Notes from Mahesh Khan

About 20 kms from Nainital, the forest reserve is a perfect Dickensian setting

The best view comes after the hardest climb, and the best forest rest houses after the toughest roads. This is the modified adage I give to my cousin at the wheel who cannot comprehend why I am always leading people on the worst roads. But there is truth in the statement, applicable to no better place than Mahesh Khan.

Despite growing up in Nainital in a family of forest officers, I never visited the Mahesh Khan forest reserve until this monsoon, about 20 odd kilometres from the lake town. The last four-kilometre mark at the reserve entry takes you off smooth tarmac and delivers you onto the signature bumpy forest road that heralds the beginning of paradise. There is no one at the check post when we arrive; I hop off the car to peer into the tiny shelter where I expect a forest guard to be cocooned, but it’s empty. The dying embers of a fire, however, indicate there’s someone around definitely, and within a few moments, a man does come running out of nowhere. He checks our permit, raises the barricade with one hand and waves us through with the other, as we slip into a wonderland, preserved marvellously by the forest department.