Living History

It was my good fortune in Delhi to pick up a book at my friend Vikram’s house called The Raja of Harsil: The Legend of Frederick “Pahari” Wilson at breakfast one morning. I started reading and could not stop, for as it turns out, it was the true story of an Englishman who lived in Mussoorie, the town I am now living in.   I love history… not just the kind I teach in my class, but most of all the local history wherever I go.  Vikram wasn’t done with it so I had to get my hands on it here.  After savoring every page for the past week or so, last night I finished it.  What a story! 

Frederick Wilson, a working class Brit, mutinied from the British army during the Afghan war in 1842 and arrived in Mussoorie soon after.  He could not stay among the British because if he were found out, he would be hanged.  So circumstance led him to retreat further up into the Himalayas where he settled in Harsil, a village near Gangotri, the source of the Ganges. 

The book describes how relying on his wit and hard work, he married two village women and built a lumber empire for himself in order to supply the British with sleepers for the new railroad being built from one side of India to the other.  In doing so he became one of the richest men in India.  It is said that Rudyard Kipling based his book The Man Who Would be King on Wilson. 

Earning the name “Pahari” or mountain man, Wilson also became an expert ornithologist and huntsman.  Unfortunately the ecological awareness of the British was next to nil. They plundered the countryside not only of trees but of wildlife of every kind, hunting deer, bear, tigers, and countless rare birds which are now extinct.  Pahari Wilson was himself a taxidermist, another gruesome British pastime and I believe some of his specimens were shipped to the British Museum. 

Throughout the 1800’s Wilson worked behind the scenes for British intelligence and played major roles in preventing the Russian annexation of India, something we forget was a distinct possibility prior to WWI;  as well as the protection of Mussoorie and Garhwal during the “mutiny” of 1857.  In this way his prior military record was wiped clean.   While like today’s billionaires, he used creative accouting to hide his assets abroad, on the positive side he became a patron of many local families and businesses here in Mussoorie.  Many of the old familiar landmarks of Mussoorie appear in the book and now when I walk past St. Paul’s Church in Landour (where his son married) or the Himalaya Club Hotel (the old British Club where once my mother-in-law and I shared a room) I can’t help but have “Jewel in the Crown” flashbacks.

It seems that Kapil and his father visited Pahari Wilson’s stone and deodar “palace” in Harsil before it burnt accidentally in 1997.  I also remember reading in Paul Brunton’s  Hermit in the Himalayas that he stayed in Wilson’s forest guesthouse at Batwara and heard some stories about him then, only about 50 years after his death.   I am wondering if Harsil was the village where Kapil and I spent the night sleeping in a stable while returning from Gangotri back in 1989.

Reading local historical accounts I cannot help but feel the layers of history beneath my feet.   It makes me want to know more.   So last night, returning in a taxi from the other side of the mountain I was telling my friend Amy about the book and saying to her that I would like to know where one of his estates was located down near the mall.  The taxi driver, a local named Banti, piped up with the answer.  Surprised, I asked him how he knew and he told me he had been a research assistant to the author of the book!  He proceeded to offer more details and by the time I got out, he had agreed to take me around one day to show me the sites mentioned in the book and to introduce me to the author when he is next in town.   

To top it off I already had an appointment today to spend the afternoon at Rokeby Manor, the house that Pahari Wilson built for his family in Landour… just up the mountain from me!  They say it was his favorite home. Now it has been beautifully restored by Mumbai Hotelier Sanjay Narang, into a charming boutique hotel, and restaurant complete with a beauty salon. I had made an appointment to get my hair done in Pahari Wilson’s back yard!

I have always loved Rokeby ever since Kapil and I stayed there when he was a student at Woodstock.  I came up for parent’s weekend and everything was booked so I had no choice but to stay at this moth-eaten, damp old English guesthouse that had fallen into disrepair.  Kapil agreed to stay with me in the “haunted house.”  He was in his “Edgar Allan Poe” stage and kept reciting ominous poetry during the solemn candlelit supper served by an old man in British servant’s dress.  Dinner was boiled peas and potato cutlet.  We were the only guests and retired to the library after dinner where I remember a plethora of musty old missionary books and hymnals.  Bedtime was torture.  We got into the twin beds to find them soaking wet.  It is a wonder we survived the night without contracting pneumonia. The next day we were moved upstairs where we opened the windows to let some fresh air circulate and dry out the room.  Those were the same windows, now restored, next to which I sat and ate my dinner today.

