Bygone Doon by Pradeep Singh

source The acquisition of the Doon Valley by the British as a result of the Anglo-Gorkha War of 1814-15 opened up a Pandora’s Box for them. They not only got possession of a region that was in many ways unsurpassed in natural charms with a climate that was salubrious and congenial to the European constitution, but also opportunities opened for a range of profitable ventures. Of the many cultural preferences that the British had, for long enjoyed and also bequeathed as a pleasant legacy, was tea drinking – the virtues of which were extolled by Cooley Cibber, the poet: “Tea! Thou soft, thou sober, sage, and venerable liquid,… thou female tongue-running, smile-smoothing, heart-opening, wind-tippling cordial, to whose glorious insipidity I owe the happiest moment of my life, let me fall prostrate.” Not surprising, the benefits of tea were lauded by the Chinese philosopher Lo Yu: “Tea tempers the spirits, harmonises, prevents drowsiness, lightens and refreshes the body and clears the percep...

In the second half of the nineteenth century, Cautley’s Canals were bringing the mountain torrents to the Valley tamed by check dams, sluices, weirs and canals that modulated the flow with the finesse of a conductor of a philharmonic orchestra. The sweet clear water often carrying a green twig or a leaf from the foliage of upstream banks came down to villages which were celebrating the goodness of plenty of water where earlier there was none. Thus Cautley’s canals, while increasing the land revenue for the British through extension of agriculture, also added new zest among those farmers who could foresee the potential that now their fields had become capable of. While the government charged a cess for supplying canal water, the music from the same was sweet and free. The Doon Valley hitherto deceptively verdant with luxurious forest cover on the undulating Siwaliks and also in some swathes of wooded spaces had little water for irrigation as it flowed in gorges from which drawing water ...

When the pilgrims to the Guru’s newly settled abode in the Doon Valley came trudging through the defiles and wooded wilderness of the Siwaliks, the lofty Himalayas were spied only rarely. So deep were the forests and foliage so abundant that the snowy tops were a fleeting image for the callus-footed, weary bodied seekers of the spiritual cup. Streams bubbled at every few yards and no lips were parched having slaked their thirst of the sweet waters thereof. The birds sang the silence of the Sal trees to cheer the most despondent soul. Doon Valley, terra incognita three centuries ago, was a treasure undiscovered or perhaps a solatium for Guru Ram Rai, who wandered the wilderness where none could see him in his renunciation, after his disappointment in affairs of the world. His treasury empty but his domain set apart with a wealth that would attract the attention of the high and the mighty who sought the valuable timber for creating their sumptuous palaces and pleasure houses. The ruling ...