Bygone Doon by Pradeep Singh

  When the evening descended across the Valley it was that blessed time when the smoke from humble homes and some better off ones all rose in one direction: towards the darkening sky that anticipated a rendezvous with the stars. The warm fires that set free the smoke to travel upwards were however not one in the Valley’s social hierarchy. Yes, indeed, the Doon Valley was sparsely populated in the days gone by and the villages lay some distance apart, separated often by stretches of forests that had their presence even in the town. The Doon of yesteryears was a happy home to several social groups quite distinct from each other in at least what cooked on their kitchen hearths. With some hindsight and the benefit of local oral traditions, we are in luck to know what our ancestors and the predecessor residents of the Doon Valley ate and drank. In the distant past, there was no homogeneity in the Valley’s population. Despite the challenges of traveling and the remoteness of Dehradun, th...

  The British, through the efforts of the East India Company, started their association with the Siwalik Ranges of the Doon Valley in 1815. This was one of the landmark outcomes of the Anglo-Gorkha War of 1814-5 when the forces of the East India Company pushed back the Gorkhali army units over a lengthy disputed border stretching from Himachal Pradesh through Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Bengal. As a result, the East India Company now had virtual control over much of the subcontinent barring Punjab and further west. It gave the British access to land and resources far beyond they had ever expected when they ventured out to south Asia from their remote British Isles in the early seventeenth century. The territorial control of much of India had necessitated the permanent presence of a very large population of Britain’s subjects like the Scots, Irish, Welsh and the English in various parts of India. But the conquest of the country was easier than the conquest of its climate a...