A HILL WITH THREE NAMES

Long before the hill station’s founders arrived in 1823 to build kachcha-pakka shooting boxes at Zephyr Hall and Mullingar Hill, many chose different paths to reach Mussoorie.

For instance, the Surveyor’s Stone at Bhadraj temple dates back to 1813 and bears the names of our early botanists chiseled on it. You will find JSB – John Stuart Boldero, then Joint Magistrate of Saharanpur; WLG – William Linnaeus Gardner, and JAH – John Anthony Hodgson. Lady Hood, the wife of Admiral Sir Samuel Hood, a Naval Officer commanding the 1st British East Indies Naval Fleet, is also mentioned.

In 1815, twenty-eight-year-old George Govan completed the layout of the Saharanpur Botanical Garden on the site of the old Farakat-Baksh. His successor, John Forbes Royle, who planned our Company Bagh ten years later, renamed it the Municipal Gardens.

To the east, behind Woodstock, rises a hill with three names: Pari Tibba, Witch’s Hill, and Burnt Hill. It is the site of one of our earliest settlements, where the only access was walking up the goat tracks. At that time, there were no roads to Mussoorie.

The Angrezes called it Witch’s Hill. I still remember the flurry of activity in the 1970s when the UPNMDC started digging around looking for phosphate deposits. Much earlier, as a child, I can still remember old timers like Col. Powell (or Langra Powell, as we unkindly called him) living in Seven Oaks, who told us that the twinkling lights on the hill were the witches at work. Instinctively, we knew that he was just trying to frighten us.

Of course, the charred look on top of the hill caused by bolts of lightning gave it its second name: Burnt Hill. On Pari Tibba, you will find the remains of a structure that has been pillaged for its stone. There are still traces of terraced fields to the east. Those early pioneers probably got water ferried up by mules from Company Khud and from nearby Chamasari village.

As part of the war effort in 1965, children were tasked to help enforce a blackout. We pasted carbon paper on our window panes, lest the light act as a guide to enemy planes. I remember a rumor that floated around at that time, claiming that paratroopers had been air-dropped on Pari Tibba. Armed with sticks and sundry farm implements, we marched off to find that an absent-minded washerman from Dhobighat had forgotten to collect the bedsheets that had been drying in the limp August sun.

From the will-o’-the-wisp of antiquity comes the tale of an official who was snared in the clutches of a money-lender. Seeking to escape from this unfortunate situation, he forced his daughter into marrying an old Shylock – much to the old fogey’s delight and much to the disgust of the girl and her lover. Many years later, by chance, the two found themselves up here one season. The boy had become a Captain posted at the Convalescent Depot. She, like other folks, was simply getting away from the heat and dust of the plains. Bliss ensued – for a while.  Late one evening, they heard that tales of their trysts had reached the ears of the old cantankerous goat, and he was now heading up the hill. Left with no option, the two eloped down the goat tracks from Burnt Hill. They knew full well that reaching Dehradun meant tasting freedom. But ‘fate’ intervened. Sheltering from the elements of that stormy night, they huddled together for comfort in these ruins when lightning struck them..

Some believe the charred remains of the ill-fated couple were interred on Pari Tibba. You can still see a plinth to the north of the ruins that survives to this very day; it is barely seven feet by six feet and is way too small to have once been a room. Who would build a room so small, especially with so much open space around? Could it have been for a grave? Many decades ago, I had gone through the burial registers of our two cemeteries but found no mention of a burial on the Hill of Fairies.

But by then, there were many roads to Mussoorie.

Ganesh Saili, author-photographer has written and illustrated twenty books. He belongs to those select few who illustrate
their writing. His work has found publication in periodicals, columns, and journals, in more than two dozen languages.