Unseen Simla

It is truly said that hobbies play an important role in developing one’s personality as they enable one to make certain inventions in various fields. The same thing occurred with the author who took an earnest interest in the historical data collected by historians. Thus, his inclination towards history from his childhood persuaded him to go to the depth of Shimla, which was the summer capital of Britishers and then converted to a concrete jungle with the increasing population which adversely affects the natural beauty of this hill station, as forest cover and natural water springs vanished forever due to deforestation. Consequently, the author decided to depict the picture of ancient Shimla which was surrounded with dense forests of deodar and pine trees and limited population of inhabitants. Thus, in order to achieve his goal, he put in efforts to collect old pictures and photographs of the hill town which is the venue of international agreements and still called ‘the queen of hills’.He was even inspired by his family mainly his father who was a voluntary environmentalist. His father’s plan for development of forest which was employment generating and same was acknowledged by PMO (Lt.Rajiv Gandhi) vide letter number 250/51/C/8/87 ES-2 dated 14-12-1987. It was the first plan in which emphasis were given to watch the rate of survival of plants to ascertain that efforts put in by Govt. for afforestation yielded fruitful results or not.