Himalayan Weavers

On the way back from Dhanaulti, near Suwakholi, is the Himalayan Weavers' shop.  This provides a market for wool from local goats and income for the hill people .. and they use only natural dyes. The scarves and shawls are beautiful and in a range of prices from regular goat wool to fine pashmina.

While waiting for the shop keeper to ring up our purchases, we sat in a warm solarium with herbs and tomato plants.

Dhanaulti & the Snows

This morning (Saturday) we took a taxi out to Dhanaulti. When I was in school here, this was a favorite hiking destination. I'm not sure on the distance from the school, but it was a good day's hike .. and an hour by car. The drive is along Tehri Road, which travels most of the way on the south-facing side of the ridge, but has short sections along the north-facing side. It was hazy in Mussorie, and even at the first view point of the snows near Suwakholi it was still hazy .. but when we got to BarasKhunda (spelling?) the snows were out in all their glory, though maybe the view was not as sharp and bright as possible.

I always like looking down into the valleys also - I don't know if this is still the Aglar Valley or some tributary.

Dhanaulti itself is beautiful and still somewhat unspoiled, though there are a number of tourist hotels.

There are still big stands of Deodar that give the town its special character.

Two more pictures I couldn't resist taking -

Chhaya Cafe

On Friday we walked as far as the top of Mullingar Hill and had lunch at the Chhaya Cafe. This cafe was set up to train women how to run a business and how to cook western food. Their breads are especially good.

Right outside the cafe is a jumble of pipes ... how one gets water in Mullingar!

Archives work

We are here to work in the school archives. A week into this visit I think we are making some progress. Decisions go faster now that we have re-familiarized ourselves with the organization scheme. My goal is to go through the last pile of folders that were waiting when I first returned to the project in 2012 .. and I think we'll make it!  This week Cate & I have had help from a third alum, Sue, for which I'm very grateful.

Here are some pictures of our work areas:




And bags of paper we have discarded, and which will be taken to staff homes to help run the bukharis this winter.
 

Rain! Hail!

Late Wednesday afternoon , right as staff were wanting to head home from work, there was a a heavy downpour of rain, plus hail and wind.

Right before sunset it stopped and the sky cleared.

This evening (Thursday) we see the tops of thunderclouds, so assume that there is rain in the Dun.

Artist in Residence

Antonio Puri, Woodstock Class of 84, is currently the artist in residence at the school. He is currently working on two installations based on the theme of 'varna.' He discussed this project in a Woodstock news release last month. One installation is wall and ceiling paintings in the entrance to the Business Centre (in our day, the entrance to the music cells where Mrs. Biswas kept an eye on us);

the other is a sculpture in place (but not yet revealed) just as you turn towards the Teacher's Garden from the Quad.

Uttarakhand

Mussoorie and Landaur, where Woodstock School is located, is in the Indian province of Uttarakhand. This province broke off from the old U.P (Uttar Pradesh) is 1998, first under the name of Uttaranchal. In 1994 there was some political agitation in favor of the secession, and police fired on and killed some unarmed activists in Mussorie. Twenty years after the event, a memorial was built for the fallen, located along the Mall next to the Gun Hill cable car.

Statues of the victims:

A model Gharwali house that serves as a shrine: