| |||||||||||||||||
Mussoorie, like other hill resorts in India, came into existence in the 1820s or thereabouts, when the families of British colonials began making for the hills in order to escape the scorching heat of the plains. Small settlements grew into large stations and were soon vying with each other for the title of “queen of the hills.” Mussoorie’s name derives from the Mansur shrub (Cororiana nepalensis), common in the Himalayan foothills; but many of the house names derive from the native places of those who first built and lived in them. Today, the old houses and estates are owned by well-to-do Indians, many of whom follow the lifestyle of their former colonial rulers. In most cases, the old names have been retained.
Take, for instance, the Mullingar. This is not one of the better-preserved buildings, having been under litigation for some years; but it was a fine mansion once, and it has the distinction of being the oldest building in Mussoorie. It was the home of an Irishman, Captain Young, who commanded the first Gurkha battalion when it was in its infancy. As you have probably guessed, he came form Mullingar, in old Ireland, and it was to Ireland that he finally returned, when he gave up his sword and saddle. There is a story that on moonlit nights a ghostly rider can be seen on the Mullingar flat and that this is Captain Young revisiting old haunts.
|
There must have been a number of Irishmen settling and building with names such as Tipperary, Killarney, Shamrock Cottage and Tara Hall. “The harp that was once in Tara’s Halls” must have sounded in Shimla too, for there is also a Tara Hall in the old summer capital of India. As everywhere, the Scots were great pioneers in Mussoorie too, and were quick to identify Himalayan hills and meadows with their own glens and braes. There are over a dozen house names prefixed with “Glen.” The English, of course, went in for castles-there’s Connaught Castle and Grey Castle and Castle Hill, home for a time to the young Sikh prince, Dalip Singh before he went to England to become a protégé of Queen Victoria. Sir Walter Scott must have been a very popular writer with the British in exile, for there are many houses in Mussoorie that are named after his novels and romances-Kenilworth, Ivanhoe, Woodstock (later an American mission school), Rokeby, Waverly, The Monastery. And there is also Abbotsford named after Scott’s own home. |
Mussoorie did have a Dickens connection in the 1850s when Charles Dickens was publishing his magazine Household Words. His correspondent in India was John Lang, a popular novelist and newspaper proprietor, who spent the last years of his life in Mussoorie. His diverting account of a typical Mussoorie “season,” called “The Himalaya Club,” appeared in Household Words in the issue of March 21, 1857.
It is well over 50 years since a person lived in the parsonage and its owner today is Victor Banerjee, the actor, who received an Academy Award nomination for his role in David Lean’s A Passage to India. Victor doesn’t mind his friends calling him the vicar.
This naming of places is never as simple as it may seem. Let’s take Mossy Falls, a small waterfall on the outskirts of the hill station. You might think it was named after the moss that is so plentiful around it, but you’d be wrong. It was really named after Mr. Moss, the owner of the Alliance Bank, who was affectionately known as Mossy to his friends. When, at the turn of the century, the Alliance Bank collapsed, Mr. Moss also fell from grace. “Poor old Mossy,” said his friends, and promptly named the falls after him.
ON THE MALL
“The Mall would be lifeless without people and people would find Mussoorie lifeless without the Mall,” a shopkeeper observes. The main artery of Mussoorie, the Mall certainly responds to the influx of visitors in the same manner as a person fighting for life-sustaining breath revives after receiving oxygen.
Shops closed for the winter spring to life when summer approaches. Soon, the trickle of visitors swells to a steady, heartening stream. Happy laughter and the gay chitter-chatter of a cosmopolitan band of people from the plains flows from one open end of the Mall to the other. Forming a fascinating fashion parade with a potpourri of fashions from different parts of the country, visitors glide up and down the Mall, gulping the fresh mountain air, gazing at the assortment of goods in the shops that line the Mall.
There is no noisy traffic here. Only the occasional, measured clatter of hooves as a horse-riding tourist goes past. And every now and then, pedestrians move to the sides as two sturdy hillmen pulling hand rickshaws occupied by people reluctant to walk, signal their approach with the spirited ringing of a bicycle bell mounted on the handle of the quaint rickshaw.
Running through Kulri Bazaar, on towards Library Chowk, the Mall, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, offers an amazing variety of pastimes. Haggling, bargaining with rosy-cheeked Tibetans over the prices of ‘imported’ goods and Tibetan metalware; browsing through a bookshop; searching for antiques in the curio-shops; choosing hand-carved walking sticks or handmade cane baskets and other wares. There are embroidered wall hangings, dry pinecones, hill jewelry, garments and a dozen knick-knacks besides.
If tired of shopping or window-shopping, there is the cable car that starts from the Mall and goes up to Gun Hill. There is a revolving restaurant and scores of fancifully named eating-places. City-bred children are torn between trying to run up and down every steep path they can spot, and video parlors, a tiny park with swings and see-saws, candy floss wallahs, balloon wallahs….
