By Rajat Aikant Sharma
There was a time when the hills of Mussoorie didn’t need brochures, toll booths, or QR-coded tickets. The forest itself was the invitation, and the wind was enough of a guide. Hathipaon — the estate of George Everest — was not a “tourism project”. It was our town’s last open lung, the backyard of Mussoorie itself.
We grew up here. We ran after sheep herds that came down with the Bhotia shepherds, their sturdy dogs barking like sentinels of the ridge. We gathered here for birthdays — the kind where the cake was carried up from Landour Bazaar and candles were lit against the mountain breeze. We escaped Holi here — those who didn’t want colour played friendly cricket matches on the pastures instead, our laughter echoing off the ridges. And when evening came, we sat together on grass and stone, letting the horizon sink into our eyes as the valley glowed.
It wasn’t just a forest. It was our collective memory.
The Web of Fences
Now, when we walk back to George Everest, it greets us differently. No longer with open arms, but with fences — long, sharp, endless wires that cut across paths like scars across skin. Gates painted green stand like sentinels, and guards ask questions that once only the mountains asked: “Where are you going? For how long? Show me your receipt.”
The deer don’t understand receipts. They leap, and crash. They push against wires until they bleed. A kakad once got stuck, unable to move, its cry echoing through the trees. What was once a sanctuary for animals has been made into a prison for them.
And it is not just one incident. It happens daily. Every few days another deer, another bird. At least two such tragedies are already on video. The news may move on, but the forest does not forget. The injuries are written into its silence.
Residents as Prisoners
And humans are not spared either. Families who live near Hathipaon now find their ancestral paths fenced away. To reach their own houses, they must snake through new access points — detours created because some wall has overwritten a century-old trail.
Imagine walking back to your own home and being stopped at a gate where once there was only a slope of grass. Imagine explaining to a guard, with a receipt in your hand, that you are not a tourist but a resident. That humiliation is now daily life here.
The locals and the animals share the same fate: both displaced from their corridors of belonging, both forced to knock at doors that never existed before.
Memories Beside the Fire
It wasn’t always like this. Not long ago, we even carried our own wood to the meadows — to cook simple meals, to celebrate birthdays or friendships with a jungle party. No trash, no loudspeakers, no plastic — just laughter, singing, food, and silence woven into the night. When we left, the forest looked exactly the same as when we had come.
That was the true spirit of Hathipaon: belonging without possession, use without abuse. The jungle was our hall, the stars our lamps, and the silence our music.
Today, in place of campfires lit with our own wood, there are receipts glowing under fluorescent kiosks. Where once the sound of laughter blended with the rustle of pines, today the click of toll machines sets the rhythm. The irony is unbearable.
The Silence of the Deer, The Silence of the People
When the deer crash into the fences, they do not shout. When the locals are barred from roads they grew up walking, they too fall silent. But silence is also a kind of scream. The scream says: this was ours, not as ownership, but as belonging.
It was once proposed to be part of the Benog Wildlife Sanctuary — a living forest where birds nested, wildflowers bloomed, and shepherds’ trails were sanctified by centuries of use. That was the correct path: to preserve the estate as a sanctuary, as a heritage of nature itself. Instead, it was leased, fenced, repackaged for entry fees.
The locals once thought there would be jobs here. That tourism development would mean employment, pride, participation. But nothing of the sort came. Outsiders were brought in, contractors hired from elsewhere. The town gained receipts and fences; the people gained little but grief.
A Helicopter in the Forest
It is said one can now fly a helicopter here. But why? A helicopter in a bird’s nesting ground is not an adventure; it is an intrusion. The forest does not need the thunder of rotors to make it exciting. Its own silence is thrill enough. The rustle of oak leaves, the call of the whistling thrush, the footsteps of deer on pine needles — that is the music of George Everest.
There is a madness in imagining that a jungle must entertain us like a theme park. A jungle is not for rides, nor for tickets. A jungle is for peace, for life, for the breath of the earth itself.
The Lone Fighters
And yet, there are a few — very few — who refuse to be silenced. For years now, locals have been fighting lonely battles: filing RTIs, pursuing court cases, briefing journalists, collecting evidence, demanding answers. They are not activists with placards, but ordinary citizens carrying extraordinary weight.
