Golfing amid cedars in Naldehra

When Sir Walter Lawrence, Indian Civil Service Officer, was leaving Shimla for England for good, Lord Curzon congratulated him, saying that “I congratulate you heartily on one thing - on leaving Simla so soon. How I hate the place!” Why did he hate the place when he remained Viceroy for the longest term after that of Lord Dalhousie and had to be a regular summer-bird of Shimla because it was India’s summer capital? Curzon liked Kolkata better than Shimla because the winding roads here would snatch the privilege of having the long drives that he relished there. When, in the evenings, he would go in horse in Shimla, he found the same hat-raising officials whose faces he had seen during the office hours.

So boring! Dennis Kincaid in’’British Social Life in India” writes about Curzon that after touring various parts of India, “He would return to Simla as though to an office after a holiday and shut himself up with interminable files...He sat almost all day and half the night, the handsome aloof face bent above the files.” He rarely attended the festivities here.

Instead, he preferred to stay at Naldehra, a beautiful spot about 22 kilometres far-off Shimla. Sir Edward Buck writes in his “Simla Past and Present” written in 1904 that Naldehra is ‘best known for its golf links, the course being perhaps one of the most sporting in the east.’ These lines negate the statement made in ‘Glade’, the journal of Naldehra Golf Club that says ‘In 1905, he (Lord Curzon) carved it into an exotic playfield called Golf Course’. Golf Course existed there in 1904, may be in 1903, as mentioned by Sir Buck. Naldehra was not the favourite joint of Curzon only; Lord Lytton (1876-1880) was so moved by the beautiful groves of Deodar and the fine springing turf there that he occasionally used to camp there. Other Viceroys too often visited the spot.

But Lord Curzon along with his family used to stay here for weeks in summers and so people associate the spur with him. Away from ‘the despotism of dispatch boxes’, Naldehra gave him time to think and time to mature his policy and programme for India. To stay here for a longer period, he used heliograph to communicate with his office.

Curzon was so enamoured by the place that he named his younger daughter as Alexandra Naldehra because she was conceived there. When he died, Lady Alexandra Naldehra, who was by his side, heard him faintly whisper the words – not ‘Naldehra’- but ‘Victoria Memorial’ of Kolkata. It was his splendid gift to the people of Kolkata as was Gorton Castle (saved recently from total burning) and Walker Hospital (now burnt) to the people of Shimla. Another gift of his, probably in 1903, was the 8-hole golf course at Naldehra. Although this course is 114-year-old today, yet the oldest is Royal Calcutta Golf Club at Kolkata established in 1829 and the first outside Britain.

Alice Elizabeth Dracott wrote a book ‘Simla Village Tales’ carrying one tale on ‘The Legend of Naldera Temple’. It reads that there was a beautiful and prosperous city here full of people and houses but the people of the town were wicked and sinful, so one day the Deo (the deity) in great wrath hurled the entire city along with its inhabitants down the precipice. ‘Glade’ reads, “Nal Deo, the local deity, has been the custodian of this verdant pasture for over a thousand years.” So, I presume that that deity was Nal Deo on whose name Naldehra stands.

In 1907-08, there was a move to take away from Koti State, the picturesque places of Kufri, Mahasu, Mashobra and Naldehra. The then Rana of Koti Raghubir Chand rebuffed the move. Good; that gave chance to Koti Family, today, to organise Koti Golf Cup competition in the Scottish look-like 18-hole-golf course (See photo). The chairman of the Naldehra Golf Club is the Chief Secretary and the captain of the course Brigadier BS Kanwar (retired) runs the show. The efforts of the duo have extended the golf course from the 8-hole to the 18-hole one. Cheers!

TAILPIECE

“Do you think it is a sin to play golf on Sundays?”

“The way you play, Sir, it is a sin to play on any day.”

— The writer is a retired bureaucrat

STORY by Shriniwas Joshi

http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/himachal/golfing-amid-cedars-in-naldehra/472374.html