Shimla's brief history

This is what Shimla looks from the railway station.







Shimla was once described as an obscure village, but with the passage of time it has become one of the most famous tourist destinations of the world, lets have a brief look how the things happenned.

Scottish civil servant Charles Kennedy built Simla's first British summer home in 1822, and by the latter half of the 19th century the city had become the summer capital of the British Raj. Many British soldiers, merchants, and civil servants moved there for roughly half of each year due to heat and disease at India's lower altitudes. Many others, like author Rudyard Kipling, went there for the active social life, which Kipling found both exciting and scandalous. Shimla is dotted with monuments; imposing buildings with an Victorian aura and often referred to as the hallmark of British rule in India. The Kalka-Shimla rail link, one of the few narrow gauge tracks still operational in India, bears testimony to the engineering excellence of the British. Shimla is etched in history of Indo-Pakistan relations as it was witness to the Shimla Agreement signed by the two nations following Pakistan's surrender in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.

Shimla is named after Shyamla Devi, an incarnation of the fierce goddess Kali.