Is it so wrong for a man to yearn for the British Raj? Where the second sons
of empire lived in the grand style their talents truly didn’t deserve, while
turning a great nation into coolies, clerks and punka wallahs?
I have to confess that, despite decades of anticolonial posturing, trips
through the Himalayan hill stations of India have prompted me to dream of
living out my own Raj fantasy. Viewed from Britain, such places, where Scots
officers tried to recreate the Highland charm of Aber-feldy, while their
English fellows were busy replicating somewhere close to Cheam, seem
decidedly strange. If you really want Betjeman country, why look for it in
the foothills of the Himalayas?
But try living in the heat, dust and air-conditioned confinement of a Delhi
summer and you will begin to understand its appeal. As the thermometer hits
49C and you melt into puddles of your own sweat at the slightest physical
chore, or grapple with the oily generator as the electricity gives out yet
again, or complain to your housekeeper for the umpteenth time that she has
failed to replenish the ice tray or keep enough gin in the fridge, then it
is only natural that your mind should wander to the high Himalayas. What
could be more appealing than a few months’ respite in a Hansel-and-Gretel
cottage with nothing to trouble your frayed expatriate nerves but the cool
breeze blowing in pine needles from the deodar forest and the snow caps
turning pink in the setting sun?
The thought was already at the back of my mind when I first moved to Delhi
from Scotland two years ago, as this paper’s South Asia correspondent. As we
approached our third summer in India, I couldn’t resist it any longer.
Encouraged by a change in the law of Himachal Pradesh last summer, which
makes it easier for outsiders to buy, I decided to head to the hills and
begin my search for the perfect summer house, and recreate my own personal
piece of the Raj.
I could have begun in Shimla, the starched summer capital of British India,
where thousands of civil servants shunted millions of triplicate files up to
the hills every year, or at the louche station at Mussoorie, where junior
officers secretly sowed their wild oats in the slightly lower-class English
bed-and-breakfast hotels.
Today, those hill stations have become summer playgrounds for India’s nouveau
super-rich, with prices to match: a three-bedroom colonial-era bungalow
could have a price tag getting on for £100,000. So, for my own personal Raj,
I chose the Kullu valley further north, which has all the original Himalayan
charms the British cartographers were looking for – cool climate, forests,
hills, rivers for fishing. Because of its inaccessibility, the area remained
largely “undiscovered” until the 1960s, when British hippies found they
could rent a traditional Kathkuni pine-and-stone cottage, surrounded by more
wild-growing grass than you could shake a Rizla at, for a few rupees.
Kullu used to be a gruelling 18-hour journey from Delhi. Now four airlines fly
daily, covering the distance in an hour and a half. There are clear mobile
and data-card signals for internet access, and even satellite television. In
nearby Man-ali, delicatessens stock those essential Islington staples:
bacon, parmesan, extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
It’s my kind of paradise: Nagar, where we begin our search, is set in acres of
apple and pear orchards, and dotted with ancient Krishna and Vishnu temples
dating back more than 1,000 years. There are a few welcome hippie hangovers
– several good Italian restaurants with wood-burning ovens, and the German
bakery selling croissants and peanut cookies. Local fruit farmers sell honey
from bees that buzz only on blackberry bushes, and bottle their own cider.
The glacial tributaries that tumble down into the Beas river are well
stocked with trout, which are served in local restaurants. As the locals
say: “ Wah, kya baat hai?” (What’s wrong with that?)
Higher up the hill is the Roerich Institute, where the Russian polymath
Nicholas Roerich established a gallery for his Himalayan mountain
landscapes, and gardens to research new medicines from mountain plants. The
institute draws a steady stream of Russian-art lovers, while in the
surrounding hills, there are a few ageing French and British hippies who
never made it back from the 1960s and now live with their local wives,
children and grandchildren.
Despite the European influences and comforts, it remains a tribal village
rather than a ghostly outpost of the Raj. Women wear traditional red, green
and gold pattu pinafore dresses and carry wicker baskets of apples on their
back. Auspicious days in the Hindu calendar are marked with yatra
processions to the temple at Nagar castle – the former ruler’s 500-year-old
fort perched at the top of the valley – and the rasp of dementu horns. The
local tribesmen, mostly wealthy fruit farmers, live in unique cottages built
from layers of mica-flecked, sparkling stone and weathered pine beams,
topped with rugged blue slates the size of paving slabs. They keep cattle
downstairs and live above in large rooms heated by Bukhari cast-iron stoves,
with wide, dark-wood verandas that skirt the whole building.
Such places are hard to come by these days. There is no local property market
and the only people willing to sell are those whose crops have failed or who
have racked up large debts, and the only way to find them is by word of
mouth. My first intermediary in the search was Yashpal, a young entrepreneur
who has a handful of properties around the village, a stretch of deodar
forest higher up and several orchard plots being tilled by tribal women with
faces like the highland contours on Ordnance Survey maps.
