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