Up in the Mountain in Simla

North India was definitely cold in December! Before I stepped foot on Indian soil, I had thought that it was a very hot country. The overhead fans in the trains served no purpose then and they were only to be turned on only during the hot season and I supposed, in South India too. It was actually so cold while I was there that more than 60 people died in the street; at least that was what the local paper reported. I saw some people started a fire by the roadside to warm themselves and wondered how others in the street survive, those people who laid motionless on the concrete floor of the railway stations with stained blankets covering their bodies from head to toes and especially those dark bodies whom I believed I saw lying under a car near our hotel in Agra. Even as India was cold, it amazed me that there was no snow there in New Delhi, Agra and Jaipur. But in Simla, it was different. I understand that while the British were there colonizing India, they had always escaped the heat of the hot season by going to Simla. We had took a special luxurious red train there called a toy train and were served food and drinks by a waiter as the train chugged through hundreds of tunnels, passing picturesque scenes before finally presenting us with this fascinating city, which when I first saw it, thought it was plastered on a mountain! Yes, that is Simla where the evergreen Bollywood movie Bobby starring Rishi Kapoor and Dimple Kapadia was shot and where there was snow!

The Toy Train...