The road to Dehradun is not easy – especially from Delhi, the capital city of India. Fifty years ago one could cover this distance in a small car in less than five hours. Today the same journey, on better roads, may take twice as long – or even more – depending on many factors, not least among them divine intervention. Nowhere in India is the traffic more bizarre, reckless, irresponsible and dangerous than on the Delhi-Dehradun road. In one word – Stressful. Train is always a better option – if one is not agoraphobic. Or flying – if one enjoys unpredictability in life, especially of travel to small airports.

Destination Vishranti is worth the effort – and more.

A few kilometres down from the Forest Research Institute and the Indian Military Academy (on the road to Ponta Sahib), a narrow, tree-lined road on the right, winds its way through a dry river bed, into a forest of sal trees with scores of playful monkeys on a never-ending picnic, through a somnambulant village, finally reaching the gates of Madhyant Farm from where a crunchy driveway leads to the resort.

The 1980s built home greets one with a very welcome silence, punctuated by the chirping of hundreds of exotic birds in the aviary across, or the insistent tantrum-like call of a peacock that maybe lodged on a wicker chair in one of the wide verandas and terraces outside each of the suites. In fact there is a resident peacock with the longest, most extravagant tail ever – the Inspector General of the resort – I met on my arrival and mistook for a porcelain sculpture till he broke into loud, raucous, screaming protests of not wanting to be photographed. He was lounging on the sofa outside my suite – so still – I thought what a magnificent piece of made-in-China sculpture! The fun had only just begun – the memory of speeding, oversized trucks was already a distant haze. This was a different world – of golden pheasants, Indonesian parakeets, macaws, cockatoos, lovebirds, and many other species in dramatic, unreal colours. There were flowers too, and an organic farm, a hatchery, mango orchards, a swimming pool, plantations, and kennels with Rottweiler pups. Eclectic would be an understatement – and I had not seen the interiors yet!