ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE DOON, page 5
I knew Ram Bahadur intimately, for he was my uncle's closest friend. I have written of him and their friendship elsewhere (see, www.dehradunfootball.com) but here I want to write of a Dehra Dun footballer who played for East Bengal even before Ramu dai did; in fact, who introduced the younger man to the club. His name was Bir Bahadur, and like his protégé, he went on to be capped for India. As a 'roving centre-half, he played in the 1958 Asian Games, before the shift to a 4–2–4 system saw him losing his place in the national side.
On retiring from football Biru dai returned to the valley, and took up a job in the school where I studied. Unusually, for a man of his class and profession, he both spoke immaculate English and did not put on an ounce of flesh after his playing career had ended. He occasionally appeared in staff versus student matches, his elegant through-passes—invariably muffed up by a puffing old schoolmaster—revealing glimpses of the player he once was. In those days I was even more crazy about football than cricket. So, when I had a free evening I would take myself off to Bir Bahadur's apartment, where he would brew me a cup of tea and tell me stories of his days in the game.
Bir Bahadur had played football in the decade when the Indian football team was not merely a joke, when it won at the Asian Games and came a creditable fourth in the Olympics. He would speak with affection of the men he had played with and against, such as Sailen Manna of Bengal, Neville D'Souza of Bombay, Peter Thangaraj of Madras, and—his particular hero— the giant Kempiah of Bangalore. Biru dai was a deeply modest man, who rarely spoke of his own prowess or achievements. He did however, tell me one story about himself, whose lessons go far beyond the sporting field. The story went like this:
Dehra Dun was once part of the great Gurkha kingdom, and the Nepali-speakers who stayed on in the valley, were the males, and regarded the army as their career of choice. When Bir Bahadur turned eighteen, he enlisted as a jawan. He learnt (I suppose) how to carry and load a rifle, but most of his time was spent on the football field. In those days, his preferred position was on the right-wing, and it was in that capacity that he was capped for the services. Soon after he joined the army, he found himself playing in the semi-final of the Santosh Trophy (against the railways, if memory serves me right). The first part of the match went very well. One of Biru's crosses was headed into goal, and then he himself cut in and scored from about twenty yards out. Services were two–nil up, a quarter-of-an-hour into the game. Just before half-time, they earned a penalty, and the captain summoned the eager young winger to take the strike. Biru ran in and shot hard, but the ball hit the post and rebounded safely into play.
It should have been 3–0 at the whistle. Instead, after play recommenced the railways managed to get in two goals, the match went into extra-time, and eventually the services lost. In the space of two hours, the young man had come face-to-face with Kipling's imposters in full and equal measure. From this cruel experience he drew the lesson that it was better to be safe than sorry. So, he left the wing and became a half-back instead.
From school in the valley I went on to college in Delhi. By now cricket had become my favourite sport, but I still loved football enough to be a fixture at the Ambedkar Stadium for the DCM and Durand Championships. I normally supported East Bengal, for they had Shyam Thapa as their star forward, except when they played Mafatlal, for whom not one, not two, but as many as three Dehra Dun footballers were then playing. Two were regulars—Amar Bahadur and Ranjit Thapa. A third had his best years behind him, and so came on only when things were really desperate. This was Bhupinder Singh Rawat, known to his fellow-townsmen as 'Bhupi', but to the Delhi crowd as 'Scooter' or, more accurately, 'Sc-o-o-o-t-a-r-r-r-r', allegedly because his scurrying small steps brought that mode of transport to mind.
Bhupi Rawat was a member of the legendary Gurkha Brigade team that won the Durand Cup in 1967 and 1968. He had then moved on to better things—and certainly better pay—with Mafatlal. The string of trophies which that club won in the early 1970s owed much to Rawat and his pahari compatriots. But by the end of the decade he was playing, as it were, from memory. I have an abiding recollection of a match played in my last year at university—1978–9—when Mafatlal and East Bengal were locked at one-all with about ten minutes to play. Bhupi came on as a substitute, to cheers of 'Scootaarr!'. Within a minute or two—I am not making this up—his team was awarded a penalty. Prudence would have dictated Ranjit or Amar taking the kick, but sentiment and fear made the captain ask Bhupi to do the job instead, although he had not touched the ball in the match, nor very much in previous matches either.
