April is the cruellest month according to TS Eliot, and most Indians will agree – but they will always have Shimla.
What becomes of the hill station in Himachal Pradesh can be blamed in part on how it has been depicted in Hindi films – as a scenic backdrop for romantic songs and a respite from the scorching heat that descends on other parts of the country.
The former summer capital of the British has numerous examples of colonial architecture, including the Viceroy Lodge, the neo-Gothic style Christ Church and the Mall road. These landmarks have prominently featured in several film scenes and popular songs.
Five minutes into the romantic comedy Love In Simla (1960), Dev (Joy Mukherjee) is shown travelling to the hill resort in the Kalka-Shimla toy train. The scene of the debutant actor singing Dil Thaam Chale is interwoven with a desultory Sonia (Sadhana in her fringe-haired debut) watching a group of young couples twist to a jazzy tune in a club.
Music composer Iqbal Qureshi incorporates the whistling sounds of the train into his melody, and playback singer Mohammad Rafi croons the track with urgency. The scene establishes the frolicsome mood of the plot, in which the bored girl-next-door is waiting for her Prince Charming to rescue her.
Love In Simla was a remake of the 1938 British comedy film Jane Steps Out. By setting the plot in Shimla, director RK Nayyar was able to explore its picturesque locations for the film’s 12 songs. Romance became the city’s favourite summertime activity.
Movies began using the pretty landscape into their plots, but mostly as getaways. In Tere Ghar Ke Samne (1963), Sulekha (Nutan) is packed off by her strict parents to Shimla when her late-night parties in Delhi become as intolerable as the summer heat. Surekha writes a letter to her beau Rakesh (Dev Anand), asking him to follow her to the hill station’s many splendours. He promptly lands up in the city streets, singing Tu Kahan Yeh Bata.
In Manmohan Desai’s Aa Gale Lag Jaa (1973), Preeti (Sharmila Tagore) meets the skater Prem (Shashi Kapoor) on a holiday in Shimla. They fall in love, sing duets, are separated, and finally reunite in Mumbai, where she belongs. Do they eventually retire to the hills for a happy ending? The film ends with the couple skating with their son at a rink overlooking Mumbai’s seafront. They seem to be mastering their skills before the summer arrives in Shimla.
After Yash Chopra introduced the tulip fields of Holland to Indian viewers in Silsila (1981), Shimla lost some of its appeal. The hill station returned through the gorgeous lens of cinematographer Binod Pradhan in Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Kareeb (1998). The rich boy-poor girl love story was in no need of a summer vacation. but the misty hills provided much-needed succour from the family members bent on keeping the couple apart.
Fictional characters escaping to Shimla for a summer break eventually gave way to stories about people for whom it was home even in frosty winters. Indraneel Thakur (Ajay Devgn) works at a coffee shop in Main Aisa Hi Hoon (2005), Debraj Sahai (Amitabh Bachchan) is a teacher collecting snowflakes in his coarse hands in Black (2005), Harleen Sahani (Katrina Kaif) is a receptionist at a bank in Bang Bang (2014).
By the time Shimla appeared in Imtiaz Ali’s Tamasha (2015), it had lost some of its lustre as the quintessential destination for holidays and honeymoons. Ved Sahni (Ranbir Kapoor) makes a personal journey from a precocious child to a self-aware young man in Shimla. Towards the climax, Ved is shown as a jobless and loveless young man who returns to his house, looking for answers. He is tormented by his thoughts. The picturesque backdrop is no longer a vacation spot. It is time to introspect, and Shimla’s serene setting is perfect for it.