By Anil Raturi
I was born in Mussoorie on 30 November 1960. My parents told me that on that day Mussoorie had witnessed such heavy snowfall that the main door of our house couldn’t be opened as it was blocked by the heap of fresh snow. My father had to use the window to come out of the house.
During my school days, I remember reading an old article about Mussoorie, written by an Englishman in the 1920’s, when in a particular winter, it snowed continuously for two weeks! Many people died of the cold and with no motorable road then, there was a shortage of food too.
The Mussoorie of my childhood was a clean and cool place. The climate was such that the town invariably had a good snowfall during the winters.
In the 1960’s, the town had few buildings, all of them British and beautiful.
The forest on the Camel’s Back and Landour was extensive and still intact.
The Mall was clean and open on both sides. Towards the South, the Doon Valley was visible from any point on the ridge and so were the Mountains of Garhwal Himalayas to the North.
After the British left in 1947, Mussoorie had almost become a ghost town. Only a few Princes of India and some really rich Indians, who could be counted on the fingers, owned houses in the town.
Post-independence, it took about two decades for the Indian elite to start trickling into Mussoorie as tourists.
With that the fun and frolic once again returned to the restaurants and hotels that the British had left. However, India then was so poor that the number of people who could afford to visit Mussoorie was miniscule. May and June used to have a reasonable crowd. The remaining months saw very few tourists. In fact, for decades, most business establishments used to remain closed during the winters.
Mussoorie of the 1960’s saw less people, had few buildings, even fewer cars but had many more trees.
The weather used to be Himalayan cool in summers and till 1979 (the year I went to Delhi University), I used to sleep in a quilt even in June. The winters used to be chilly and we invariably had snowfall.
Things began to change with the advent of the 1980’s.
Limestone quarries became big business. The mountains were gashed. Terrorism in Punjab made many people divert their investment into real estate in Mussoorie.
With the 1991 economic liberalisation, the Indian middle class swelled. An automobile boom ensued. A large number of cars, scooters, motorbikes, etc., coming from the NCR began converging on the hapless town initiating an ever soaring wave of tourists.
The elite now forsook the hills. They began holidaying abroad. With the democratisation of the Republic, a larger number of lower middle class people could afford travel to Mussoorie.
The process unleashed monstrously large crowds frequenting a place built for only a few thousands.
The phenomenon unleashed a Frankenstein’s monster that built more hotels, resorts and buildings. It also meant more cars.
More trees were cut.
The concrete closed the Mall on both sides (Doon Valley and Himalayas) converting the place into a suffocating lane.
It translated into more garbage, pollution, water scarcity, traffic jams and rising temperatures.
All this effectively transformed the place to become unrecognisable!
1980 onwards, one could feel the rising temperatures and the climate change.
Consequently, the winter snowfall became intermittent and irregular.
In a good winter also, whenever it did snow, the magnitude was quite reduced.
In the above backdrop, the recent snowfall in Mussoorie deserves to be celebrated.
It somewhat seems to salvage its reputation as a hill station!
We hated the British for enslaving us, but we love the hill stations (like Mussoorie) which they built.
During the Raj period, Indians were not allowed on the Mall.
In today’s egalitarian India, a large number of its citizens are converging on Mussoorie for a holiday. From the democratic stand point this is a sign of empowerment of the citizenry and hence should be welcomed.
Regrettably, the developments have outpaced the governance apparatus which has reached a breaking point.
Result – Mussoorie Mall is increasingly resembling Paharganj. A ‘Pahar’ for which the snow seems to be losing its fondness by the day!
(Anil Raturi is retired DGP, Uttarakhand.)
