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Shimla ditties — old and new

What is a ditty? It is a short, simple song.

Shimla ditties — old and new

Present day Shimla. Tribune photo



Shriniwas Joshi

What is a ditty? It is a short, simple song. Actually, its definition started with Middle English via French word 'dite', meaning literary composition. 

"Stay hopeless and confused. Keep polishing those skills," is a literary composition or a ditty taken from a movie screened in 1994. 

Where is the song in it? I, too, am missing the song. But not on this Shimla lyric written by Rudyard Kipling —

“So long as Tara Devi sees the lights of Simla town, So long as pleasure calls us up, or duty drives us down, If you love me as I love you, What pair so happy as we two?” 

It is on lovers and seem to have resemblance to the Sanskrit Shloka blessing a child: "Yaavad Ganga Kurukshetre, Yaavad Ram Kathaloke; Yaavad Tishtathi Medini, Taavad jivet Balkah" (As long as there are Ganga and Kurukshetra; As long as there is Ram's legend in this world; As long as there is Earth; So long you may live, Oh Child."

Jumping a span of about 100 years, I come to the modern days. Kanwar Dinesh Singh writes Haikus, completing pictures in three lines of generally 17 syllables, on Shimla in his book 'Prospect Hill'. 

He gives three pictures of Shimla — Shimla in rains; in winter and Shimla with frost gone — "Rainy days/ sudden light, sudden rain, / sudden haze." "Frost bite/ gloves, muffler, socks, boot/ chester tight." "Frost cease/ watch gorgeous Earth/ striptease."

I am picking up one from 'The Simla Story' by OC Sud on Lady Browne, who had an affair with Don Gavaroni- Macaroni of Chauraa Maidaan. Here, I want to disclose that a person exceeding the ordinary bounds of fashion in clothing and displaying fastidious eating and gambling was called Macaroni or formerly Maccaroni in mid-18th Century England. "Ladye, ladye, tell me who you are, Do you come from sunny land afar? Or were you born in Simla town, And have you dropped the name of Browne/ For Don Govarani-Macaroni, Pride of Chauraa Maidaan."

If the old-timer ditty was a satire, the modern one by RA Lakhanpal is humorous though a bit whimsical. In his poem 'A monkey does me a favour', he writes: "Motionless, she sits on an oak tree/ tension free/ to sprinkle on me, a few drops of piss/ Without a miss…Ensuring my morning bath/ which I give a miss/ when snowy shivering days hiss"

He, who writes on Shimla, must write on monkeys and Kanwar Dinesh draws this picture with words: "They are extremely temperamental, excitable, impulsive, unpredictable like the proverbial weather of Shimla. They walk the roads, and on trees and housetops they live, They are rightful domicile claimants of Shimla."

Simla, during the British Raj, was a town of grass widows. A grass widow is a woman, who spends a lot of time apart from her partner often because he is working in a different place. He used to work in hot plains and his wife used to spend time in 'English-Weather' Simla. One such grass widow was Mrs. Barrett. Rudyard Kipling writes on her: "Jack Barrett went to Quetta, because they told him to. He left his wife at Simla, on three-fourths his monthly screw; Jack Barrett died at Quetta, Ere the next month's pay he drew. And Mrs Barrett mourned for him, Five lively months at most."

There is yet another satire on grass widows: "Jack's own Jill goes up the hill to Murree, Simla or Chakrata; Jack remains and dies in the plains and Jill remarries soon after."

Coming to a serious note, a ditty on Shimla theatre that I like most and announce it wherever I speak: "As tributes to your taste, we certify Simla stage is chaste, mellowed by age and cooled by tempering time, It is venerable and sublime." 

RA Lakhanpal has drawn a picture of what we see daily, but never thought of giving words to Shimla coolies: "Their brethren's back they tell me, Are made of Dadhichi's bones…They carry on backs, in threes, kerosene drums, on slopes steep."

Rudyard came to Shimla for the first time in the summer of 1883 and then became a regular summer-bird from 1885 to 1888. He knew many secrets of the high society of Simla. He writes about one Delilah Aberyswith: "Delilah Aberyswith was a lady-not too young-With a perfect taste in dresses and a badly-bitted tongue, With a thirst for information, and a greater thirst for praise, And a little house in Simla in the Prehistoric Days. By reason to her marriage to a gentleman in power, Delilah was acquainted with the gossip of the hour; And many little secrets, of the half-official kind, Were whispered to Delilah, and she bore them all in mind."

Tailpiece

Today's Ditty: "Never shall I take you to Shimla, They have spoiled it so much, Bimla, Mortar where there used to be a tree because for builders, the sport is all free, Only old name is there-Shimla, Even that is being changed to Shyamla."

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