Shimla owes a lot to her beauty. The British, with their taste for the regal, dubbed her ‘The Queen of Hills’ — quite a compliment from a people who made hills and hill stations an obsession. The sobriquet has stuck, although for present day Shimla, it seems more and more divorced from reality. Once a queen, always a queen; as Richard II protested, the sheen of royalty cannot be washed away even by all the water in the rough rude sea. It can be tarnished though, and if the sea seems far away from Shimla’s Himalayan heights, rough, rude building poses a more potent threat to its claims of regality.
Many of its glories are, however, eternal and imperishable: the mountains are as majestic as ever, holding court before the plains, which bow like servants to hold the Shimla ridge aloft. Wreathed in impenetrable forests, stroked by waves of crystal air, alternately shrouded in mist or dappled by the cloud-shadows racing beneath the sun, the area is naturally edenic.
That, of course, is the only explanation for the Raj’s fantastic decision to turn Simla (as it was called) into a capital for the government of a fifth of the world’s people. The effort expended on this endeavour beggars belief: the dynamite blasts, the years of sweat and metal falling onto flinty rock, the tonnes of steel shipped and laid in serpentine coils round the unruly hills all the way from Kalka, the rock-laden mules on the road from Chandigarh. Truly, beauty inspires great work.
Modern-day Shimla is reaping the benefits of this labour. Even more than the bucolic pleasures, the built heritage they spawned is what draws the punters, now at close to 2 million a year. A kind of Himalayan hilltop Jerusalem, it is a place where an extraordinary history lies about, literally, in piles. Visitors and residents alike revel in it. Shopkeepers tack yellowing photos of yesteryear on their office walls. One owner of a well-established Mall Road store sported quotes by Macaulay and Curzon: “I am a proud Indian sir, this is my heritage”.
The Shimla Municipal Corporation has got the message better than most, its slogan prominently displayed all over the city: “Our built heritage is our identity, let’s preserve it.” Identity, yes, though they might as honestly have called it their goldmine. For Shimla’s heritage is not just a pleasure, it is the goose that lays its golden egg. Resident historian Raaja Bhasin puts it starkly: “There is an awareness that heritage is the economic motor for the town. These are its assets.”
This awareness and the need for preservation are everywhere apparent. Signs all over town threaten fines for spitting and littering. Driving and even smoking are banned on the centrepiece Mall, one of many declared heritage zones. Architectural treasures like Gorton Castle have been lovingly (and expensively) restored, in recognition of their role as tourist honey pots as well as administrative centres. The Gaiety Theatre is currently getting the same treatment.
At the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, the preservation of history is almost a fetish. Heaps of freshly-cut stone testify to the ongoing care, while inside, the paraphernalia of study and learning have been arranged to intrude as little as possible on the scene for some of India’s finest historical dramas. Even the grass looks — amazingly — original; an attendant says that this is so, and Bhasin corroborates it: “I wouldn’t be surprised. I know that the peonies date back 100 years.”
This deference to the past pervades the city’s attitudes, which are not those of an economic tiger. Yes, the market is thriving here. Yes, it has driven change. Rentals on the Mall have skyrocketed as long-established businesses have given themselves over to franchises. Wrangler, Adidas, Café Coffee Day, Newport: they’re all here.
But no one wants a rupture with history and, given the enormous number of wealthy tourists and residents, the continued prevalence of family enterprises is the real surprise. “Our business has been in the family for six generations, so we wanted to hold onto it”, says Gautam Jain, owner of a convenience store called Gaindamull Hemraj, a name that clearly reflects its antique origin. “Yes, we could make more money leasing it out, but we prefer to keep it going.”
BUT SUCH attitudes are prey to powerful forces. Population growth and economic development are no respecters of heritage, and over-development is making Shimla’s delights harder to enjoy as more and more people from surrounding areas aspire to share them. Almost everyone laments the pace and carelessness of construction here. “Nothing has been planned”, says another Mall shopkeeper, “Every Indian town is spreading, but here it is haphazard.”
The nondescript flats and hotels cascading down the city’s ridges like landslides substantiate his claim. In neighbouring Sanjuli, flats have been erected in such density that locals joke dead men must be removed before rigor mortis sets in, or they will stay forever. Hideous and worsening traffic compounds the sense of destructive construction.
A town made for 40,000 people using mules and horses is trying to deal with over a million people in buses and cars. The arithmetic just cannot work. Quite simply, “there has been no significant addition to the town’s infrastructure since the 1920s”, says Bhasin, adding, “Shimla was never meant to be a city.”
Today, Shimla is not only a city, but the capital of the state of Himachal Pradesh. Result? Civic amenities are stretched tight as a drum, with all that entails. “We have seen a decline in the quality of life. It seems absurd that so many people continue to want to spend large sums to come and live here,” says Bhasin. A lifelong resident, he says is open to the idea of relocation for the first time.
It is hard to blame him. The attributes that crowned Shimla a queen were its beauty, climate and peacefulness. As it expands, it is in danger of ruining all three by dilution. She would not be the first beauty to perish by her own allure.
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