After the end of the Second World War, when the occupation forces left Greece, my parents and I returned to Greece where my father worked. I spent January and part of February 1946 in Karachi meeting old friends and rediscovering familiar places. At the beginning of the new academic year, I was packed off to boarding school in Simla, but I so hated leaving home.
The journey from Karachi to Simla took two days, via Lahore, Ambala and Kalka a small town at the foot of the Himalayas. Then, we boarded a narrow-gauge train that took for six hours, through 102 tunnels, over 869 bridges, over deep ravines and beautiful hillsides to our destination.
Simla did not resemble any other town or hill station in India. The Mall, the main road, with its tea shops and stores, Christ Church Cathedral with its Tudor-style belfry, the esplanades and the houses with their immaculate gardens all seemed so evidently and typically English, the only dissimilarity being the pitter-patter of the rickshaws and the monkeys on the trees.
Simla was then the official summer capital of the British Raj. From April to September each year, the whole government from the Viceroy to the most junior secretary moved from Dehli to Simla. Obviously, the Foreign Missions, Embassies and Civil Service functionaries all followed giving Simla five months of remarkable elegance and glamour.
My school, Auckland House, was a wisteria clad brick building built high on a wooded hill. Its tin roof was often stampeded by hordes of monkeys that sounded like sudden bolts of thunder. The view from the windows was magnificent. There were snowy peaks in the background, changing colours all day long. Fir forests and emerald slopes, tinged with rhododendrons boarded the school premices.
I just loved the school, the teachers were excellent, the girls pleasant and we learnt a lot while having fun. We played tennis and netball, took music, dancing and elocution lessons, participated in choirs and plays, went on excursions and "socials" (dancing parties) with the Bishop Cotton boys. In the beginning, when I first arrived at Auckland the nights were dark and heart-breaking as I sobbed myself to sleep, I was so terribly homesick, but I soon recovered, became stronger and enjoyed every moment.
When we returned to Simla for the new academic year, in February 1947, the first thing we noticed was that most of our British schoolmates had left.
In April, serious, secrete discussions were taking place at the Viceregal Lodge. right next door to us. Lord Luis Montbatten, the last Viceroy of India and Jawaharlal Nehru were debating on themes of freedom and partition.
As the year wore on, letters from home stopped coming. It was only on the 15th of August when we gathered in the front portal that we were told what had happened. The subcontinent was free from the British rule but partitioned into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. The Union Jack was lowered down the mast and the Indian flag proudly took its place. We were offered sweets to celebrate the occasion,
Some days later we heard about the massacres that were taking place in Punjab. At school, food was rationed to the minimum for over a month. Chopattes and dhal became our staple food, even for breakfast.
In late September, while taking our 2nd term exam, we became witnesses of a horrific event that took place on a slope facing our classroom windows. A whole family was running desperately towards the forest, while a group of turbaned men were chasing after them, their swords flashing in the sun. Unfortunately, the family never made it to the woods, they were all killed one by one. A tragic story due to religious intolerance.
In December, at the end of the school year, the girls whose parents lived in Pakistan, including me, were sent by truck, under military escort to Lahore. My father was there to meet us and escort us back to Karachi. Unfortunately, I never returned to Simla, which I still love so much.
The journey from Karachi to Simla took two days, via Lahore, Ambala and Kalka a small town at the foot of the Himalayas. Then, we boarded a narrow-gauge train that took for six hours, through 102 tunnels, over 869 bridges, over deep ravines and beautiful hillsides to our destination.
Simla did not resemble any other town or hill station in India. The Mall, the main road, with its tea shops and stores, Christ Church Cathedral with its Tudor-style belfry, the esplanades and the houses with their immaculate gardens all seemed so evidently and typically English, the only dissimilarity being the pitter-patter of the rickshaws and the monkeys on the trees.
Simla was then the official summer capital of the British Raj. From April to September each year, the whole government from the Viceroy to the most junior secretary moved from Dehli to Simla. Obviously, the Foreign Missions, Embassies and Civil Service functionaries all followed giving Simla five months of remarkable elegance and glamour.
My school, Auckland House, was a wisteria clad brick building built high on a wooded hill. Its tin roof was often stampeded by hordes of monkeys that sounded like sudden bolts of thunder. The view from the windows was magnificent. There were snowy peaks in the background, changing colours all day long. Fir forests and emerald slopes, tinged with rhododendrons boarded the school premices.
I just loved the school, the teachers were excellent, the girls pleasant and we learnt a lot while having fun. We played tennis and netball, took music, dancing and elocution lessons, participated in choirs and plays, went on excursions and "socials" (dancing parties) with the Bishop Cotton boys. In the beginning, when I first arrived at Auckland the nights were dark and heart-breaking as I sobbed myself to sleep, I was so terribly homesick, but I soon recovered, became stronger and enjoyed every moment.
When we returned to Simla for the new academic year, in February 1947, the first thing we noticed was that most of our British schoolmates had left.
In April, serious, secrete discussions were taking place at the Viceregal Lodge. right next door to us. Lord Luis Montbatten, the last Viceroy of India and Jawaharlal Nehru were debating on themes of freedom and partition.
As the year wore on, letters from home stopped coming. It was only on the 15th of August when we gathered in the front portal that we were told what had happened. The subcontinent was free from the British rule but partitioned into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. The Union Jack was lowered down the mast and the Indian flag proudly took its place. We were offered sweets to celebrate the occasion,
Some days later we heard about the massacres that were taking place in Punjab. At school, food was rationed to the minimum for over a month. Chopattes and dhal became our staple food, even for breakfast.
In late September, while taking our 2nd term exam, we became witnesses of a horrific event that took place on a slope facing our classroom windows. A whole family was running desperately towards the forest, while a group of turbaned men were chasing after them, their swords flashing in the sun. Unfortunately, the family never made it to the woods, they were all killed one by one. A tragic story due to religious intolerance.
In December, at the end of the school year, the girls whose parents lived in Pakistan, including me, were sent by truck, under military escort to Lahore. My father was there to meet us and escort us back to Karachi. Unfortunately, I never returned to Simla, which I still love so much.
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