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Conquering the tree-less forest trail — Shali Tibba

Raaja Bhasin writes in his latest book ‘Easy Trails around Shimla’: “Standing on Shimla’s Ridge facing the snows, the high hill right in front, to the north-west, with a bare tree-less visage is the Shali Tibba or peak (2,867 metres/around 9,400 feet).

Conquering the tree-less forest trail — Shali Tibba


Shriniwas Joshi

Raaja Bhasin writes in his latest book ‘Easy Trails around Shimla’: “Standing on Shimla’s Ridge facing the snows, the high hill right in front, to the north-west, with a bare tree-less visage is the Shali Tibba or peak (2,867 metres/around 9,400 feet). Of all trails around Shimla, depending on the ‘drive and walk’ combination you select, this is the one that offers varied time frames, substantially varied levels of strenuousness and wonderful landscapes and paths.” He adds that there are a dozen different trails to conquer the peak.

We adopted drive up to Khatnol, 41 km from Shimla on a tolerable road and climb up to Shali, about six km from there. We were lucky to have two masters of the area, Padma Prakash Sharma from village Dalaana and Mela Ram Sharma from village Dandibagh, with us to guide us and feed us. Who says that women are lesser sex? In our party of 11, there were six women – most of the men, whom we had approached, had simply raised the white flag.

Khatnol had had its days when Alam Chand was the prince of erstwhile Bhajji state. He was the 32nd in lineage of the princes of this state and probably in throne in the late 18th century. He had made Khatnol as the capital of Bhajji state. Mela Ram tells me that the palace at Khatnol is in a dilapidated condition and, at present, a primary school runs in the building. An old manuscript was handed over to me by Mela Ram; it writes Khatnol as Kathnol and Miyan Goverdhan Singh in his ‘History of Himachal Pradesh’ mentions it as Khaat.

There is a zigzag path amidst the jungles from Khatnol to Shali built by Maharaha Harminder Singh of Faridkot and completed on 11.9. 1936 (See photo). There are steep shortcuts too and we preferred these plus a little bit of path otherwise it would have taken us more time to reach the peak. Anyway, we started at 9.30 am from Khatnol and were up on the peak at 12.30 pm. There is an old temple built by Alam Chand (late 18th century) dedicated to ‘Shailvasini’ on the peak (See photo).

Shailvasini appears to be correct because Shali can be a derivative of it. Shailputri, who is named Shailvasini in the manuscript, is the first of the goddesses that we pray during the Navratras. Why Faridkot did build a road to Shali? He was worried that he had no heir, so he came to Shali to pray to the goddess and begot Amrit Kaur as his first child. As an honour to the goddess, he built this road. Faridkot had five cottages-Kennilworth, Sherwood (burnt), Cosy Nook, Honington and Edelweiss House (burnt) – in Mashobra built in a sprawling 260 bigha estate and right on their front stood Shali majestically, then in Bhajji princely state.

Today, the temple at Shali is dedicated to Bhimakali and Mela Ram says that there are idols of Durga, Bhimakali and Shailputri in the temple and that original Bhimakali actually resides at village Dalaana below Shali. She lives covered by curtains because she has the powers of turning into ashes the landscape that comes in her front. Bhimakali came here during the times of Jaichand, grandson of Alam Chand, when his minister Badri Brahman went to Bushahr and got the practice of ‘human sacrifice’ at the altar of famous Bhimakali temple at Sarahan stopped. He brought an idol from there.

On reaching the peak, I remembered my colleague KL Gautam, who was the SDM at Shimla, and had done yeoman service in rejuvenating the temple. He raised a serai there, thus facilitating the visitors to pass their nights comfortably under a roof. I was pleased to see a marble-slab there carrying his name. The only problem on the top is that one does not get water and so has to carry the bottles up. The temple has been face-lifted recently and in its renovated avatar, it attracts lightning, so the people are thinking in terms of giving it a different shape. Would a lightning conductor not serve the purpose?

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