Time stops at the Ghanta Ghar
Photo: Karan Madhok
A lifelong resident of the Clock Tower area in Landour writes about an eerie new reality post the COVID-19 lockdown in the hill-station.
For decades living and working under the iconic Ghanta Ghar of Landour/Mussoorie, I have found myself grumbling about the excessive noise around this Clock Tower. It was common to be awoken to the sound of the milk supply trucks, coolies traversing from one part of the town to the other, opening shutters, etc. This commotion goes on till 8 am, and is then followed by the school traffic. There are two English schools around a two-minute walk from the Clock Tower, and even if most of the kids live within a short radius of the schools, their parents insist on dropping them in their cars and two-wheelers, creating more chaos and noise in the area. Fights, arguments, and abuses are the daily norm.
But my childhood memories of this area are unforgettable. I was brought up around the Clock Tower. Even until mid-1990s, very few people owned private cars in Mussoorie. Most walked around town, which is an approximately eight-kilometre long ridge from one end to the other. Public transport such as buses to Dehradun and taxis were used for outstation travel. Hardly anyone owned a scooter or a motorbike. Cycles were not around. The roads were empty. As the town had no public parks, people walked on the streets and children played there, too.
For me, the walk to school made the memories of childhood incomparable to any other life around the world. Woodpeckers, Parakeets were common sites. The flowers that adorned the hillside slopes after monsoon, the horse chestnut tree in autumn with its falling leaves, the pine cones, the blue skies and so much more… These were embedded in our memories forever.
And the past few decades, with the increase and traffic and population in this area has left the past only in memory.
It was eerie, then, to wake up in the first morning after the post-COVID national lockdown in Landour. There was always so much life buzzing at the Clock Tower. There were people always around, greeting each other in the morning, soaking the morning sun in every season… Nothing has been the same since March 25th.
It was eerie, then, to wake up in the first morning after the post-COVID national lockdown in Landour. There was always so much life buzzing at the Clock Tower. Even when the traffic was not there twenty years ago, there were people always around, greeting each other in the morning, soaking the morning sun in every season, stopping by for a quick chat and so on… Nothing has been the same since March 25th.
Now, there are the pigeons, getting fatter and fatter each day. They sit in the middle of the street as no passing by vehicle disturbs them. They fly high up in the sky, sit on roof tops, sit on rain water ducts, and so on. The other day, I saw two pigeons sitting together on a cable wire. Love birds, I thought. They sat for a while and then flew away together. At least love was still in the air.
The monkeys—a symbol of menace on our hillside—seem unusually sad. I always thought there were too many of them. But they, too, have their ilakas, and I wonder how I could differentiate between one and another. One female monkey in the neighbourhood has a wounded back. She roams around with her children and also has some male monkeys around her. They lick the bonnet of a car in desperation, as food is scarce. I wonder if we humans have spoiled their natural habitat; they are so dependent on the waste that we generate, and have consequently become aggressive back towards us.
A fat stray cow comes in the market street every afternoon. It sits in the middle of the street. Or sometimes, it stands. And it stays standing. A group of dogs come around, surround her in a circle, and bark at her ferociously.
The street dogs are in abundance in Mussoorie and Landour. With such limited human movement, they seem to be especially bored, as they don’t know who to bark at. It seems that if they become too habituated to the lack of human movement, they may start attacking anyone that steps outside and chase each passing vehicle.
As a result, the poor cow bears the brunt of their restlessness. But she stays calm and doesn’t react. She stands her ground until the dogs get tired and leave.
I take it as a lesson for myself. We, too, should remain calm and not panic in the present situation. Like those ferocious dog barking around an inanimate cow, this too shall pass.
Yet the sky is as blue as ever
the clouds are rolling all over…
the full moon is sleeping in the day sky…
the breeze brings spring fragrances
Spring is in the air.
Nature is normal around us. Only we humans are affected by the current happenings?
It’s time for us to slow down,
time to reflect
time to spend with family
time to look inward
time to just be who one is
No one knows at the moment how the coming days will unroll.
Yet these too will pass…
***
Landour-based Surbhi Agarwal is an Independent Art and History Researcher, Curator, Designer, Collector, Social Entrepreneur, Social Activist, and Environmentalist. She runs the Mussoorie Heritage Centre. You can find her on Instagram at: @mussoorieheritagecentre.
