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Being Second

Lore has it that Bhupinder Singh, king of Patiala, was enamoured of the daughter of Lord Kitchener, British Commander-in-Chief.  The Maharajah, a handsome ladies’ man, made some overture to the young girl.  The place where the incident occurred is known as Scandal Point (on the majestic Mall Road in Shimla) even today.  Bhupinder Singh was duly banished from Shimla.  He went to Chail, another hill at a distance of about 50 A view of the Chail Palace km from Shimla, and built up his new capital, having conquered the Gurkhas there.  But when he decided to construct his palace on the highest hill with the royal penchant for looking down on Shimla, his former Summer capital, he was faced with another problem.  An ascetic who was living on the prime location of the hill refused to budge and asked the king to build his palace elsewhere.  The king felt rage mounting in him by being pushed to the second place twice in succession: first by the British, now by a native baba.  Babas were

Child in the Hills

Maggie and I returned home yesterday after a brief journey in Shimla and nearby places of tourist interest.  A full day has passed after the visit and I am not able to write anything worthwhile about the visit.  It was not at all inspiring in any way.  Except for the mountains and their natural beauty.  But nature alone cannot satisfy any tourist.  The people matter. Child in Chail   And here is one person who caught our interest.  Our driver had stopped the car on the way back from Chail to Shimla in his own village market to talk to his people.  Maggie and I continued to sit in the car.  We saw this little girl sitting all alone on the veranda of a nearly-dilapidated building.  She was eating a tiny piece of watermelon.  Maggie called her and smiled at her.  She didn’t care two hoots for smiles.  In fact, she looked more indifferent than scared.  Maggie went out of the car and approached her.  She asked some questions and eventually managed to extract a smile from

The Yogi and the Layman

When I was a young man I had the opportunity to listen to a great speech by a yogi who demonstrated the merits of yoga.  “We can live a healthy life for a hundred years if we practice yoga ascetically,” he concluded as the audience burst into a thunderous applause.  Later one of the invited guests present on the stage asked the yogi, “Do you ever enjoy some of the simple pleasures of life like eating some food which is forbidden by your creed, sipping a whiskey with sparkling soda and some ice cubes, lying on a beach watching without feeling guilty beautiful girls walk by wearing bikini...?” “No,” admitted the yogi. “What’s the point of living a hundred years then?” asked the man.  And the yogi’s answer was a silent stare. Recently I visited a religious centre in Punjab.  The cult has over 5000 acres of land on which an entire township is built up.  But nobody can use even the mobile phone in that township.  There’s a whole list of Do’s and Don’ts, unbreakable comma