The transformation of Rokeby Manor is remarkable.  After getting my hair done I spent some time in the sitting room next to the open fire and then went upstairs to the restaurant where I enjoyed delicious European dishes cooked to perfection.  The hotel is warm and homey, informal yet elegant in the mountain atmosphere.  It now tops of my list of favorites in India, up there with the Carlton in Calcutta and Samodh Palace of Rajasthan.  Sitting at Rokeby looking out over the hills, I am reminded that I share this place, this town, this very spot with Pahari Wilson, with Kapil as a boy, with my own younger incarnation and a vast network of souls, countless others who are separated from us only by time.  We are all living and making history every moment of our lives.

The view from Rokeby

at the fireplace at Rokeby

Rokeby

  

HOME SWEET OM

OR:  How to Transform a Himalayan Cottage into a Sweet Retreat

When I first stepped into this place not quite a month ago, I thought to myself “Well at least there are lots of windows in this entrance room!  Then I realized that the room I had entered IS the main room of the cottage.  Since I am living alone, that too was fine with me, less room to heat!  But the condition of the cottage was quite poor as it had not been lived in for sometime.  It had no water (pipes were broken), no wood for the rusty old “Bukhari” (woodstove),  no glass in the kitchen window and no telephone to call for HELP! 

But within a few days Woodstock School, the owners of this “staff house” got several of the above items fixed so that my survival needs were met (including an internet hook-up pronto).  Of course from day one, the main thing on my mind was the aesthetics.  Although I am only here for a limited time (on a one semester replacement position) I knew that it would drive me crazy NOT to make it into a comfortable and cozy den.   Since I am here to teach, I also knew I would spend the next six months redecorating the place in my head, distracting me from my main purpose.  So there was nothing left to do but get to it.  

Since my earliest penniless years I have prided myself on being able to decorate on a severely limited budget.  In America I frequented second hand shops, auctions, yard sales and friends and relatives’ barns, attics and basements (with their permission of course) to procure both attractive and useful components.  I opened a vegetarian restaurant called The New Delhi when I was only 23 years old and everything in it except the paisley wallpaper was recycled.  Everyone commented on the day that it opened that it looked like it had been there forever.  Later, the country house in which my son grew up was similarly furnished, combining like myself, elements of both east and west… mostly from inexpensive Indian artifacts (some of which, like our Madhubani and Pichwai paintings as well as South Indian Kalamkaris have in the meantime gone up in value) combined with locally affordable antiques. 

More recently I was able to indulge my propensity for decorating on a budget (although a slightly higher budget than years ago) when I opened along with my partner David, Cayuga Sunrise Holistic Haven, a Yoga Bed and Breakfast in the Finger Lakes region of upstate NY.   This time the theme is American/French Country with a splash of Indian New Age.  You can check it out at http://www.cayugasunrise.com  Although technically speaking I could now afford to buy more expensive furniture and accessories, I actually PREFER to stick to recycling.  Not only is it ecologically more responsible, it is immensely more fun and whatever you come up with is bound to be original.  

So after taking care of a 6 bedroom, 6 bathroom 80 acre estate, my small place here feels like heaven...  especially now that I have transformed it, for less than $200. Into a peaceful little abode.  I decided to post the before and after pictures and describe what I did and spent…

Here is the BEFORE PHOTO:

Note the bare light bulbs and "cage" around the stove!

First I got rid of the cage which I guess was designed to keep kids away from the stove.  I stashed it in the backyard.  Then I move the single bed from what is now my "yoga room" into the living room. That was a blast... see my earlier blog.  It also means I don't have to sleep in a freezing room every night.  The bed now doubles as an Indian style "couch" since I got the bolsters and pillows made... not an easy job, involving hiking several miles to a tailor, a mattress maker, and carting all of them back up the hill.   

 The beautiful hand loom fabrics, the off white soft rug, hand loom bedcover and pillows all come from the Kurukshetra Mandal Leprosy Rehab center in Dehra Dun, the city at the bottom of our hills.  They were inexpensive and proceeds went to an excellent cause.  I also got the fabric for the door curtains, the table runner and grey throw rug at the same place.  I chose colors that would match the curtains that were already here.  The total for ALL these came to $60. :

   

Add some rather EXPENSIVE ($16. for both) paper lamp shades from FAB INDIA:

Some beautiful Kashmiri white embroidery on white wool curtains (can't see the details in these photos but worth every penny at $55. for two, including tailor costs..hemmed them myself):

And lastly to tie it all together, this stunning hand embroidered Kashmiri Wool Rug wall hanging in the Tree of Life Motif:

Cost:  $60. 

