Bygone Doon by Pradeep Singh

George Everest Source Wikipedia  Between the apogee of being the residence cum office of Col Sir George Everest and its recent state of vandalised neglect, the Park House had phases in which people actually stayed in it. Today, it is referred to more casually as Everest House. I had the privilege, realised much later though, of seeing Park House as a summer retreat for over two decades when this rambling estate was family property. Before my father acquired it in 1967-68, the Park Estate and Park House at Hathipaon (Mussoorie) had not a few owners which included Col Whish, Col Thatcher, Col Alexander Skinner, John MacKinnon and the Shah family before us. Selected initially as a site for the mansion by Col William Sampson Whish in 1829, the Park Estate became well known for its connection with Col Sir George Everest once he acquired it in 1833. George Everest was a larger than life figure whose untiring efforts completed the Great Trigonometric Survey star...

Villages have the antiquity that cities and towns have envied and never paralleled. They were the nodes of human activity that gave mankind it’s distinct identify in the hierarchy of species. Mahatma Gandhi gave primacy to India’s villages as he held that India truly resided in her seven lac villages. Though in current times villages are not in the forefront of public debate or in the minds of the mandarins of modern nations, yet the emotions villages evoke in the hearts of many are worthy of contemplating. Thus writers like Munshi Premchand, Emile Zola, Leo Tolstoy, Knut Hamsun, D H Lawrence and Thomas Hardy have immortalised rural life in their works now regarded as classics. Old Doon too has its share of a legendary village which is remembered in these few lines. Hemmed in on its southern edges by the Mothorowala swamp and tucked in on its south eastern side by Nagsidh Hill and Nawada lay the orderly and prospering village of Badripur. Much of what is written is from...

For centuries, the valley of Doon remained on the edge of civilisation and for cartographers and explorers it was ‘terra incognita’. Though geographically it was the domain of the Garhwal Rajas, albeit at times contested for by the rulers of Sirmaur, it was only due to the Mughal Imperium and the practice of its state craft that the Valley was drawn into the main current of Indian political processes. But, with the military expeditions under Shah Jahan and then by Aurangzeb, the remarkable isolation of the Valley came to an end. While, from the perspective of empire building of the Mughals, the Gurkhas, and finally the East India Company, their activity is traceable from the middle of the last millennium, but before that the daunting wilderness was pierced by men of God, the sages, fakirs and the spiritual mendicants. These ascetic minded wanderers had their hermitages and retreats deep in the forests of the Siwaliks and despite the severe terrain and hostile environment o...

Self reliance, self sufficiency and self isolation, today, mean different things to different folks and more often carry negative emotions rather than something that was a desirable option for those who saw life a little more holistically and with wholesome outcomes. For the latter, the notion of self reliance and desire for self sufficiency was closely linked with self esteem that went hand in hand with physical or manual tasks performed with a mindset of sustainability and respect for resources and their minimalistic use. The nineteenth century saw several visionary votaries of self reliance who had a high regard for manual work aimed at doing one’s daily chores by one’s own hands. Henry David Thoreau, Leo Tolstoy and Mahatma Gandhi were in more ways than one kindred spirits who ignited and inspired ideas that were simple yet revolutionary insofar as these ideas challenged the prevalent false value structure that placed primacy on a hierarchy of tasks and efforts in which manua...

Evolution in the geomorphology of Doon and the evolution of the district as a society share only the nomenclature for a process, but the two are as markedly different in pace as an earthworm is from a turbo charged Ferrari. While Doon’s physical features evolved over millions of years, human settlement history and society formation are only a few centuries old. The Dehradun district, also often referred to as the Doon Valley, is commonly associated and better known for its connection with the British governance model whose remnants are still visible in the buildings and public amenities like the Railways and especially the numerous canals, left behind following the independence of India in 1947. Proby Cautley Source: Wikipedia Love of Doon’s once ubiquitous canals springs from the heart of a true Doonite and paeans are sung in popular literature about these amazing waterways criss-crossing the valley and many an adventure experienced by youngsters of yesteryears. But let us dwell a bi...