Museums in India can be excellent or abysmal, but one thing few can manage is to be welcoming. The average Indian museum (and, I’ve seen my fair share of them) generally has a sleepy attendant-cum-security guard assigned to every couple of galleries: a person whose only duty seems to be to glower at visitors and tell them not to take photographs.
The Darwan Singh Museum in Lansdowne is refreshingly different. The security guard outside (and he’s really a guard, a sentry of the Garhwal Rifles on duty) is smart, brisk and unfailingly courteous.
A view from Tiffin Top, or Tip-in-Top (Photo by: Manoj Madhavan/Mint)
“The museum will close in 20 minutes’ time, sir,” he tells my husband (the “sir” is pure politeness: We are, after all, mere civilians). “But you can go in if you like.”
We do go in, and when a staff member arrives 20 minutes later to close the museum, he doesn’t start badgering us to get out. He stands by patiently while we quickly finish seeing one last gallery. He even smiles at us as we go out. And, when we ask where we could get some water to drink, he doesn’t send us off to a filthy little tap somewhere at the back of the building. Instead, a bhulla (which is what the Garhwal Rifles calls its jawans) is summoned, and he comes with a tray laden with spotless glass tumblers. We may not have been able to see all there is of the Darwan Singh Museum, but we’re definitely feeling pleasantly pampered at the end of it all.
In fact, we’re feeling pretty pampered at the end of our all-too-brief stay in Lansdowne
(See: Location). It’s nice not to be jostled about by thousands of other camera-toting tourists. It’s oddly exhilarating to have a spectacular, 360-degree view of the snow-capped Garhwal Himalayas all to yourself. It’s wonderful to go on a long walk through pine woods to see a rock formation called Bhim Pakora—and to follow it up with masala chai and piping hot pakoras, of the veggie variety, in Gandhi Park market.
St Mary’s church (Photo by: Manoj Madhavan/Mint)
Lansdowne is perfect for a break. There’s a delightfully laid-back air about the place, despite the all-pervasive, regimented presence of the Garhwal Rifles Regimental Centre (or GRRC, as it’s called). True, each tree across town—rhododendron, thuja, oak, pine, whatever—is meticulously labelled, its number and species neatly painted on a little metal plate screwed on to the tree trunk. True, the majority of the population wears olive green and sports a crew cut. True, too, that all the major historical attractions in Lansdowne—from the quaint grey stone church of St Mary’s, sitting pretty amid oak woods, to the nearby St John’s—were built under the aegis of the Garhwal Rifles back in the days of the British Raj. Even the more “natural” sights of Lansdowne, such as Mainwaring Gardens and the artificial lake (more a pond, really), known as Bhulla Tal, owe their existence to GRRC.
Lansdowne, after all, owes its status to the Garhwal Rifles.