One is his aunt, who greets us as he leads me to my first viewing. It’s a
pretty whitewashed cottage with blue woodwork, set high in an apple orchard
and accessible only by crunchy forest trails covered with dried pine
needles. The house needs a complete interior make-over. The bathroom and
squattie toilet are tiled and clean – but in outhouses next to the cottage.
When I ask about hot water, Yashpal points to a rusting tank on legs, with
space for a wood fire underneath. But it is doable: the floorboards could be
sanded and waxed, and a kitchen built around a cast-iron stove. Add a few
Himalayan rugs and we’d have the perfect mountain hideaway. Mentally, I’m on
to the next stage: can I get a GPS internet connection? What’s the asking
price? I’m powering up the laptop to answer the first question when it
becomes clear that his aunt and her son are living in the house. “ Auntyjee,
is it possible you could move out for the foreigner?” Yashpal asks, stroking
his goatee beard nervously. She studies his face as if he has taken leave of
his senses, and says no.
He leads me back through the woods and stops suddenly at a clearing. “You
could build a house here,” he says. “There’s room for a three-bedroom house
and a garden. You could give me four lakhs of rupees [about £5,000] and I
could build you a house and you could keep it for 10 years.” This would
involve a lot of trust. Yashpal doesn’t want to sell the land, because the
apple trees dotting the woods are a lucrative source of income, but I could
have whatever kind of house I wanted. When I tell him I want a Kathkuni
house, built with local stone, pine and slate, he sucks his teeth and says:
“Difficult, but possible” – which means more money. How much more he’ll tell
me later.
I head back to Nagar village for a tuna mayonnaise sandwich and a cappuccino
in the German bakery before meeting Chandran, another local businessman with
his ear to the ground. He has fair hair and green eyes, and asks if I think
my wife will drop by to buy some of his hand-woven shawls, before he offers
to take me to a tribal village higher up the hill, just beyond the Roerich
Institute.
We reach the village and gaze at the first Kathkuni house that might actually
be for sale. It’s beautiful in a medieval sort of way, a piece of living
history, but I’m starting to doubt whether I’ll be able to persuade my wife
and kids. We have to hopscotch through the cowpats and tiptoe past the bulls
responsible to reach the door. There are about 10 ancient wooden houses,
each three storeys high, like mini-forts. The potential next-door neighbour
is sitting on the top-floor veranda at a wooden loom, sneering down at the
ghora(white man) with more money than sense.
“The landlord wants eight lakhs [£10,000], and he will arrange electricity.
You can build a toilet at the back,” he says. I ask if there is anything
else I should know. “It may be better for you not to live in a village,” he
replies. “The men drink and may cause problems.”
I’m becoming a little despondent. Perhaps I should have gone for Shimla after
all, but I’m referred to Rabi, the owner of the Poonam guesthouse. He says
he is building a brand new Kathkuni house in an orchard just below Nagar
that will be complete in a few months. Would I like a look?
Several chais and a local plum juice later, we are walking down the path to
his orchard. Cannabis plants mark the way; there are walnut trees, blueberry
bushes and, finally, the green and red of his apple orchard, and the
distinctive traditional slate roof I’m now obsessed with. “The thing about
the Kathkuni house is it’s completely natural: there’s no cement holding the
stones together or the wood, so it breathes. It never becomes damp and is
the only building left standing when there are earthquakes,” Rabi explains.
It is far from finished, but its setting could not be more stunning, and he is
using the best-quality pine and stone. “We will have one large 41ft dining/
kitchen/living room on the ground floor, two bedrooms upstairs, and every
room will have its own stove and open onto the veranda,” he says.
When I mention the asking price – £37,000-£50,000 – to my other guides, they
ask if he is building in gold. They assure me that, if I am ready to wait, I
could get my ideal summer house for £5,000.
I retire to the Ragini hotel’s rooftop restaurant and consider my options over
a grilled rainbow trout and a Kingfisher beer. My phone rings: it is
Yashpal. He can build me the Kathkuni house of my dreams and I can take it
on a 10-year lease for £7,500-£10,000.
I am thinking about it. I like Yashpal, and he seems more honest than most.
But it’s going to take much longer than I thought. The Raj wasn’t built in a
day.
THE LOWDOWN
To buy property in India you must have lived in the country for more than 182
days in the previous financial year on a nontourist visa. Don’t despair if
you don’t qualify: you can instead register an Indian company and buy the
property through that. No such restrictions apply to Non Resident Indians
(NRIs) or People of Indian Origin (PIOs).Some states, such as Himachal
Pradesh, have imposed additional restrictions, although many of these are
being eased. Oneway round all this is to take a property on a 10-to 20-year
lease.
To
search for properties in India on propertyfinder.com click here
