Shimla

The Summer Capital

Let Gautam Anand take you on a trip back to the days of the Raj, to a place that remains entrenched in colonial nostalgia. Shimla, where else!

Text: Gautam Anand

Alice Shamsi (nee Holmes), a scion of a third generation English colonial family, was rummaging through her late mother’s box of neatly catalogued letters and collectibles at her trophy duplexes at London’s Hyde Park. Letter after letter were wistful reminiscences about the days of the Raj, particularly on the Summer Capital of British India, ‘Simla’. If there is one place that remains entrenched in colonial nostalgia, it is this.
Shimla, from where one-fifth of humanity was once ruled, only exists because the British couldn’t cope with the heat. In yearning for cooler climes where they could enjoy pursuits such as riding, racing and croquet, Shimla became their idyll. The mass migration of viceroys, military attachés and nearly 5,000 imperial clerks and staff, not to mention wives, children and servants, had been taking place for decades.  
For a century, the viceroy of India directly ruled a larger population than the British monarch. Modern-day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma and Sri Lanka were governed from Shimla amid a whirl of colonial picnics, garden fetes, balls, plays, hunts, cocktail parties, races, polo games and cricket tournaments. Shimla combined the idyll of England with the entire resources of the Indian subcontinent. This tiny little village was solely for the elite and their servants, and it had a steamy social life.
Shimla, dubbed the “Queen of Hills,” has colonial styles of architecture. It is like walking into a Victorian novel and losing yourself in a time warp as you explore the places to see in Shimla.
One letter gushed, like so, “There is no other shopping street in India that is more beautiful than the Mall Road of Shimla. The Tudor-style structures make it look like an old English Town. The Norman Gothic building of Gaiety theatre adds another jewel in Shimla’s crown.”
Another one of her mother’s letters states, “Last night I went to a ball given by the German Consul who is the richest man in Shimla and gives the best entertainments. The narrowness of the space rather prevented me from showing off my fine stride, but I did not get very much bored, which is generally the best I can say of a ball. Thursday I am going to Viceroy’s for a dance and I am afraid I shall get entrapped for several others.”
There are various tales as to how the town drew its name. According to a legend, the town got its name from Shyamala, the dark Goddess of power, widely worshipped in these hills. The story of the Gerard Brothers is also talked about. They were on their way on an official survey, when they saw a fakir (ascetic) near Jakhoo Hills, the highest amongst the seven hills of Shimla. The fakir, who it seems, could understand the language of the animals, provided drinking water to weary travellers. The thatched cottage he lived in was named as Shyamala.
Kipling, who visited Shimla frequently in the 1880s, wrote of the intense flirtation, trysts and debauchery for which it was infamous. Scores of young British girls in search of husbands turned up in Shimla ready to impress, only to find they had stiff competition from the “grass widows” –more experienced ladies in their 40s visiting without spouses, and often more popular with the bachelors.
Kipling wrote:
“The young men come, the young men go, Each pink and white and neat
She’s older than their mothers, but They grovel at Her feet.
They walk beside Her rickshaw-wheels
None ever walk by mine;
And that’s because I’m seventeen And she is forty-nine.”
Alice who had married Kabir Shamsi, one of the interesting cast of characters introduced in our earlier columns, made a home in London but had inherited homes at New Delhi as well as Shimla. Yes, the Shimla mansion originally had been owned by the German Consul General.  
Alice had been besieged by friends and acquaintances to pioneer a nostalgic visit for the colonial diaspora to India and thus this search of collectables. She had tied up with a progressive ICPB (India Convention Promotion Bureau), Sita Travels and the Oberoi Hotels to debut her first group of British India lovers the following spring, and plans were underway.
London itself, and many parts of UK, had become quite a hub for Indian food lovers. But Alice found an absence of colonial-favoured cuisine, which she gleaned from the chefs of the old colonial homes in the English country side as well as colonial era clubs in India. These included the Gymkhana, Green Room, Kasauli Club and, of course, her father’s Aama mater, Bishop Cotton School, Shimla, a legendary Anglican institution favoured by the colonial and Indian aristocracy. The current principal, OV Goldstein, was a family friend and would be happy to host the group of nostalgia seekers at the school’s historic dining room.
The colonials favoured rissoles, jalfrezi, puddings, etc., and thus the culinary experiences were tailor-made to compliment the nostalgia visit, which essentially was ‘A passage to memories of India’.

English Roly Poly

Chicken Jalfrezi

Meat Rissoles