Three in One

I think that what I have been trying to suggest is that Shimla city moves its average visitor through a journey of sacred spaces. Starting with the lift Temple associated with the modern era, noise, chaos, humanity, the absence of beauty, being enclosed, darkness, limited visibility etc. To Christ Church and the ridge, associated with the Colonial era, quiet, manmade order, humanity pointing to nature, manmade beauty inspired by nature, both overlooking and being overlooked, light, extreme visibility etc. To Jakhoo Temple associated with the mythic era, the quiet whisper of nature, natural order, natural beauty augmented by man, overlooking, the sun (and heavens), blended visibility. All these sights are moved through chronologically by the casual visitor, with all being moved through twice apart from Jakhoo (once on the way up and once on the way down). Jakhoo then is the peak of the revelation of the Divine that Shimla offers – it is both literarly and figuratively the zenith of its landscape. Spatially these all involve am movement up, there is not much horizontal movement on this journey the movement is largely vertical and each space is encountered in the context of the previous, with the insight imparted by the previous. There is also a movement to do with association of time here from the present to the colonial to the mythical and each space not only progressively deepens our reach through time but also is a living space that carries through the others without rupture. That is to say that Christ Church not only draws from the colonial past but is very much alive and contributes to post colonial Shimla. Jakhoo not only reminds us of the mythical past, but draws us through the colonial period to the modern age, where it also is alive today as an important point of pilgrimage. Here then connected by space and time are three sites of religious worship that are encountered by the visitor and which encapsulate the multi–layered nature of modern Shimla.
Of course I am talking here about the average day/or weekend tripper, how these spaces are encountered by more frequent visitors and local residents is a different story altogether and I think the subject of another day.