Come September and memories of some historic developments that took place here more than half a century ago come alive in this romantic hill station and evoke nostalgia among its old residents.
September 1959 was indeed a very special time for Mussoorie, especially for the picturesque Happy Valley just a few kilometres away from the busy library Point (Gandhi Chowk). While the Tibetan Government in exile was just settling down in Happy Valley, India's premier institute for training its administrators was shifted from New Delhi's Metcalfe House to the old Charleville Hotel, acquired by the Government of India.
The young Dalai lama with his followers had arrived in the summer. The establishment of the National Academy of Administration which was later renamed lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (lBSNAA) was done on September 1 in Charleville, the first hotel to have been built in Mussoorie, around the middle of the nineteenth century. Over the years, many new buildings have been added to the old ones of the hotel.
In the year 1984, the main block of the academy was gutted in a fire, destroying the historic building of Charleville. Some historic records were also destroyed in this fire. A former probationer, who is now a senior officer, says, "We had great times in the lounge of the old Charleville building. It had a small balcony outside from where you could see the valleys beyond with the view of a temple on top of a hill. Below the lounge was a lovely old library. It had a nice place for sitting and reading with a lovely view on the other side."
The Dalai lama, in his autobiography Freedom in Exile, has described the year from March 1959 to March 1960 as his "desperate year" in Mussoorie.
He stayed with his mother at the Birla House in Happy Valley. In September, the Dalai lama went to Delhi from Mussoorie to meet then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Jayaprakash Narayan. It was in the spring of 1960 that the Government in exile was shifted to Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh. The Dalai lama left Mussoorie on April 29, 1960 with 80 officials of the Government in exile. The Tibetans who had started working here remained here. The Dalai lama came here in March 1959 and left in April 1960. The autumn of 1959 was the only one he spent here.
As for lBSNAA, its address of Charleville, at the Happy Valley end of The Mall Road holds a strong sense of history going back to the mid-nineteenth century. Charleville was a grand landmark of Mussoorie and has been mentioned in several old accounts of foreign travelers to the Queen of Hills.
The main building of the hotel was built by General Wilkinson in 1854 on the Chajauli Estate. In 1861, the property was purchased by Mr Hobson, a retired manager of Mussoorie Bank who started the hotel. In March 1905, the Princess of Wales (later Queen Mary) visited Dehradun and Mussoorie. In Mussoorie, she stayed at the Charleville Hotel, the only hotel in India to be so honoured. Among the souvenirs she took home with her were landour Bazaar's walking sticks for her father-in-law, King Edward V11, as he used to collect them.
But the most fascinating story linked to the Charleville Hotel is that of famous author and poet Rudyard Kipling's stay at this hotel in the summer of 1888, when he was 23 years old. Among Kipling's unpublished papers in the library of Congress, there exists an album of photos which has two of Charleville Hotel. On a photo of the hotel's office, Kipling has written "And there were men with a thousand wants/And women with babes galore/But the dear little angels in Heaven know/That Wuzzler never swore". Wuzzler was the patient, long-suffering manager of Charleville.
In the Doon valley, the month of September also holds great significance as it saw the beginning of the famous Doon School in the Doon valley. In September 1935, the first student joined the school, followed by many more. Athar Hussain was the very first student to join the school and he arrived on the picturesque Chandbagh (garden of the moon) campus on September 9, 1935. On September 10, the first 72 students of the school entered the beautiful ivy-covered, red brick buildings memories of which are part of every Dosco's life and consciousness.
The story of the Indian Military Academy (IMA) in the Doon valley also began in September, in 1932. All of the first batch ("pioneers") of GCs, Sam Manekshaw among them, reported for duty on September 30, 1932. This autumn month is indeed a time to recall all these milestones in the regions' rich history.