As I drove up to Chhota Shimla, childhood memories came flooding back. But given the town's burgeoning population, memories hardly matched reality. Yes, the exquisite 100-year-old family homes with English names are still there Foswell, Strawberry Hill, Westfield, Rose Cottage, Aira Holme. But all around them, ugly multi-storeyed apartments clinging like caterpillars to the denuded hillsides block spectacular views. Where pretty hedges once demarcated boundaries (for this part was a family estate), forbidding walls have sprouted. The narrow lanes where we chased each other as kids every summer are now choked with fancy cars zooming up and down. Cars full of strangers who live in the tiny flats with narrow balconies jutting out.Thanks to spiralling inflation, owners unable to maintain their extensive grounds sold off portions. Today, they are filled with regret. For the avaricious buyers built high-rise apartments on those small pieces of land, their upper storeys peeping into private gardens and obstructing their view. In one fell swoop, the air of genteel elitism and privacy has been demolished. Some of the beautiful estates where we once ran wild now remain locked and barred 11 mo-nths of the year. No-one has the time to open them any more. Family feuds fuelled by ego and greed ensure that the divisions are sharp and distinct. Welcome to the I, me and myself philosophy which has replaced yesterday's all-enveloping brotherhood.Only nature remains resilient, valiantly battling to prove that all is not lost. So as I stood amidst the crocus covered hill-sides of Aira Holme, I averted my gaze from the Kasumpti bazaar down below, and the ugly monstrosity christened ``New Shimla'' which is swallowing whole tracts of hillsides plus countless stately deodars. Haphazard planning and unchecked growth amidst what is now a barren, ugly landscape. Why is this happening? When you question old residents, they shrug. For they have sadly come to accept the decay that surrounds them. And as they point out, it is not just individuals, it is the Himachal government that is flouting building laws with impunity. From an IAS officers' colony that is being carved out, to a police colony, to multi-storeyed police headquarters and high court buildings.Even other outskirts of Shimla town like Sanjauli resemble high-rise ghettoes. An aunt told me that the other day, when someone died in one of these precariously perched apartments, there was scarcely any place to carry the dead body down the hillside. Even a minor tremor would send them tumbling like a pack of cards. But safety and aesthetics are hardly a concern for the developers.In sharp contrast to Shimla, the residents of Kasauli, an old British cantonment town en route, are over vigilant. Fast becoming a popular summer haunt for Delhi-based artists and writers, Kasauli has a society called SPOKE (Society for the Protection of Kasauli Environment). Its members have managed to ensure that no high-rises are allowed to come up in the vicinity. Many of them are almost paranoid about the Shimla model being replicated here. So far, creative beings who head here from Delhi's heat and clamour still derive inspiration from the environment. Many, like Bulbul Sharma and Madhur Kapur, create most of their works here, taking frequent breaks to admire the tranquil, pine-forested hill-sides outside the main town.But even here, forest fires during the summer have become common, caused by careless day-trippers chucking cigarettes carelessly into the forests. Last summer, one such fire devastated an entire hillside.As I drove back to Chandigarh, I wondered how the stalwarts of the British Raj would feel if they re-visited their old summer abodes, particularly their summer capital Shimla. Their ghosts would probably fail to recognise them, diving back to their icy graves with relief.
