Bygone Doon by Pradeep Singh

Coming of the sons and daughters of soils of Punjab post Partion ( in 1947) to Dehra Dun is well known and there are still some present who recall the traumatic upheaval that scarred their lives with inerasable memories. But less well known is the historical fact that Dehra Dun has an over a three century old connect with two prominent sons of the Sikh Gurus. Doon Valley was a portal to the holy places of Hindus and the spiritual alma mater of many a luminary that sought the higher reaches of the Himalayas for effacing their material desires and elevating their consciousness. Even the gentler Siwalik ranges that enclosed the Doon Valley were no less attractive to men of God for which reason they were at times referred to as “Siddh Pahara”. The developments in the second half of the seventeenth century in the Sikh Panth,far removed from the then almost unknown Doon Valley, had outcomes that were soon to see their manifestation in this remote tract of land in the Siwaliks. Guru Har Rai t...