The last great snowfall

IT was the kind of winter that old Shimlaites still talk about — it covered the Christ Church spire in mist and turned the Ridge into a white desert four decades ago. It snowed for days, the kind of heavy, unrelenting snowfall that made the world feel like it would never wake up.

I was 12 that year, staying in an old house near Chhota Shimla, a colonial relic with a tin roof that rattled in the wind. The snow piled so high outside that the doors would not open, and our ayah, Shanta, had to melt snow on the angeethi to boil water. The town was cut off — no buses from Cart Road, no supplies reaching Lakkar Bazaar. Even the policemen, their coats heavy with frost, stood huddled under the porch of Gaiety Theatre.

But to us, it was the greatest adventure.

One afternoon, when the snow had slowed to a gentle flurry, I sneaked out with my cousin, Shree Om. The streets were a wonderland. The iron railings near Scandal Point were lined with thick layers of white, and the ancient lamp posts flickered in the dim, frozen air. Everything felt untouched, like an old Ruskin Bond story that had come to life.

We ran past Clarkes Hotel, past the general post office, where ‘Khans’ were shovelling snow, their dark woollen kaftans a sharp contrast against the white. At the end of the sealed road, a group of British tourists stood near their Ambassador car, arguing with a driver who refused to take them any further. “Road’s dead,” he kept saying, waving his arms. “No car can go past Victory Tunnel today.”

Shree Om nudged me. “Let’s go to Bantony Castle.”

Bantony was a place of mystery, an abandoned, crumbling relic from the Raj. They said muffled footsteps resounded in deserted corridors, hushed voices drifted with the breeze, and fleeting glimpses of shadowy figures could be seen. We had never dared to go inside before. But today, in the snow, everything felt possible.

We climbed past the gates, breathless, our boots sinking with every step. The castle stood silent, its turrets dusted with snow, its windows dark and endless. We stood there, staring at its eerie beauty, feeling like we had stepped into another time — when the town’s name was spelt without an ‘h’ (Simla), when sahibs rode on horseback and memsahibs strolled on the Mall.

A gust of wind shook the trees, and suddenly, we weren’t brave anymore. We turned and ran, laughing, slipping on the ice, as the past and present blurred in that moment.

That was the last great snowfall I remember. They say it doesn’t snow like that in Shimla anymore. The winters are warmer, the town noisier, the old ghosts fading into concrete.

But sometimes, when I walk past Bantony, I still pause and look up, as if the past might unfold before my eyes — snowflakes swirling in the hush of an old winter, a season lost in time, never to return, yet never truly gone.