Between Monks and Monkeys

I’m sitting here feeling very full and satisfied after dinner in one of McLeod Ganj’s newest restaurants – and one of the most unusual. About five minutes’ walk down the road from Snow Height is Jogiwara Village, a small collection of houses, an ‘Institute of Spiritual Healing’ which offers workshops on ‘Love meditation to find your true soul mate’, and a few dusty shops - a barber, a motorcycle garage, a tiny teashop and a thangka maker. Recently there has been a lot of activity in one of the buildings, and about a month ago a new restaurant opened. It’s so new it doesn’t even have a sign outside, but word got around that the food was good and different, so tonight Gusti, Eva and I decided to try it out.

I couldn’t believe it when we walked in the door – all at once I was in book heaven! The walls of ‘Illiterati’ are lined on all sides with bookshelves, filled with the most luscious and inviting collection of fabulous photography books, cookbooks, novels, history books, books about religion and psychology, travel books, children’s books and much more – it’s astounding! In fact ‘Illiterati’ could hold its own against café-bookstores in much bigger places in terms of the variety and mouth-watering sumptuousness of its displays. To find it in Jogiwara Village was mindboggling, to say the least.

It’s not as if McLo is lacking in bookshops. There are some really good places here to buy Buddhist literature as well as new & second hand books, but most of them are quite small and there’s nowhere to just sit and enjoy browsing through the books. The Buddhist bookshop on Temple Road, for instance, is so tiny that once you have more than one customer inside, it’s full! Hundreds of books are stacked in great piles in a room not much bigger than the average bathroom.

At ‘Illiterati’ you can browse the shelves at your leisure. I enjoyed paging through a beautiful photography book about Rajasthan as we waited for our meal, sitting at a clean, well-made wooden table on the balcony overlooking the houses of the village, watching the crows cawing in the trees and a pair of dogs having a play fight on the flat roof of one of the buildings, in preparation for tonight’s barking session. The view was magnificent, looking up toward the majestic Dauladhar mountains as they slowly faded into the evening light.

Between us we ordered quiche, mango salad, Belgian fries with a yummy garlicky aioli dipping sauce and a vegetarian bean burger – all very tasty and well presented. We finished the meal with waffles and homemade coffee & saffron ice cream – which nearly finished us – we agreed that we could easily have shared one waffle between two or even three people and been satisfied. Our meals were expensive for McLeod Ganj, but for the total experience, well worth it.

For entertainment we had a fantastic thunderstorm booming outside with the most brilliant flashes of lightning illuminating the mountains. As well as the thunder’s ‘noises off’ we listened to great music on the sound system, including one of my favourite groups from Mali, Tinariwen.

‘Illiterati’ is the brainchild of a Belgian now living permanently in India. I was too busy asking him where he bought all the books – mostly in Delhi – to learn his name, but I’ll find out and tell you after my next visit (which will be very soon..) when I go back for coffee and more delving into the fantastic world of books in our new ‘local’. Tuesday - I'm back for more of those chips..and books. And they even have WiFi. 'Illiterati''s owner is Yannick. Cheers! 

etc, or as a paperback (email me for details.)