Some stories refuse to die down because scribblers like me insist on keeping the lamp lit. Take September 2, 1994, when the demand for a separate hill state grabbed headlines. Seven familiar faces of our hill station: Belmati Chauhan, Hansa Dhanai; Balbir Singh, Rai Singh Bangari, Madan Mamgain, Dhanpat Singh, and the Circle Officer of Police Uma Kant Tripathi succumbed to bullets fired by the Uttar Pradesh Armed Constabulary.
First a quick recap: the agitation for a separate hill state had started not with a bang but a whimper when an anti-reservation stir into its twelfth day suddenly changed track. That was the day the PAC mostly armed with antiquated .303 rifles opened fire on the unarmed crowd consisting mostly of housewives, teenagers, and old men. The rest of the tale of gunshots was told by the wailing sirens renting the air.
In the aftermath, a junket of journalists funnelled into Mussoorie. Each one sought a special story. In charge of the Media Cell, I was tasked to give out facts, figures, and information. As we sat one evening in a hotel, a journo on the wrong side of 40 approached us. Wasting no time he asked: ‘Where can I meet those retired soldiers from the hills teaching guerrilla tactics to young?’
Of course, there was no such place. This most peaceful of agitations a deliberate myth had been spun. But that image had stuck. ‘Thathyur! Go to Thathyur!’ said I. Ruskin Bond, lost in his thoughts, nodded approvingly. It was the most obvious place—an hour’s drive from Mussoorie—its sole claim to fame rested solely that it lay on the route to Nag Tibba. You can still catch aging Doscos (as Doon School boys are called) chatting about it as if they had climbed nothing less than Mount Everest.
He got on to a bus to a one-scooter town. He had a cold coming. The townsmen were on edge after the horror of the Mussoorie shootout. They had mistaken the fellow for a spy.
Roughly they herded him into a room. Sat him down on a stool with a single light bulb overhead. His Inquisitors threw a barrage of questions:
‘Who sent you here?’ They asked.
‘Ruskin Bond and Ganesh Saili,’ He said.
‘How long have you known them?’
‘Since I met them at a hotel last night!’
That was not even considered close to the right answer. Mercifully, the next morning they plonked him on the first bus going back to Mussoorie. Scared out of a year’s growth, our scribe was relieved to have got away to be able to tell the tale. Memories of his ordeal when he almost ended up as fish bait trussed up in rocks at the bottom of the Aglar River still make his hair stand on end.
It’s from that day I have begun to recognise the stranger who stares at me from the mirror. I learned how sometimes your guides can end up misguiding you.
Ganesh Saili
Author, photographer, illustrator
sailiganesh@gmail.com