Bhupi Rawat placed the ball on the spot, and slowly retreated twenty yards. He took a deep breath, possibly two or three, and ran in terrier-like, at great speed and in very many little steps. When he got there he let fly. The ball hit the cross-bar with such terrific power that—I swear I am not making this up—the piece of sturdy and well-seasoned wood shook fearfully for a full five minutes afterwards. However, instead of finding the back of the net the ball came back into play. The end of the story is foretold— East Bengal went on to win in extra-time.
The internet is regarded as the very embodiment of a 'cutting-edge'. technology, but—as doubtless others have also found out—this superb illustration of man's capacity to look forward also sometimes aids him in looking backward. For my part, I am grateful to this new site for returning me to my beloved valley, for stoking memories which—these being human memories, after all—are sometimes sticky and at other times sweet.
Life and Times of the Savoy
Ganesh Saili
hen I first met Anand Jauhar (better known as 'Nandu' to his friends) in the early 1980s he had finally come home to his roots in Mussoorie, having spent his youth running an Indian restaurant in London's Marble Arch. Little did any of us, my friends and I, have an inkling then that a chance meeting would for two decades and more, change our lives forever. Nothing was ever to be the same again. For, be it summer or winter, the old Savoy was a great watering-hole. This was where author Ruskin Bond and I, met a whole gamut of characters: film stars, rogues, politicians, business tycoons, fly-by-night operators and some fast fading beauty queens.
Of course, you could still find their flourishes in the visitors' book. I last saw it on the front desk, to the left of Chatter Singh Negi, an old employee in his eighties (when he retired three years ago, it was rumoured that he had gone through two wives and seventy years in the hotel). Between its green-and-gold covers was a veritable Who's Who of Mussoorie's early history: His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Panchem Lama, Haile Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia, Prince Norodum Sihanouk and even the Nehrus—from Motilal, Jawaharlal, Indira and down to Rajiv. All guests at the hotel could waken at dawn to see from their window, the long line of Himalayas spanning the horizon to the north, and to watch the peaks catch fire, one after another, as the sun came up. While lower down to the south stretched the Doon Valley enshrouded in haze, where the winter line showed up so clearly, a blue haze where the line joined the sky it was brilliant red.
In the 1960s, if you could not find a room at the Savoy, you had a choice between the imperial Charleville Hotel in Happy Valley, which turned into the National Academy of Administration; followed by the Hakman's Grand Hotel, in the middle of the Mall Road, which lamentably has gone to seed and the Stiffles, briefly reincarnated as a roller-skating rink, caught fire and was reduced to ashes. The Savoy, like a lost tusker, in a changing world, stumbled on.
Like other sprawling hotels, this too once had a life of its own. There were rich patrons; usually the ex-rulers and landed gentry who, with their retinues, occupied whole wings of the hotel. After them came the civil and military officers on furlough who partied the day away. On my first visit, I found a whiff of the era still lingering in the air. Breakfast, lunches and dinners were served with personal attention to individual tastes. There was nightly dancing in the ballroom. Cabaret artists of varied backgrounds chased the night away with their repertoire of song, dance and striptease. There was frolic and fun: lawn tennis and squash; snooker and skittles; card tables and chess games and fancy dress balls. Close by was the Library to satisfy the guests' fondness for reading.
The only constant in a sea of visitors, was the hotel staff. It had a firm pecking order, a sort of totem pole, if you like, starting from the manager, down to the stewards, reception counter clerks, chefs, waiters, down to the night chowkidar, the room boys, and the sweepers—each one claimed to be privy to some secret or the other.
Often, Nandu too, would get caught up in a game. He had his own plans for a grand future. We discovered this when he got it into his head to christen the old Savoy bar. After all, what was a bar without a name? It had dawned upon him after a visit to the historic Raffles Hotel in Singapore, where he had seen the Writers' Bar. Brass plaques on the walls proclaimed that Somerset Maugham had been there, as had Conrad and Graham Greene. One day, he asked us why couldn't the Savoy too, have its very own Writers' Bar.
