Doon of yore!

Wherever you looked, Dehradun was a beautiful valley with choicely constructed and aesthetically maintained old houses, many of them colonial or traditional Indian in their architectural appeal.....Clement Town, Subash Nagar, Dallanwalla, Rajpur Road, even Astley Hall, Vasant Vihar, EC Road, Karanpur and many more.

Clement Town, as an important Cantonment Base, was home to lovely, Army-style Barrack houses. We lived in one such when Dad was first posted here in 1969 or so I recall. Now all that is deplorably gone. The Barracks have been razed to give way to flats, many of which are tiered. And most have come up as ugly, pale yellow, soulless structures; with definitely use but no value, a purpose but no inherent passion about them. Sadly, all the new houses that are coming up at a feverish pace are no longer beautiful buildings. We may be making more money than before but we are certainly losing all taste, style and artfulness that was present in our earlier generations. And yes, any sense of town planning be damned. Here is a picture of a Barrack that has not yet been pulled down. I think it used to be the Cantonment School and is located opposite GOC's Stable in Clement Town. For how long it is going to be left untouched, one doesn't know. But from the looks of it, it has been left uncared for and unattended to, for a long, long time now!