The most popular place to go out in Shimla is the Mall and this time, the kids said a big no for it. So last weekend, we decided to take them for a picnic to Chadwick Falls, a place which we had never been to earlier, but had read about it in the tourist literature. Kids were so full of zeal that they got up earlier than the usual time on a school day and packed their own snacks with candies and chips. We also packed our picnic bag with Aloo-puri and set off on our excursion.

On reaching the first signage to Chadwick Falls, the driver took a wrong turn by mistake and we reached ‘Glen’, which is perhaps another tourist spot in Shimla. It was 1.5 km downhill on foot, so we thought let’s first explore ‘Glen’. After walking for almost a kilometer, kids refused to walk and we had to get back to the car. The adventure to the ‘Glen’ ended there. Now we decided to forget it and proceeded towards our planned destination, the Chadwick Falls.

We reached back to the same point where we saw the first wigwag to Chadwick Falls and asked a traffic constable for the direction. He looked at us blankly as if we had asked for a place on the moon or on Mars. We asked some more people, the answer was the same strange look. But we still decided to go ahead on the same road. Going ahead, we crossed Indian Institute of Advanced Studies and finally reached the University area. Reaching the University, we were again in a fix; there were two roads without any indication. We asked two University students, who told us confidently that you must take the second road and go downhill and again, there will be intersection of two roads of which we should take the lower one.

By now, the enthusiasm and spirit was also fizzling out and kids wanted to finish off the outing in the car; our picnic bag had already opened. We went downhill and on every turn, hoping to have reached. Now we were on a kacha road with nobody to be seen around. This time we were at the juncture of the road with another two cuts and thoughtfully made an intelligent guess that the Falls would be on the valley side. So we went further in the same direction. Going almost two kms ahead, we realized that the second road was meeting in the first one and there was no point in having guessed. By now, we would have almost come 10 to 15 kms down on the kacha road. And so far, there had been no pointer to the Falls and we were not sure whether we were in the right direction.

Suddenly we saw an indicator to the Falls and the spirit which had almost fizzled out came back. “Chadwick Falls” was written on a parapet in yellow. But the sign was in the opposite direction, so we reversed our car and kept looking for more guideposts. One after another parapet had the indication to the Falls which we had probably missed. Finally we reached a parapet which indicated “down” arrow. Now what did this mean??? . It took us almost two minutes to understand what that arrow meant. It actually indicated Chadwick Falls down from that point and not even a village path could be seen. The arrow “down” pointed 60 degrees slope downhill. Probably it meant : jump from this point, straight into the Falls. We were standing at that point not knowing what to do and where to go. I was still enthued to take that roller coaster ride, but my husband gave me those odd looks and without saying anything, we got into the car.

We could somehow not figure out how was one expected to reach the Falls. On inquiring from a local village boy, we learnt that the only path to the Chadwick Falls from the road had become a casualty to the fresh alignment and had vanished when the road had been reconstructed recently. The authorities had probably been very cool about it. By this time, our food bag was also empty and we were left with nothing, without the picnic.

We decided to take a detour towards our old time tested place, the Potter’s Hill to conclude our weekend adventure. The picnic which was supposed to be at the Chadwick Falls finally ended at the Potter’s Hill. On our way back, it took us only 20 minutes to reach back home from our final picnic spot. This was the end of our Sunday picnic to Chadwick Falls, no no no, to the Potter’s Hill.