Tales of Shimla
I belong to roughly the same period in Simla's 1950s as the Group Captain Yadav wrote about. The schools were only a few and far away from home. Most of my classmates were Punjabi speaking Lahoriayas as a large number of them had arrived after the partition. We the locals (I am from Kangra) mixed well with them, but sometimes experienced problems. The docile ones were from the upper Himachal (Mahasu District) or the locals from in and around Shimla. They never picked up a fight and spoke their dialect of Pahari. On occasion, we called them “khaddus”, but we had no idea what that meant. That was a term for us to call them names in a classroom quarrel. They seldom picked up a fight, always helpful. Only after the good Group Captain’s note in the Tales of Shimla that I know after 60 years that Khaddu is an important personification. I have no idea where these classmates of mine are today. It has only recently come to my attention that one of them has retired as a brigadier and another has a similar rank in the army and lives in Ahmedabad. I myself left Simla (now Shimla) in 1957 to go to college in Chandigarh, then to US and finally live in Canada for the last 50 years. I returned to Shimla often and more often after I retired from my job in Canada. More I return, more of my dislike unfolds the way Shimla is run today. It is overpopulated, although new townships have been added in and around the center core of Shimla. The city built to house 50,000 souls is coping to provide services to 400,000 resulting in lower cleanliness, practically no water. Water is either in the bottles or stored in ugly black tanks on the roofs for household use (they could have asked the factory to color the plastic material blending with the local environment). Water was in plenty in fifties because the population was less than 70,000 souls. Only during summer the water was rationed.
Today, the main shopping center The Mall appears to be in disrepair because no one is repairing the old property, neither the owner nor the tenant. The funny thing is that the Mall road surface has been metalled over and over again and now it is about two inches thicker than the original. Nobody bothered to dig up the original surface before new metalling is done. The store surface level is at a lower level, hence I believe that during heavy monsoon rains, the water will run inside the stores.
That gentle leisure walk of my boyhood days is a history. Those metal separators in the middle of the road which regulated directional traffic are not there anymore, resulting leisure walk nightmare. Like my old self I would like to walk hand in hand with my wife (she is also from Shimla) but nay, it is not possible. Even during the non tourist season there are way too many people on The Mall during day time just loafing around, away from work. Still uglier is that taxis are allowed to reach the Telegraph office. Besides, I also saw quite a lot of cars on the Mall, which was a no-no when Sarla Khanna or later Pritmohinder Singh were the Deputy Commissioner. Now we have two or three large fire trucks parked across the street from the recently renovated municipal office. They have to find another place to park them, and the firemen have to have a dress code like they had when Fire Marshal Dhir was running the show.
I was born and raised in Shimla. I will love it no matter how much the present rulers of this erstwhile beautiful city tends to spoil with poor administration. I will keep coming to it. My wife’s family still resides there, but I do not stay with them. Instead, I look for my own place to park.
As I finish my critical rating, my friends will hate me to be critical, but if that critique makes a difference, then I love it.
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