Rahmat, the old Kabuliwala of my school days, bumped into me again, the other day. I was revisiting Tagore’s immortal story. His voice rumbled like distant thunder, as he sat cross-legged on the floor of the poet’s study, dreaming of his rugged mountain home. Far away he saw across the burnt-out Hindu Kush, on a narrow trail crept a caravan of camels, moving ever so slowly; wizened traders and tired travelers; some astride camels; some on horseback; some on foot; some with swords; some with spears or old flint-locks. Yes! Our hill station has had its fair share of guests from Afghanistan.
‘You’re sitting in the same room where Amir Dost Mohammed lived,’ Mr O. B. Craven, our headmaster at Allen Memorial School told us. He was alluding to Bala Hisar — the place named after the 5th century fort in Kabul. Given his kowtowing with the Russians, he invited the wrath of the East India Company which led to the First Anglo-Afghan War (1839-1842, ending on November 2, 1840. On his surrender he was whisked away to these hills. For twenty-four months, the seven-mile bridle path from Rajpur bristled with armed troops. No one could squeak through. Two years later, he was restored to the throne of Kabul.
Next came Amir Mohammad Yaqub Khan at the end of the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878-1880) to live at Bellevue and stayed on for forty-three years. On occasion he would be chaffing at being locked away. My copy the ‘Rambler’ of 1936 reports: ‘Ex-Amir Yaqub Khan was invariably accompanied by a British Political Officer, who on rides around the Station could never fathom the prisoner’s habit of spurring his pony into a fast gallop, without a word of warning to his companions. One day, stopping to chat with a friend, while the rest of the party moved on, near Library, the prisoner spurred hard for the pony to shoot forward down the road to Rajpur – and hopefully, freedom. That, at least, was what the officer concluded the dash was for. He urged his pony down a short cut as the only chance of intercepting the run-away. The Governor-General was informed of the incident by telegram and orders were sought in the event of further similarities.
The reply? ‘Don’t hurt one hair of his head.’ But he never went home. Given the British itch to fiddle in Afghan affairs, sucked us into the vortex of the Third Indo-Afghan War (1919), even as the summer of 1920, found a delegation from Afghanistan, arrive at the Savoy Hotel. Around the same time, Jawaharlal Nehru too, came up with his mother and wife. The minions of the Raj thought he might try to meet or influence them and asked him to sign an undertaking that he would make no contact with the visitors. On his refusal, he was asked to leave Mussoorie. That was when in Allahabad, he had a chance meeting with Baba Ramchandra, who changed the course of his life — forever. The rest, as they say, is history.
(Mussoorie born author-photographer Ganesh Saili has had a lifetime affair with the mountains. His two dozen books are a testament to the hills of home)
