Notes from Lansdowne

The cantonment town in Uttarakhand has a quiet beauty preserved by strict military rules

“Pull up your mask properly, and stand away until allowed to enter,” commands a stern voice from behind a manned entrance. After hours of driving across the less popular roads of Uttarakhand, including long, secluded expanses of endless forests, I let my guard slip a bit and allowed my oxygen-starved system to draw in lungfuls of mountain air. The military checkpost at the entrance to Lansdowne, though, snaps me right out of it. Like most cantonment towns in India, martial law rules the roost, making it a bittersweet mix: a regimented but timeless place that could not have been preserved otherwise. Cantonment towns are the perfect antidote to hill station destinations. Having barely ever aided tourism, they are a boon in disguise for conservation. Lansdowne is no different, and much like the rest, was formed for military purposes. It was founded and named after Lord Lansdowne, the then Viceroy of India, in 1887, and the first battalion of the Garhwal Rifles was moved there the same year from Almora. Lansdowne was the only major town established after Almora in the 1870s, a fact I find hard to process considering that today, it’s one of the quietest hill stations I’ve ever been to. On the list of popular names from Shimla in the west to Mussoorie and Nainital, and all the way east to Darjeeling, Lansdowne barely makes a guest appearance. It’s more comparable to other cantonment towns like Ranikhet and Dalhousie, but somehow, despite its checklist complete with the war memorial, parade ground, and a regimental museum named after Victoria Cross awardee Darwan Singh Negi, Lansdowne seems like the introvert that sits quietly at the corner bench. In a long walk spanning its multiple ridges, I try to dissect this ambiguity.