From the Mall, there is a feast of views of the surrounding hills and the Doon Valley below. As evening falls, there is the prospect of watching a glorious sunset, and in the deepening darkness, twinkling light appear one by one in the valley below. Simultaneously, the Mall transforms itself into long, glittering rows of shops. As the shopkeepers on the Mall bring down their shutters on yet another day, the mood changes again. Visitors spill onto the Mall. The shopkeepers have left, the hardworking rickshaw wallahs have earned a rest and the shaggy mountain horses too have gone. The soft mountain nigh, the coolness, the sudden, complete silence that descends on the Mall act like a salve. Couples walk peacefully hand in hand, talking, perhaps, of the good times that were and will be…. The Mall is Mussoorie’s main artery, certainly. It is also a catalyst of dreams.
INSTITUTIONS OF MERIT
Rich in history and beauty, Mussoorie has given birth to many institutions that are known virtually all over the country. Since 1959, the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration has been training and molding batch after batch of raw probationers into the country’s finest bureaucrats, foreign service officers, and police officers.
Today, the Academy, situated at Charleville, continues to train officers for the Indian Administrative Service and the Indian Police Service. A fire broke out in the Academy some years ago and destroyed, among other buildings and papers, its precious library rated amongst the best in the country. While many of the books destroyed in the fire are difficult to replace, a new beginning has already been made by acquiring a fine collection of books.
While the Academy belongs to the post-Independence period, most of Mussoorie’s institutions date back more than a century. The Waverley Convent, a school for girls, was established in 1845 and has commemorated 150 years of distinguished existence. While some of its buildings were destroyed in an earthquake in the early years of this century, then by a fire, and then again in the recent earthquake, Waverley still retains much of the old-world architectural charm.
Wynberg Allen School was founded in 1888. Saint George’s, Woodstock, Hampton Court-all these schools have traditions hallowed by time. They belong to a different genre, of course, but the creeper festooned Savoy Hotel, Hakman’s Grand Hotel with its wood flooring, and Mullingar Hotel-the oldest only extant building built in 1829-have become institutions by themselves over the years.
The Indo-Tibetan Border Police Academy is of relatively recent vintage, but of strategic importance, as is the Defense Institute of Work Studies.
THE HIGH RIDE
Most people ascend the 400 meters or so from the fashionable Mall to the historical Gun Hill with bated breath. For them, there is the thrill and excitement of reaching Gun Hill in a cable car, coupled with the promise of rare, mesmeric views of the great Himalayan peaks and a bird’s eye view of Mussoorie and its environs. But not many people are aware that both Gun Hill and the ropeway and its two cable cars have a chequered history.
More than 160 years ago, after the Gurkha War in 1823, a shooting box was set up atop a hill-143 meters above sea level. Thereafter, a gun boomed everyday from the hill at 12 o’clock to keep time, and the hill became known as Gun Hill. Today, ironically and yet appropriately perhaps, the gun which once marked time for Mussoorie has itself been whisked away by the marching times, but Gun Hill lives on.
Once accessible by a steep, narrow bridle path, Gun Hill can now be reached in just about four minutes by a ropeway set up in 1970. On a bright sunny afternoon in October 1978, a handful of people lazing on the terrace of the Hill Queen Hotel were astounded when there was a loud cracking sound and the cable car going up to Gun Hill landed with a resounding thud a foot or two away from them.
After a year’s lay off, the cable cars were back in business swinging their way up to Gun Hill, now dotted with mock ornate photo studios, welcoming chai (tea) shops and a couple of telescope shops-with load after load of starry-eyed passengers. Today, during the peak summer season, the cable cars swing between the Hall and Gun Hill more than 100 times a day.
AROUND MUSSOORIE
The highest point that one can visit around Mussoorie is the famous Surkhanda Devi Temple at 10,000 feet-35 km down the Mussoorie-Tehri road. Perched on a peak, the temple demands a stiff two-km climb form devotees. The temple, goes the legend, was built on the site where the head of Shiva’s consort (Shiva is the destroyer in the Hindu trinity) fell after it was chopped off to stop Shiva’s terrifying dance of death that was shaking the universe to its very core.
Nag Tibba, 41 km from Mussoorie, also soars to an altitude of 10,000 feet, and entails a fairly long, taxing but exhilarating trek, and therefore more time. Thick pine forests, mountain brooks and slate-roofed villages keep one company for the greater part of the trek to Nag Tibba peak. The nearest accommodation is a forest rest house at Deolsari, about five hours of trekking below Nag Tibba.
Most people looking for a few quiet days prefer to sojourn amongst the picturesque pine-clad slopes of Dhanaulti, 24 km from Mussoorie, 11 km before the Surkhanda Devi temple. A comfortable Tourist Bungalow and a private hotel, the Dhanaulti Breeze, make Dhanaulti an ideal getaway from the milling season crowds at Mussoorie.
Thirty-one kilometers form Dhanaulti, along the Tehri road, is Chamba-the home of apples. A tourist bungalow has been built atop a mountain, and with the approach of the monsoon, fluffy clouds come in low, enter through the windows, move across the room, and float out through the door.
