Kashmiris Who Built Shimla

A 1993 journey to document migrant labour reveals the hidden Kashmiri hands behind the hill town's railways, hotels and history.

- Syed Nissar H. Gilani

A 1993 journey to document migrant labour reveals the hidden Kashmiri hands behind the hill town's railways, hotels and history.

Some journeys stay with you in exact detail. This one began on April 13, 1993.

We left Jammu in a special coach that morning, bound for the mountain air of Shimla. I had never been to the Queen of Hills before, and I carried with me the particular excitement of a first-time traveller combined with the official purpose that had sent me there.

I was to document the lives of Kashmiri migrant labourers working in Himachal Pradesh, men from my own administrative jurisdiction of Dooru Shahbad who had travelled this route decades earlier and built lives in the high altitude towns.

The coach moved through Punjab during Baisakhi, and the landscape outside my window exploded with colour. Crowds lined the roadside in their finest traditional attire, celebrating the spring harvest with a joy that seemed to spill into the vehicle itself.

We passed through Jalandhar and Ludhiana without hurry, stopping frequently for tea and lunch, allowing the road to set its own tempo. This unhurried progress meant we did not reach the gates of Shimla until midnight had come and gone.

Despite the late hour, our hosts had secured rooms in an impeccable hotel. The place was warm, pristine, and hospitable, a familiarity that made no sense until I understood what I was seeing.

The entire staff, from attendants to the manager, were Kashmiri, most from Dooru Shahbad. News of our arrival had arrived before us, and they received us with a warmth that felt more like family than hospitality.

Exhaustion overtook formalities that night. We skipped dinner for quick cups of tea and snacks, and I watched Shimla’s lights glitter through the dark pines like scattered pearls in the valley below.