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Nityin:

Lines were removed because even though Ananda did not respond to our mail early, but it appeared a clear case of infringement and we thought it best to remove the offending lines.

However the delay in putting out the comment is regretted.

Since you felt so strongly about it, we put the offending lines back on the post and let the writer do his own explanation, which he has.

Below is the reply I received from the writer:

Dear Avnish,
Yes you are right. What ever happened is very unfortunate and
embarrassing. My sincere apologies. Jalori was meant to be a small
write up to highlight the place for tourism. I am enclosing my
original draft which was worked upon by others. There is a separate
section of editors who pad up, rewrite and increase the story length
for editorial and design purposes.

As this has been printed with my name I am very embarrassed and
apologetic. I have taken up the issue with other colleagues as written
to you in the earlier email. I am very upset with this issue as you
are also.

Please do convey my apologies to all concerned people. All this has
all happened unknowingly and not meant to hurt anyone’s sensitivity.

–Ananda Banerjee.
————————————————————
A non descriptive, non functional traffic light lost in the maze of
advertising signposts on a narrow fork, overlooking the bustle of a
busy tourist town intercepts us. We have reached Banjar, a small
Himalayan town in Kullu district in the state of Himachal Pradesh,
teeming with people clothed in local hill attire going about in their
daily chores. Further we ask for directions for our destination;
Jalori Pass which at 10800 feet is the nearest mountain pass from
Delhi approximately 600kms away.

With a little maneuvering we negotiate the narrow moufisil streets
where shops of various shapes and sizes seem to stumble out and
likewise within a few blind turns we drop into the wide scenic vistas
of rolling mountains and manicured step cultivations, each step
different in varying hues of green as if a painter has meticulously
shaded them if not from some stray pages of pantone green. Welcome to
the Seraj Valley.

The mountain road snakes up to Jibbi amidst flowering rhododendrons
nestled in between towering pine, oaks and deodars. In between Banjar
and Jibbi a small walk takes us to Chehni Kothi, a towering 1500 years
old building constructed with only stone slabs and wooden beams. It
was once the fortified residence of King Rana Dhadhia, the erstwhile
King of Kullu. When constructed it was a 15 storey high fort but after
the earthquake of 1905 only 10 floors remain. The ground floor is
bigger in area as compared to the upper floors thus giving it a
conical form. As with many old and heritage structures this one is no
different and one should tread with caution while exploring from
within. The Chehni fort as it is now popularly known has a 400 meters
tunnel (now closed) as well as a Krishna temple.

Each small turn on the mountain road elevates us higher and higher. On
the near empty roads we are occasionally met by small herders tending
their small flocks of sheep and children returning after a day well
spent in school. Then on another turn we were accosted with a group of
mountain bikers hurling down at us in their florescent outfits.What
was surprising that all of them were my fellow country men. I wondered
when did India graduated to this from its cricket addiction.

We stop at the village Ghyagi by the brooke to meet up with Payson
Stevens. Mr. Stevens is a well known artist and conserationist who
divides his time between Del Mar in California and here in this
mountain village with his wife, the writer Kamla Kapur. He has
followed quite a few tracks in his career – scientist, artist,
designer, writer, conservationist and film maker for over thirty
years. He welcomes me to his beautiful house and over a cup of tea and
mango cake discusses the many issues concerning our environment. Later
we go up to the studio to see his ongoing series of paintings which he
is painstakingly finishing for an upcoming exhibition in Delhi. The
paintings revolve around the great Himalayan national park, a part of
pristine forest and ecosystem that he has campaigned for since its
formation in 2000.

After biding goodbye to Stevens we drive to Shoja another small hamlet
perched higher up where some local entrepreneurial guest houses offers
the occasional wandering tourist a chance in peace and tranquility who
all wants to avoid the summer crowd in more known hill stations. More
notable here, than perhaps elsewhere in Seraj, is the peculiar style
of architecture of many of the older houses. The upper storey of these
old fashioned dwellings appears to be merely an open work frame so
designed for the storage of hay during winter months.

One can see a glimpse of Jalori from here and it does not take too
long to reach the top as well. The small pass is not devoid of human
interventions. A temple and about a dozen small shops provinding
refreshments line up on top, one even claiming the mini Switzerland of
India. Such platitude is unforgiving and I wonder when our natives
will grow up to appreciate the gift of motherland.

We park amongst a few other waiting tourist taxis and stroll in the
chill mountain air. The Sun places hide and seek amongst an over cast
sky which dampens my view of the long stretch of rolling mountains.
Just off the road which bends downhill and on course towards Shimla, a
rolling green meadow dotted with sheep fills up the Blue-grey mountain
back ground. I come across a wedding party and accompanying band with
drums and gramophone cylinders awaiting a lift down. as for their
numbers seem to have had made quite an impact on the cash boxes of the
shops out here. As I aimless wander soaking in the panorama another
mountain biker, this time a foreigner lands up on his solo trip, no
sooner than he arrived that he zoomed down not even spending a minute
or sparing a glance. I reckon he must be here quite a few times and is
hell bent to improve his record timings. I managed to take a couple of
photographs in between though and I carried out my obsession with my
new digital SLR till the weather packed up and it began to rain. My
walk to the ruins of the Raghupur Fort was cut short as the rain
intensified with hail. There was no other choice but return to the
jeep and wait for the weather gods to calm before we could even move
an inch to descend to our hotel below.

The words from your blog and those of Ananda Banerjee do overlap at the point cited by you in the article here.

Since the article was published by The Pioneer, we took it on board on its face value.

Surely no verification was done to check the issue you mention.

We trust contributors to adhere to the originality of their content, unless of course it is a press release that requires information dissemination among our readers.

Jibbi is a decent village with a few shops and a good eating joint on the main road run by a lady from Delhi who is married to a local and has some amusing stories to share. Don’t miss out the gharat installed in the backyard of the house. It is quite something which one doesn’t see around these days. Marvel of village engineering. See a few foreign faces at Jibbi bazaar.

I bet this author has written this post with a shoddy cut and paste method. I doubt, if the author ever stopped at the joint and have simply copied from my blog. This amounts to cheating and copyright violation and taking content from my blog post and terming it their own work.

Here is a link to the Google cache about my post http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:kF9q2vQASvEJ:nityin.wordpress.com/2008/06/02/crossing-the-jallori-pass/+crossing+the+jallori+pass&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk

I believe My Himachal has simply posted this write-up and does not have any knowledge about the content lifted from my blog post. Least it can do is publish my comments, tender an apology from the writer and dump the writer and the article for good!!