LAST PATCH OF GREEN

If you were to walk down the sharp incline above Bala Hisar, you would find yourself in a place where the owners of the lovely homes were obsessed with oak trees. Why else would you have ‘Oakless’- home to His Highness Rajbir Singh, the Maharajah of Jind, famed for his Greyhounds? Next is Seven Oaks, owned by the Powell family and now a part of Wynberg-Allen School. There’s Oaklands, looking down its nose at what was once called “Bobby-Sahib-ka-hotal.” Swing right past the service entrance of Oakless to find yourself opposite the happy home of Ram Singh Yadav, who was the Kotwal of Mussoorie in the 1950s.

Go past Ralston Manor into the concrete jungle where the Tivoli Gardens lay, owned by Lionel Douglas Hearsey. In 1882, in a portion of the grounds of Maryville’s Phooswali Kothi, he built, or so my old guide books tell me, “at once a favorite resort of the Masuri public.” He borrowed the name from the resort near Rome with its splendid views and gardens. Perhaps Arnigadh, which is what the locals still call it, was probably one of the most unfortunate garden sites in all of India. Old records have it that this land was a part of Chamasari village, where it was decided that a botanical garden be created. In those early days, land was acquired by constantly badgering or cajoling the local villagers or title holders to transfer such land to the colonisers. Such transactions forced F. J. Shore, the Political Agent of Dehradun, to forbid any more of these dubious deals wherein someone would manage to get the head zamindar of the village drunk and induce him into signing sale deeds. Many sad tales abound that chronicle the residents’ efforts to cling on to their holdings until they were evicted, often forcefully, sometimes at the height of a snowstorm.

Perhaps the site was acursed, for it proved unsuitable as a botanical garden, and the scheme was abandoned only to be shifted to the other end of Mussoorie as Company Bagh. But out here, over time, various experimenters tried their luck and failed. The soil was excellent; there was sufficient water, but nothing flourished. Opened to the public in the summer of 1882, it initially had a large footfall. Off the bridle path, along a shady road, lay a dancing pavilion (which the old maps refer to as “nautchghar”) with a dining saloon and a kitchen attached. Fruit trees lined the road to Mossy Falls and Hearsey Falls. Painstakingly, very gradually, a bit at a time, a barren waste was converted into a bountiful garden, brimming with flowers, elaborate pavilions, lovers’ bowers, swings for the ladies and children; sweetly scented creepers, honeysuckle, and wisteria; bushes of jasmine and frangipani, and climbing roses, and other exotica that made it look like a place out of the Arabian Nights. Moonlight garden parties, where folks huddled around a bonfire and listened to the bagpipes as the moon came up over the Hill of Fairies.

On its lower slopes, there were tennis and badminton courts, bounded by trees in blossom. The road led to the stream with its numerous waterfalls, including the famous Mossy Fall and Hearsey Falls. Dotting the banks were dainty summer houses and pretty nooks for picnics like Fairy’s Glen. The path by the stream was kept in good order so that the elderly and portly chaperones could be carried in palanquins. Of course, Cupid’s Bower was only accessible to those who had found out that the “course of true love never ran smooth.”

Unfortunately, these structures were made of iron and glass that suffered massively during the Kangra Earthquake of 4th April 1905. After that, it seemed to have faded away, soon to be forgotten. Almost a hundred years ago, Charles Wilson, writing under the pseudonym “Rambler,” wrote, “The garden is in ruins and had returned to the jungle.” Despite my best efforts, I have failed to find a picture of the Tivoli Gardens. I often wonder why. Perhaps someday, in a corner of old Maryville Estate, someone will find a surviving straggler sprouting? For only in a garden can you believe you will live forever.