Closer to Mussoorie, at an altitude of 4,500 feet, Kempty Fall is perhaps the biggest attraction. The highest (over 40 feet) and most beautiful (the fall splits into five distinct cascades) of the waterfalls around Mussoorie, Kempty Fall is 15 km from Mussoorie, on the road to Chakrata.
Past Kempty Fall, 12 km downhill, you cross the Aglar River and reach the legendary Yamuna River. Trout are in abundance here, and fishing permits can be obtained form the Divisional Forest Officer, Mussoorie.
The latest addition to man-made attractions around Mussoorie (six km away, on the road winding down to Dehradun) is a small, artificial lake, complete with pedal boats.
WALK-WAYS
Often described as the piece de resistance of walks in Mussoorie, Camel’s Back Road rivals the Mall in popularity. About three kilometers long, Camel’s Back Road was so christened, it is said, because of a rock that resembles the back of a camel. This distinctively shaped rock can be seen from a point near the gate of Mussoorie Public School. Curving round a mountainside, the road itself looks like the back of a camel. The Hawa Ghar is the most inviting of the resting places along Camel’s Back Road.
The two-kilometer walk from Library Chowk to the colorful Municipal Garden, still known by its old colonial name of Company Bagh, is yet another favored walk in Mussoorie. Beyond the garden with its artificial lake, the walk can be continued, if one is so inclined, towards Cloud End. In the vicinity can be seen the estate of the first Surveyor General of India, Colonel George Everest (later sir George Everest), after whom the world’s highest mountain is named. A Bibi Khana-outhouses for the Indian consorts of Englishmen-is an interesting feature of the time-ravaged estate, which, according to land revenue records of 1839, “belonged to Colonel Everest.” The Uttar Pradesh Tourism Department has now acquired the sprawling 192-acre estate and plans to convert it into a holiday resort.
For many cricket fans, the walk towards Cloud End offers a landmark of more recent times. On a road branching off before Cloud End, is a house that belongs to the father-in-law of Sunil Gavaskar, the cricketing legend.
Camel’s Back Road, the walk to the Municipal Garden or Company Bagh, and on towards Cloud End are gentle, leisurely walks blessed with superb views. Quite obviously, scenic beauty is a feature shared by all walks in Mussoorie. Even the walk towards Charleville and the Tibetan settlement of Happy Valley is a rewarding experience. However, for the more intrepid tourist there are challenging walks as well such as the ones to Benog Hill (7,000 feet high, seven kilometers from Library Bazaar, it boasted once of an observatory), and to Lal Tibba, the highest peak (8,000 feet) at Mussoorie. About four kilometers from Picture Palace, Lal Tibba is an ideal location for a picnic. Near Lal Tibba is Childer’s Lodge, where a powerful ‘coin-operated’ binocular is available for surveying the mountains around. In the distance can be seen peak after peak of snow-capped mountains.
SPOOKY STORIES
Like most old places, Mussoorie has a very special set of ethereal denizens. At Mount Pleasant School, just above Wynberg Allen School, there resides a ghost who likes to make merry at night on the swings in the school playground. According to the school Principal, a number of people have seen this playful ghost. On still nights, when not even a leaf stirs, many people have been nonplussed and finally unnerved by the sight of empty swings swaying wildly.
A dilapidated building called the Oaks has a lovely lady in white waiting forlornly at the gate on moonless nights. Nobody knows who she was, or whom she waits for. Camel’s Back Road, too, has a fair sprinkling of ghosts, as does the road leading to Cloud End. A ruined old house on Vincent Hill is said to be haunted by an old man with along flowing beard.
GETTING THERE
There are regular, daily Vayudoot and Jagson flights from New Delhi to the Doon Valley (50 minutes). From the Jolly Grant airport, taxis and buses ply to Dehradun, from where they go up to Mussoorie (2¼ hours, 60 km).
The overnight Mussoorie Express links Delhi to Dehradun, the railhead for Mussoorie.
Delhi to Mussoorie is 290 km by road. Dehradun to Mussoorie is 35 km. There are direct buses from Delhi to Mussoorie, along with private taxis. Buses ply every half hour from Dehradun to Mussoorie. Private taxis and shared taxis are favored by a majority of visitors.
LOCAL TRANSPORT
Hand pulled rickshaws, taxis and cars are not allowed on the Mall, but can move in other motorable parts of Mussoorie.
WHERE TO STAY
Mussoorie has more than a hundred hotels from which to choose. Upper-bracket hotels include Hakman’s Grand Hotel, Holiday Inn and Classic Heights. Brentwood, Valley View, Connaught Castle, Rockwood, etc., are mid-range and economy hotels. Cottages and flats are also available on lease.
MISCELLANEOUS
In summer, light woolens are advisable while heavy woolens are a necessity during winter.
The summer season extends from April to June. The winter season is from September to December.
For more information, contact the Tourist Bureau, Uttar Pradesh Tourism, The Mall, Mussoorie (Ph: 2863).
