September 8, 2008
I sometimes fall in love with buildings and its usually love at first sight. One of the buildings I fell so in love with was an elegant stone building. It was big. It was beautiful and it was once the Viceregal Lodge, Shimla. That was way back when India was under British rule.
This very Elizabethan structure has a place in Indian history not just because it was the Viceregal Lodge, but also because it was here that the 1945 Shimla Conference took place. Two years later, it was here that the decision to separate Pakistan from India, was also made.
A part of this building is open to visitors and exhibits some historic pictures and some old furniture. I remember seeing a table that is today known as the ‘Partition Table,’ the table on which the India – Pak partition was charted out, I believe.
This building that once lodged the Viceroys is now the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies. When India got independence, the Viceregal Lodge became the summer retreat of the President of the country and was renamed Rashtrapati Niwas. However during S Radhakrishnan’s tenure, he is said to have turned it into an institute for higher learning. So Indian Institute of Advanced Studies it is, today.
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what a lovely building