By: Ganesh Saili
A house called Cliff Hall was once the homestead of the Thapliyal family. Standing beyond the failed multi-level parking – a monument to stupidity – it was a little way before the Kingcraig bus stand. It became the unofficial headquarters of the movement for a separate hill state. The 1970s also saw Sudhir Thapliyal drop anchor here, having exchanged a career in journalism with trying his hand at a dairy with Jersey cows.
That endeavour was not meant to be. May we leave that tale for another day?
Long years ago, his father and my father had schooled at Mesmore Mission School in Pauri-Garhwal, under the tutelage of Edgar and Willie Chowfin, who ran that enlightened place.
‘You were always so good at studies!’ my father would always say to Thapliyal Senior, regretting: ‘Perhaps I played too much football and could barely finish matric.’
Later, life’s orbits flung us on different trajectories. Mine took me into the anonymity of these hills; Sudhir’s orbit saw him go places: the National Defence Academy, the University Hockey Team, the IIM Bangalore. He was a Rhodes Scholar, went to Pleasantville, United States, on a Reader’s Digest Scholarship where he fine-tuned his writing skills, and even travelled on a jet boat in the Ocean to Sky expedition with Sir Edmund Hillary.
Soon after, our eastern states were flooded with refugees, as war loomed large. Sudhir, then a dashing young Sub Editor of the Statesman, went across the border and brought back harrowing tales of suffering. Along the way, he had acquired a Che Guevara look, complete with trailing mane, scraggly beard, and the chocolate brown jungle boots of the Mukti Bahini.
‘Bangladesh is a reality!’ he boomed.
Afterwards, we met again, briefly: accompanying him was the gentle Gavere, his wife, and their two bright girls, Nisha and Tushna.
By chance I happened to be alongside him when a pretty girl sidled up to him, saying, ‘Sudhir! Remember me?’
‘Of course I do!’ said he, without batting an eyelid, adding, ‘Who can dare to forget a lovely girl like you?’
She blushed. Enough pink to last a year!
Pic courtesy: author’s collection
As she moved out of earshot, he looked at me and asked, ‘Now who was that, Ganesh?’
‘But I thought you knew her.’
‘Don’t know her from Adam! Always remember, never tell a girl you’ve forgotten her!’
Given his gift of the gab, I’m sure he would have found success in selling fridges to Eskimos or tobacco-less cigarettes to non-smokers! But the world of commerce was not for him. However, this talent came in handy during the days of the movement for a separate hill state. Those were tough times when many so-called stalwarts tucked their tails between their legs and fled. After the Mussoorie Massacre and the ensuing curfew, it took real courage and grit to turn his home – Cliff Hall – into a beehive of media activity.
Slowly, a dreamy little cottage with a lawn wrapped around it turned into a waiting room for statehood activists to which flocked writers, journalists, and TV crews from all over the world. That is the story of ‘how’ the Mussoorie Massacre was catapulted to centre stage in the public imagination.
Many philanthropists (please don’t ask me to list them!) sent utility loads of provisions. It helped keep the kitchen going 24×7, dispensing food and endless cups of tea.
The airwaves were thick with tales of those brutally beaten in the police lines. Among those who turned up were Jodh Singh Ghansola – two times Chairman, Mussoorie and two times an MLA – with welts on his back from the police batons, and Virendra Kaintura, with both wrists shattered by the recruits in the Police Lines, Dehradun.
‘Why were we all so terrified that day?’ he wonders today.
They tell me that revolutions devour their children, and how could it be any different here? By the time Uttarakhand was carved out, the big-name politicians and elites had taken over. The foot soldiers and crusty warriors were flung aside, forgotten, abandoned, and discarded.
‘The good that men do is oft interred with their bones.’ It stays alive only in our memory.
Ganesh Saili, born and homegrown in the hills, belongs to those select few whose words are illustrated by their pictures. Author of two dozen books, some translated into twenty languages, his work has found recognition worldwide.