'Writers' Bar! Where on earth would you get writers from?' I asked.
'Well! Just for starters you are here! Aren't you a writer, Ruskin Bond?' he exclaimed in triumph, adding: 'Don't you know some other writer types, Ruskin?'
'None! I'm afraid...the Fitzgerald's Lost Weekend variety is out of fashion!' exclaimed Ruskin. 'Why not just call it the Horizontal Bar instead?'
But Nandu would have none of it. He gave us a withering look, careening on: 'They don't have to be the heavy boozer types only!'
Who could argue with that?
Finally, after much dithering and tippling, Ruskin and I simply capitulated. After all, a hotel with a hundred years of history behind it, there was no telling who could not have dropped by for a drink even if it were just plain nimbu-paani! Soon, the deed was done. Over the weekend, the plaques were made in wood by the local coffin-maker and hammered on to the walls. They celebrate the often tenuous link with writers like John Lang, the Australian-born novelist (in the 1850s, he could possibly have been a judge at the old Mussoorie School Inter-House Debate! Who's to tell!); Jim Corbett, the shikari- turned naturalist (whose parents married in Mussoorie); John Masters who spent time with the Gurkhas in the Doon; and even Pearl S. Buck the Nobel laureate, though she never wrote a word about our hill station! But she did stay at the hotel.
Though it was not writers only who strayed into the old Savoy. To appreciate what the hotel was all about, you will have to travel back in time, and get a feel of the origins of the hill station. As they say in fairy tales, once upon a time, Mussoorie too was 'the queen of resorts and the resort of kings', a sort of meeting place for the rich and the powerful. But the town was never really anything officious or stuffy. It was where you could find yourself sailing into a 'fishing-fleet' of young girls looking for eligible bachelors, or meet rakish bachelors whispering sweet nothings into the ears of 'grass widows' under the eaves. And if you think, the husbands had run away or were absconding, you're wrong! Poor things thought they had better things to do—like minding the affairs of the State in an Indian summer in the sultry plains! Mussoorie was, and to a limited extent, still is, a place where you can let your hair down without inviting social censure.
With the passage of times, the need arose for a place of quiet luxury. Cecil D. Lincoln, a barrister from Lucknow, took over the lands of the old Mussoorie School, pulled down the school and built a hotel in its stead, naming it after the Fayrest Manor in Europe. To his credit goes the English Gothic architecture, its fine proportions, its lancet-shaped narrow windows along the corridors and the verandahs. You can still find the original school emblem, a four-leafed clover, peeping out from amongst the eaves.
Two simple spires, without any parapet, surmount the corners of the main building—rearing their heads in pride constituting the main facade. If you consider the fact that the first motor car came to the hill station in 1920, you can only admire the sheer ingenuity and dogged perseverance of the early settlers. Men and material came up the bridle path from Rajpur. Everything came up this winding serpentine trail by bullock cart. Massive Victorian and Edwardian furniture, billiard tables, grand pianos, Burmese teak for the ballroom floors, rotund barrels of beer and cases of champagne and cognac—all the requirements of a fine hotel trundled up the hill on lumbering bullock carts.
Launched in 1902, the hotel was—'like a phoenix rising from the ashes of a school' gushed a local scribe. Royalty trooped to town when four years later, Her Royal Highness, the Princess of Wales—later, Queen Mary—attended a garden party in the Savoy grounds. No soon had she left, a severe earthquake hit Mussoorie. Many buildings were flattened and the hotel had to be closed for an year. But by 1907, it was up and about and ready to go.
In between the two Great Wars, in the 'gay Twenties', Mussoorie entered its days of wine and roses. In its heydays, the Savoy orchestra played every night, and the ballroom was full of couples dancing the night away. You could do the fox trot or waltz to the happy numbers or do your own thing.
