Saeed Ibrahim
In the early sixties, my grandfather had developed a severe case of bronchitis and his doctor had recommended a month’s convalescence at a calm and peaceful hill station away from the hustle and bustle of Mumbai city life. Deolali, a small hill station situated at a height of 1690 feet above sea level and about 200 kilometres from Bombay, appeared to be the ideal choice.
In the colonial era, Deolali had been set up as a cantonment town by the British in 1861. It had an Army Staff College and was also an area for Rest and Recreation (R&R) for the British troops after finishing their tour of duty and waiting for ships to take them back home to Britain. There was a common joke doing the rounds at the time that “soldiers who suffered a mental breakdown caused by the stresses and strains of military life in British India” (sic), were sent off to a military psychiatric hospital in Deolali to recover. The name Deolali became synonymous with mental disorders and the idiom “to go doolally,” meant having to recover from a meltdown.
After India’s independence, Deolali continued to be a military town. It was neat and well maintained and with its proximity to Mumbai, its good climate and clean, fresh air, it very soon became a popular hill station for rest and convalescence. My grandparents had rented a comfortable two-bedroom cottage in the camp area. It was the end of term for us school-going twelve and thirteen-year-old siblings, and we were packed off to spend our summer holidays with them.
We took the early morning Kashi Express and after a four-hour train journey, we arrived at our destination. The smell of fodder and hay wafted through the air as the train puffed into the quaint little Deolali Railway Station. A coolie in a red uniformed shirt and cap helped us with our luggage and led us to two waiting tongas just outside the station entrance. The tongas were outfitted in colourful livery and the two horses were gaily accoutred in ribbons and plumes with a garland of small bells around each horse’s neck. With jingling bells we rolled along swaying from side to side as the tongas surged forward covering the short two-kilometre distance to what was to be our home for the next month.
Our cottage had an old-world charm about it with its high sloping roof and built-in skylight, flower-patterned window curtains and red oxide-tiled flooring. The two bedrooms had large, brass four-poster beds with white mosquito net canopies and the snug cosiness of the small sitting room was enhanced by ample leather armchairs around a brick fireplace. In one corner of the backyard there was a small chicken coop. My grandmother started rearing chickens and I remember the anticipation with which we would search each morning to check if there were eggs that we could collect.
There was a cycle hire shop just a few metres down the road and, instead of taking the cycles on a daily or hourly basis, to our utter delight, my grandfather fixed up with the owner for us to hire the cycles for a whole month, with only a nominal cautionary deposit. We spent the major part of the day cycling the length and breadth of the camp area. Being a military cantonment town, Deolali Camp was a neat and well-kept place with wide roads and, in those days, with no vehicular traffic. We happily ran cycle errands to the nearby cantonment market or to the military dairy farm further up the road to buy our daily supply of milk.
Typical of the sixty’s small town, the market was, in fact, little more than a large covered shed with three rows of vegetable vendors and behind the market there were two small parallel roads where a line of small shops included a meat and poultry vendor, a couple of grocery shops, and a few retailers selling a variety of household goods. At the corner was a tonga stand and a bicycle repair shop. I can still savour the aroma of freshly baked bread from a popular bakery owned by a friendly Parsee couple who, with a ready smile, personally served a line of waiting customers.
Our favourite picnic spot was the nearby Temple Hill on Dhondy Road. The climb to the top was steep but offered a beautiful panorama of the golf course below and the distant hills of the Sahyadri range. Apart from our independent wanderings, we made a memorable trip accompanied by our grandparents to the Barnes School located about five kilometres outside the Camp area. A highly respected boarding school established in 1925 by the Bombay Education Society, the Barnes School was set in pristine natural surroundings in a 265-acre plot surrounded by forest. We were thrilled to learn that among its alumni was the famous film star, Dilip Kumar.
On most evenings after dinner, we would sit around the round dining table to enjoy a game of cards with the grandparents or lounge on the cane chairs in the garden as grandpa sipped his after-dinner tea and we watched with enchantment the glow of the fireflies as they flitted around the greenery flashing their luminous signals.
The carefree days went leisurely by in the calm and serene atmosphere of Deolali Camp. In British military slang, Deolali may have had the dubious reputation of being a soldiers’ asylum where British troops went “doolally”, but for us it was a welcome getaway from the confines of a city upbringing and the tedium of routine. Under the benevolent care of indulgent grandparents, we enjoyed the freedom of discovering the freshness of green open spaces, lofty hills and gurgling streams and the many fruit and vegetable farms dotting the surrounding countryside. But before we knew it, our holiday was over and we had to return home to Mumbai.
Little did we know at the time, that this would be our last visit to Deolali. My grandfather passed away some time later and strangely enough his passing saw the end of an era and the inevitable transition from childhood to adulthood.
Caught up in the rough and tumble of today’s fast-paced lifestyle, the memory of that blissful childhood holiday fills me with nostalgia and a yearning for a relaxed and uncomplicated way of life that has somehow eluded us. I have not returned to Deolali again. Tourism and commerce have doubtless caught up with it and I am told it has lost its quaint charm and is no longer that haven of tranquillity that it once was.
Saeed Ibrahim is the author of two books: Twin Tales from Kutcch, a family saga set in Colonial India, and a short story collection entitled The Missing Tile and Other Stories. His short stories have appeared in The Deccan Herald, The Blue Lotus Magazine, Borderless Journal, The Hooghly Review, Muse India, Outlook India, Different Truths, Lothlorien Poetry Journal and Setu Bilingual Journal.
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