A post box with a crown that looks suspiciously like the one Queen Elizabeth sometimes wears!
An abandoned house which seems to belong to an Edgar Allan Poe story.
I love travelling. I love Shimla. I love travelling to and living in Shimla. Ergo, this photo-blog is dedicated to Shimla. Mostly.
gal-uh-MAW-free\, noun.
Originally meaning "a hash of various kinds of meats," "gallimaufry" comes from French galimafrée; in Old French, from the word galer, "to rejoice, to make merry"; in old English: gala + mafrer: "to eat much," and from Medieval Dutch maffelen: "to open one's mouth wide."
It's also a dish made by hashing up odds and ends of food; a heterogeneous mixture; a hodge-podge; a ragout; a confused jumble; a ridiculous medley; a promiscuous (!) assemblage of persons.
Those of you who know me, will, I’m sure, understand how well some of these phrases (barring the "promiscuous" bit!) fit me.
More importantly, this blog is an ode to my love for Shimla. I hope to show you this little town through my eyes. If you don't see too many people in it, forgive me, because I'm a little chary of turning this into a human zoo.
Stop by for a spell, look at my pictures, ask me questions about Shimla, if you wish. I shall try and answer them as best as I can. Let's be friends for a while....
Krishna Sweets
Krishna Sweets is a gem of a place, tucked away in Boileauganj. The owner, in typical laid-back Himachali fashion, is delightfully vague about the age of the shop. He says it is probably 30 years old. A helpful gentleman, awaiting his turn to buy some Krishna's legendary samosas, says he's been visiting the shop for 50 years, so it has to be a lot older than that. As the debate rages, patient customers waiting for their plate of jalebies watch on with interest, but without complaint. Its worth the while to do so! This tiny shop doubles up as a snack-shop & a sweet shop. Its samosas & jalebies are crisp, its barfi tender & melt-in-the-mouth. Their tea is simply superb, freshly brewed with the best quality of milk & with just a hint of cardamom. There are other mithais too, besan barfi, balooshahi, gulabjamuns. Fie on those who claim that Mehru or Natthoo make them better. Krishna's gulabjamun's are works of art!
You pause in your greedy consumption for a minute when you spot a photograph of the owner's son, Anuj, who was martyred in the Kargil War.
If there were no fireflies in this world, we'd be forced to invent them.
Love is like skin. Wonderful, provided you don't examine it under a microscope.
If heartaches were commercials, we'd all be on TV.
There is something so heart-breakingly brave about shops like Bindra Studio. They stand like lone sentinels in the cold, impersonal world of digital photography. If you happen to visit Shimla & even if getting yourself photographed is not on your list of things to do, pop over to this 104-year old establishment. Take a peek at those lovely black-and-white pictures. They will take you right back into the world balls and fancy-dresses. The world when a young girl's successs in Shimla was measured by how crowded her dance programme was.
And no, a "dance programme" was not a recital she gave on the stage of Gaiety Theatre. It was a a little gilt-edged card. On one side the the dances and tunes to be played that evening were listed. On the opposite side, you could note the names of the people who proposed to partner them. The tiny pencil attached to this "programme" with a silken cord was a device that made and broke many a reputation!
The pictures in Bindra Studio will remind you of that era gone by when the world seemed simple and uncomplicated, indeed it was only a whirl of dances, a medley of songs from musicals such as The Quaker Girl, The Little Michus & The Dollar Princess.... A world of funny hats & polka-dotted dresses. Of secret assignations in the Gaiety's Green Room. Of martinet domestics in buttoned boots. Of jhampanis & abdaars & khansamahs & masalchis & bhistis.
What a time it must have been.
The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,
And all the sweet serenity of books. (Longfellow)