As efforts are underway to make Dehradun and even Mussoorie (I read that recently)“smart cities” , I wonder whether they were not always smart in the real sense of the word .
I keep thinking whether people knew about the various ways in which our Dehra was ever so smart, without feeling the need to be called a “smart city”. Known as a “science city” due to the numerous scientific institutions like Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Wildlife Institute of India, Indian Institute of Petroleum, Soil Conservation Institute, Botanical Survey of India, Zoological Survey of India, Anthropological Survey of India ,Survey of India and many more , the Doon valley was and still is home to a large number of scientists and researchers .
It has been known as the “cradle of the Indian army” by virtue of being home to the Rashtriya Indian Military College(RIMC) and the Indian Military Academy (IMA) .It is also known as the “cradle of Indian forestry” with the training for forestry having begun here –we have the grand Forest Research Institute (FRI) which is visited by people from all over the world , Forest Survey of India Wildlife Institute of India and Indira Gandhi National Forest Academy. I truly wonder if any other city can boast of so many national institutions of various kinds ! How can I forget the prestigious schools –The Doon School, Welham Girls School, Welham Boys’ School and some other famous schools of the valleyIJ Of course, Doon is the “school city” whose schools are renowned internationally. This is the town where great pioneers like SR Das and Miss Hersilia Oliphant, visionaries in the field of education, arrived and created institutions that are flourishing as the hallowed legacy of these great minds . This is school country if there is any !
It has not just been “the town of grey heads and green hedges” .It has been the “city of canals” which have , unfortunately, been covered now to widen the roads .It has been the ‘ town of tongas” that have ,of course, had to be sacrificed in this era of “tempos”, “autos” and fast moving traffic which has no place for primitive things like tongas. Sad. But true. The last of the tongas disappeared in the late 1990s. Doon was also a “bicycle town” .Those were the days when people could see only tongas and cycles in the valley.Very few people had two wheelers or cars.
These names that Doon acquired created a romantic image of a little town where litchi, mango and guava orchards, tongas, forests , fields of fragrant Basmati rice, lot of rainfall and a salubrious climate had made a haven which everyone desired greatly to inhabit. let me tell you –this romantic image was no figment of imagination. It was absolutely a reality. Ours was a city of litchi and Basmati, ours was a leisurely and tranquil tonga town, we were the proud residents of a rain-blessed valley, we boasted to our friends and relatives in other cities that we had no summer at all! We still are filled with pride that our city is the cradle of the Indian army and Indian forestry, we love “Tel Bhawan”, the lovely Patiala House that became the headquarters of ONGC in the 1950s , we love our Circuit House which became our “Raj Bhawan” when the new state of Uttarakhand was created in the year 2000. This(circuit house) is the place where Nehru ji spent a lot of time and even a day before he passed away, he was at this circuit house in the Doon valley which reminded him of Kashmir.Yes, we were very smart indeed !
Many of these unique things of our city still exist and are flourishing. We must remember their glorious existence and feel proud that our valley is home to such special institutions and ideas. Doon has always been special city long , long before the concept of making cities smart was brought in. Its canals, tongas and fruit orchards have vanished or are on their way out . Its summers may now have become unbearable and bicycles may not be very common here. However, this cannot take away from the glorious history of our valley and its distinctive atmosphere. Perhaps,some day, the clock may be turned back and the old “smartness” of Doon revived! It really needs no new certificates to prove its smartness.