On a visit in 1926, Lowell Thomas, in The Land of the Black Pagoda wrote: 'There is a hotel in Mussoorie where they ring a bell just before dawn so that the pious may say their prayers and the impious get back to their own beds.'
When I asked Nandu, he confirmed: 'We employed an old, short-sighted chowkidar to ring the separation bell at four every morning.... It guaranteed absolute privacy to the guests!'
During the Second World War, the British and the American military officers on leave, sought amusement in the hills and flocked to the place. Legend has us believe that the sale of whisky used to be so high that Lincoln would have all the empty bottles from the previous day's sale, collected and brought down to the cellar. Gently, he would coax every last drop of scotch from each bottle. Miraculously, he would have two full bottles ready for house guests the next day!
It was not about tippling alone. Sometimes, guests would be staggered by the size of the luxury suites. I was told that one day, when the hotel was full, an elderly couple was shown the bridal suite. 'What will we do with this?' the old man exclaimed. 'Sir! If you're shown the ballroom, you don't have to dance!' said the ever-resourceful Negi.
Anand Jauhar's father holidaying in the hills bought the complex in 1946. Till just three years ago, it was still a family-run hotel; when due to a bout of ill-health, Nandu gave up his shares to the new owners. What's happening now? We are often asked. Well! They are trying to update it with some modern-day creature comforts, without changing the character of this fine heritage hotel. One wishes them luck in their endeavours!
On my last visit here, as I finished taking pictures, I bid farewell to the charming old billiards room, (where in 1900, a leopard was found hiding under the rosewood table) I try to catch some of the spirit of the heydays of the Raj. I remind myself that the history of Mussoorie must have wandered through its vast spaces. I walk down the rambling corridors, the empty sun-drenched lounge, lost in the memory of happy times, and Nandu catches up with me. Together we walk through the deserted dining room. He jokes: 'This hotel is so big that by the time you get from the reception to the room, we could have charged you for a day!'
Going past the Writers' Bar, a wave of nostalgia washes over me, I tear myself away, rushing down the steps—those familiar twenty steps—one last time. How well I know things will never be the same again. Suddenly, I hear a shuffling behind me. Is it the ghosts of the past come to bid one last goodbye? Or, is it the wind playing in the gables? Who knows? I move on from door to door, from transept to transept, from corridor to lounge, from ballroom to balcony, tracing a century here and a generation there, in pillar and arch, vault and buttress. And, I will probably end where I began: at the rosewood entrance which throws its massive arch into a work-a-day world, and inside, hoards a treasure trove of memories. Brimming over with the sheer loveliness that comes from wood and stone!
And, for over a hundred years, emperor and clown have walked up these very steps, through this very same arch into a magnificent doorway to history! The Savoy still appears at the time of one last farewell like a shimmering mirage in the memories of those who resonated to its poignant beauty years ago.
Dehra Dun—A Magical Walk Down Memory Lane
Himmat S. Dhillon
ehra Dun. A place, yes, but so much more than just another place on the map. Dehra—a name that forces one to take a nostalgic walk down memory lane to a glorious land swathed in a golden sepia tinted light. Time was when Dehra Dun was a quaint town popularly associated with grey heads and green hedges. A place that has ancient associations. Certainly, traditional lore has it that in Vedic times, it was the site of the ashram of none other than the great sage and educator, Drona. That Dehra has kept alive this great tradition of scholarship and high quality education even into modern times is testified by the prevalence of well-known, internationally renowned institutions, here such as the Indian Military Academy, the grand architecture of the Forest Research Institute and the Doon School.
A place where the good citizens would ride in tongas that went clip-clopping down streets lined with green hedges in which a huge range of chirruping birds abounded. A place where the swiftly flowing East Canal actually served to bring cold water from the hills that would be let into an elaborate system of smaller brick-built water channels that would gush into individual water tanks that served to nourish each private garden. Today, as one drives along the E.C. Road, the abbreviations standing for East Canal, there is absolutely no trace of the water course. The reason is because the powers that be thought it fit to cover up the water course after laying concrete pipes where the canal once flowed unfettered. In effect, turning the canal into an underground sewer!
