Introduction :India

In ihe northern quarter is divine Himalaya, the lord of the mountains, reaching from Eastern to Western Ocean, firm as a rod to measure the earth.

There demigods rest in the shade of the clouds, which spread like a girdle below the peaks, but when the rains disturb them they fly to the sunlit summits.

For thousands of years Hindus have looked on the Himalayas with wonder and reverence. They are the abode of the gods. There Shiva, the great god of destruction, sat deep in meditation until Parvati, the daughter of the mountains, succeeded in winning his love. Temples to Shiva and Parvati stand high in the mountains and tens of thousands of pilgrims make the arduous ascent to them each year, returning to the plains enriched by religious experience. In the words of the Shanda Purana, ‘As the sun dries the morning dew, so are. the sins of man dissipated at the sight of the Himalayas.’

Centuries of pilgrimage produced temples and hermitages, but no hill stations. The population in the plains had learned to live with the hot weather, and didn’t need to escape from it. Tor most of the year the mountains were left alone to the hill peoples and nomadic herdsmen.

The credit for the invention of ihe hill station as a summer retreat should be given, not to the British, but to the Mughal emperors. Three of the Great Mughals – Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan – were entranced by Kashmir. Kashmir was on the borders of the empire and strategically important; so it was also sound commonsense to establish a base there. The emperors constructed formal terraced gardens with waterfalls and fountains against the spectacular setting of the Himalayas. It was a landscape which brought out the more poetic side of their characters. Emperor Jahangir, who was quite capable of having his enemies sewn up in asses’ skins, wrote:

Kashmir is a garden of eternal spring…. There are running streams and fountains beyond count. Wherever the eye reaches, there are verdure and running water. The red rose, the violet and the narcissus grow of themselves; in the fields there are all kinds of flowers and all sorts of sweet-scented herbs – more than can be calculated. In the soul-enchanting spring, the hills and the plains are filled with blossom; the gates, the walls, the courts, the roofs are lighted up by ihe torches of banquet-adorning tulips.

By the beginning of ihe 18th century the Mughal Empire was in decline and the British began to take over more and more Indian territory. They were unlike any rulers India had ever seen. Many dynasties had come from outside, but they had all been absorbed into Indian society. The British, however, were determined to remain British. They did not settle in India and, to start with at least, obstinately refused to behave in any way suitable to the climate. They continued to wear tight woollen jackets and flannel underwear, and their eating habits became even more excessive than they would have been al home. Huge meals washed down with quantities of Madeira ensured that many did not live to see more than the proverbial ‘two monsoons’.