by tourists and locals alike on the roadsides.
This slowly moving glacier of vehicles makes Mussoorie an unpopular destination, at least for repeat tourists anyway. Families from Delhi, Gurgaon, Haryana and Punjab line up in a never-ending queue as they inch their way to the two ends of the Mall to find that it is closed to traffic from morning to 5.30 p.m. Those with accommodation in hotels along the Mall must pay a fee one more time. Scalping or overcharging at the few parking lots is a given constant.
As if that were not enough, driving to getaways like Kempty Fall or Dhanolti is strictly for the bold, the brave or the loony. There are no signboards to assist you as the local constabulary is stretched to the limits.DG traffic Dehradun Kewal Khurana said, ” 2 inspectors, 15 constables will be stationed in Mussoorie until Monday and two CPU patrol units will be permanently stationed in Mussoorie this season.”
What do the locals do? They hunker down. Avoid the madding rush. It’s safer to be tucked away at home. They hope all the while that this nightmare will come to an end sooner than later. What about the tourists? You may wonder. They grind their teeth, vowing never to come back here again as they say to themselves: ‘Stay at home. Avoid the rush!’