Add a few little accessories like this Handmade Parchesi game (on sale at Fab India for $5.) and incense holder ($1.)

Learn to Ignore this (except when it's cold):

And put it all together:

A new and more peaceful atmosphere!  

Wish you were here,

Roxanne

Woodstock!

Woodstock School is a VERY special place!  Last week we had a Staff Retreat all week and it was like taking a crash course in education with amazing presentations and discussions, skits, songs, morning devotions, dinners, teas, and great fellowship. There is a real sense of community among a staff that harkens from all over the world and is nearly as diverse as the student body.  The new principal Jonathan Long, who never ceases to amaze with his repertoire of inspiring stories and profound humor, seems to have struck a hopeful tone with everyone here. 

   Nonetheless I felt a bit nervous to enter a classroom for the first time in 8 years.  I kept hearing “wait till you meet the students…our students are the best!” but I guess I had to see it to believe it.

    Well I am happy to report that the kids ARE great!  I have students from India, Nepal, Thailland, Bhutan, Tibet, Italy, America and Australia.  I teach 4 to 5 classes a day, two study halls, an advisory group and homeroom on a very confusing rotating 7 day schedule.  I have been consulting my computer between classes and running from room to room barely making it in before the bell rings.  I begged the students’ pardon for butchering some of their names, but it seems we are going to get along just fine.

    Just as everyone said it would, it snowed and turned much colder just after the students returned. So the first day of classes everyone was bundled up and sharing stories of frozen pipes on the hillside.  The sky was uncharacteristically grey and people were carrying hot water bottles into class.  You see the school is not heated except for a “bukhari” or rusty undersized woodstove in the back of every room.  So we conduct classes with ski jackets and mittens on, with the tips of the fingers cut out for typing. 

   The good news is everyone’s addiction here to caffeine and cake.  Tea break for students and teachers is from 10:50 to 11 am  everyday and the high school faculty all meet in the lounge at that time as well as at lunch, and for most of us who have signed up for the meal plan, at breakfast as well.  Unlike the colleges I taught at, faculty here share stories of their students and classroom successes freely and there is an amazing sense of comraderie.  Perhaps it is the non-denominational Christian atmosphere that makes everyone try their best to live up to the ideals they profess.  I have to admit I am enjoying the daily “devotions” which are sometimes presented by students as well as staff.  They are of a general nature related to fostering community, honest, integrity of purpose and so on.  It is a great thing to make our intentions  towards others conscious. 

    The most amazing thing is that most of the students are very keen to learn. They do the readings and most participate in class discussions, although you have to draw out those for whom English is not their first language.  I wonder how much I would speak up in a Bangkok classroom! 

    So I love the teaching… the hard part is getting up in the morning.   Invariably the room is freezing because the fire has gone out and now you have to turn on the hot water heater to take a bath.  I usually go into my little yoga room (in the dark…) to do 12 Surya Namaskars to get the blood flowing, turn on the stove to heat some water so I can drink a couple glasses, heat up my clothes in front of an electric heater I bought, and start to bundle up for the hike down the hill with a backpack full of books. 

   I created my first powerpoint for my Comparative Politics course and also learned how to assign and accept papers online.  Praveen in the library has been great in bringing me up to speed on computer technology in the classroom--a great tool.  All the classrooms here are smart wired and we have high speed internet even in our houses which are accessible only by footpaths.  Nothing like it!  I skyped my friend Jan as well as Kapil and Tara in both Mumbai and the Phillipines on vacation so although I spend a lot of time alone, I never feel lonely.

    Today was assembly and the students put together a video demonstrating kindness towards each other as well as responsibility for keeping the school grounds clean.  They are crazy about their videos and use very imaginative and humorous techniques to get their points across.  In class I was raving about the video and asked “Who makes those?  They are so cool!” and they all pointed to a kid sitting right in my class.  I asked him if he intended to become a filmmaker and he said he doesn’t know, it's just a hobby.  I told him he has a great talent for it and already has quite a portfolio to show prospective schools. 

    Next Friday night is class night and we have a bonfire planned for 10^th graders.  Students are also getting ready for the school musical “Around the World in 80 days” coming up in the spring.  Can't wait! 

     Here is a photo of my very first class on my very first day teaching, 10^th grade world history and a picture of the main hall of the high school.  I am going to attempt to also attach a video from the morning assembly when students performed a song they wrote about the “big bass”.   

      That’s all for now.  Think of me running from class to class, computer in frozen hands.  But most of all think of me with a big smile on my face.  I am having a blast!