Their petitions are part of public record. Their questions have entered courtrooms. Their persistence has entered the news cycle. It is a fight fought with papers and patience, while fences continue to rise in steel and wire.
These lone voices speak not just for themselves — they speak for deer that cannot file affidavits, for birds whose nests cannot be marked in land records, for shepherds and trekkers whose routes have been erased. They speak for photographers and campers who now find “No Entry” signs where skylines once welcomed them.
Animals, birds, and humans — all are crying in different tongues, but for the same loss.
The Official Stand
In response to growing debate, the government has clarified its position. The state’s media in-charge recently stated that the entire allocation process for tourism activities at George Everest was carried out strictly in accordance with the law, and that every rule was followed. He emphasised that the land and assets remain the property of the state and assured that common people face no restriction on their movement in and around the estate.
He pointed out that nearly 173 acres had been acquired decades ago, and that Rs 23.52 crore was invested under an ADB project to restore the estate, build huts, cafés, and a museum, and create facilities for cultural programmes, astro-tourism, and birdwatching. According to the government, entry gates and vehicle controls were introduced not to curtail freedom, but to manage narrow roads and ensure the safety of visitors.
In the official narrative, then, there are no barriers for the public — only regulation and organisation in the name of safety and development.
Private Plots and Old Disputes
But history reminds us that the story of land here has never been entirely simple. Individual plots and inter-property routes have existed around the Park Estate for years. In 2015, residents objected when a proposed gate across the approach road threatened to block their way home. In 2018, a family briefly erected boundary pillars, claiming part of the path to Everest House as private land — pillars later removed by the council. More recently, in 2024, traders’ groups urged the authorities to ensure that “various private routes and private properties to the east” remained fully open.
None of these episodes cancel the government’s assurance that ownership rests with the state. But together they show how a patchwork of public land, leased areas, and individual plots creates confusion on the ground. And in such a patchwork, even a single fence — whether official or private — feels like a fracture in what was once a seamless forest.
The Gap between Paper and Pasture
Those who live near Hathipaon and walk its paths daily feel this difference most acutely. On paper, there may be no restriction, but in practice the fences change the spirit of the place. What once felt like a forest open to all now feels like an estate that must be entered through gates.
Yes, the land belongs to the state, but the forest belonged to our memory. And memory does not recognise tenders or procurement rules. It recognises the sound of a ball struck on a grassy field, the laughter of friends carrying their own firewood, the sudden leap of a deer across a trail.
So even if every process is lawful and every tender valid, the question remains: what about belonging? What about the soul of the place? Can regulation ever replace the simple freedom of walking into the forest as if it were your own?
What We Lose When We Lock the Forest
We think we are fencing the land, but in truth we are fencing our own souls. We have locked away the very place that taught us to be free. We have sold tickets to sunsets, receipts to starlight, invoices to silence.
And yet, no receipt can ever buy back the feeling of sitting in those meadows with friends, watching the last orange light fade into the Doon Valley. That was free, because freedom cannot be priced. That was open, because openness cannot be leased.
A Plea for Restoration
This is not to say the government has no role. On the contrary, the state has the noblest role: to restore George Everest to its rightful form. To reclaim what was leased out in haste. To return the estate to the people and the animals who already called it home.
Let it be declared once more a living sanctuary. Let it be curated not as a “project,” but as a heritage park where locals are the first guardians, where tourists come to witness unbroken forests, not concrete huts or helicopter rides. Let the old charm remain.
For Mussoorie does not need another cage disguised as development. What it needs is the preservation of its last free forest — for the locals who crave their childhood playground, for the deer who seek corridors to move, and for the visitors who deserve to see nature as it really is: unchained.
A Closing Thought
When George Everest built his observatory here, it was to gaze at the stars. Perhaps even he could not have imagined that, two centuries later, the stars would be hidden not by clouds but by barbed wire.
The fences may rise, but they cannot erase memory. We remember Hathipaon as it was — a place of freedom. And memory, like the sky, cannot be caged.
So let us act before memory becomes only nostalgia. Let us restore this forest, not as a project, but as a prayer. A prayer that says:
Let the deer run free again.
Let the people gather again.
Let the forest breathe again.
For if the hills lose their freedom, what freedom will remain for us?
(Rajat Aikant Sharma is a writer, columnist, and photojournalist whose work spans culture, history, philosophy, and human narratives across the world.)
