I was born and raised in the hills of Pauri Garhwal. I don’t remember my mother, but I was told she was a pious and kind lady. She sadly passed away during my birth. My father, however, was a constant presence, warm and doting, and I miss him even today. When I was five, he decided to move to Shimlah after securing a stable job at the post office. I grew up in a close-knit neighbourhood, surrounded by children – some of whom went to school, while others worked to help their families make ends meet. My father, despite the challenges, made sure I went to school, though it was a little later than most children my age group. I remember feeling proud of him for this, as not many girls had that privilege at the time.
He cooked for me, did the dishes, and tucked me into bed each night, weaving stories of the Garhwali forests and the grand epics of the Pandavas from the Mahabharata. He spoke of the creation of the universe, of gods, and their manifestations. Everything had a story, he would say, be it the mountains that cradled us, the rivers that wound through the valleys, the squirrel that scurried up the deodar trees. My young mind, full of wonder, soaked it all in. Those stories have stayed with me, woven into the very fabric of my being, and even now, when I think of my father, I remember them – not just as tales but as a reflection of the love he gave me. Even today they remind me of what parental love felt like – a love that spoke in soft touches on the head, in the warmth of his chest as I nestled close, and in the soothing cadence of his voice that made me feel secure and safe.
I have come to realise that the most profound kind of love is the one that is given freely, simply because you exist. A parent’s love asks for nothing in return, it has no reason. When you become a caregiver, you long for that kind of love again, but it’s something you can never truly get back. It is the quiet ache of growing up.
My childhood, though simple, was filled with the warmth of such early memories, all of which I carried like a resilient candle in the storms that were to come. Shimlah, towards the end of the 1920s, was a town filled with Englishmen who, after collecting sufficient leaves and funds, would flee from the searing heat of the plains to spend the summer in the cool embrace of the mountains. Those who had no families, or whose families had been reduced to a memory from England, would travel to Mussoorie on sick leaves, and pass their days playing cards and smoking cigars at the Himalayan Club, recovering from whatever affliction the Indian heat had dealt them. But there was another group of English people who came to Shimlah each summer – the grass widows, a term I came to understand as I grew older. These were women whose husbands, stationed far away in the plains, could not join them, or could only do so once they were granted leave.
These women, stranded in a foreign land, waited – some for their husbands, some in hope of respite for their children from the ravages of the Indian climate, but all for a life that had been put on hold.
They lived isolated lives, their world revolving around their homes, their servants, and the strange customs of this country they could never truly call their own. They became fixtures in the town, these Anglo-Indian women, and Shimlah catered to them. Shops stocked the things they needed – everything from bonnets to brandy, guns to tea. The local durzee reproduced the latest English fashion for them, and the town, in its own way, treated them with a mixture of deference and indulgence. They were a part of the landscape, and yet they were always set apart.
As a child, I had little to do with these women, but I was keenly aware of our differences. They seemed to live in another world – their food, their clothes, and their pale skin set them apart from us. I was fair-skinned as well, and my father dressed me well, so I remember moments when some of the British men and women would offer me sweets. But my friend Jitu, the boy who lived next door, was darker-skinned and often ignored or shooed away. As soon as they left, Jitu would throw me to the ground, snatch the treats from my hands, and devour them. He didn’t even enjoy them, but he would eat them voraciously all the same.
As I grew older, that initial curiosity cooled into indifference. There were places in Shimlah where we were not allowed to go, and even the briefest of eye contact from the natives was avoided by the Anglos. Their carriages would clatter through the streets, and we, the locals, would quickly hop aside to make way. I came to understand that while some of them may have been kind, most regarded us with disdain or utter indifference even as they took our city as their home. Shimlah was theirs, and we were only supposed to exist at the edges of it.
Life began to shift irrevocably the day my beloved father fell ill. I was fourteen, still innocent in many ways, and understood little of the gravity of his sickness, except that the doctor in Ripon could not treat this deadly disease called tuberculosis. It was a cruel and unforgiving disease, they said. On the morning of 14 August 1928, it took father away from me. Before he passed away, my father arranged for Jitu’s father to send telegrams to our relatives, entreating them to come and oversee his last rites.
No one came. I refused to undo my braid – the last one my father had tied for me. I wouldn’t let them take him away. I wouldn’t let anyone touch his charpoy, because that was where he had sat for the final time. I stared at his old chappals, their worn soles a faint echo of the rough brown feet that had once filled them. I wouldn’t wash any clothes lest they lose his smell. His shawl, his hair oil, his rings – I clung to these things, desperate to hold on to him just a little longer.
Excerpted with permission from The One Way Ships, Uma Lohray, Om Books International.
