Author Description

In 1891, the railway line to Kalka from Ambala was opened but it took a couple of years to begin work on the Kalka Shimla Railway. The burning heat of Indian summers made people sweaty throughout the journey from Calcutta, now Kolkata, to Kalka. The wooden box-like railway compartments which had no fans fitted and air conditioning were just a dream, creaked, rattled, and bumped while moving on the steel rails and puffed hot wind through its window openings, keeping the travelers humid. Building a railway track in the hills was a great challenge for the Scottish Engineers. But it was nothing in front of their attraction for the hills. Shimla, the former Summer Capital of British India, and now a famous tourist destination, came up exactly 200 years ago from now. The British officers had moved up to the hills to fight against Gurkhas, who were expanding their dynasties in these hills and had caused big trouble for the local rulers. On the invitation of the local rulers the British army moved up and fought against Gurkhas, defeated them, and expelled them completely. Shimlu or Shyamala as it was called then, grabbed their attention and they decided to set up a resort here. With time a large population began to move up to the hills and Shimla developed as per their requirement. It was a challenge to move up to the hills in the absence of a road, initially the best way to move up was to walk up or ride. Before the road from Kalka to Shimla was constructed, in the middle of the nineteenth century, it was challenging to travel to Shimla with all the paraphernalia loaded on camels or country carts. One family would carry all their clothing, plate chest, bonnet boxes, boxes containing books, folding chairs, cane chairs, saddle stand, mackintosh sheets, books, iron cots, tea tables, pans, other utensils, screens, lamps, lanterns, hanging wardrobes, house linen, casks containing ornaments, ice-pails, door mats, crockery in the casks, filter purdah, bamboos, tennis poles, hot c