Apple kingdom come

chandigarh: sing never on a sunday if you're headed towards shimla. it's your mantra for avoiding the weekend tourist rush. we chose a wednesday to drive out to hatkoti in shimla district and were all the more happier for it. crossing shimla took barely 25 minutes and we were climbing on to kufri (2600 m). from here, national highway-22 drops to 2200 m at theog, where the road to hatkoti branches out.hatkoti (1400 m) is 212 km from chandigarh. the village stands in the valley of pabbar river, which is a major tributary of tons river in the yamuna basin. it is best known for its ancient temple of goddess hatkeshwari, which is dated to the period between 400 and 700 ad. hatkoti also forms the heart of shimla's 'apple belt.' right from kotkhai, 40 km before it, to chirgaon, 27 km beyond it, hill slopes are taken up by orchards. from july to novemer this otherwise quiet belt comes alive with hundreds of trucks carrying fresh fruit out to markets all over the country. with all that traffic, driving in these months can be tiresome, but it is the only time your eyes can pluck thousands of ripe apples off trees at one go! as we rolled down to chhaila from theog, dozens of such apple convoys met us. chhaila lies in the valley of giri river, another important tributary of yamuna. the giri springs at kharapathar, hardly 30 km ahead, and so is just a trickle here. crates of apples lined the road from chhaila to kotkhai (1760 km). the air all over was redolent with the fragrance of the fruit, but few ruddy cheeks could be spied on the trees themselves... for the first time we savoured apples through our nostrils! the way up from kotkhai to kharapathar (2673 m), was steep and serpentine. this stretch demands a loud horn and a strong handbrake as much as a healthy engine. the pines here grew as tall and sturdy as deodars while apples on the roadside trees tempted us like satan would never have done. the turn for jubbal, headquarters of an erstwhile princely state by the same name, came up about 10 km before hatkoti. the town has a splendid palace designed by a french architect in 1930. though we drove up to it, we could not look in as the owners were away. after almost seven hours of leaving chandigarh, we were finally looking over hatkoti. it was an expanse of lush, paddy fields framed by hills on three sides and a frothy pabbar on the fourth. the temple bells and the river were calling out to us to hurry into the most beautiful village we had ever seen.