British Connection
Kasauli’s celebrity Connection
Here are some prominent people, whose Kasauli connection is fairly strong…
Khushwant Singh
The celebrated author and journalist loved Kasauli and did most of his writings in the Raj Villa, the house he inherited from his father-in-law, in Kasauli.
Khushwant Singh’s association with Kasauli went back to pre-Independence days when in the 1930s his father Sobha Singh, a real estate developer, had got the contract for building additional laboratories, offices and classrooms of the Central Research Institute (CRI). Sobha Singh had rented a house for his staff in Kasauli where Khushwant Singh spent two summer vacations.
Singh was a known figure with an extensive social circle in Kasauli. He would often go on long walk from Kasauli Bazaar to Kalka in the foothills. This path has now been converted into a trail and is known as ‘Khushwant Singh Trail.’
A literature festival ‘Khushwant Singh Lit Fest’ is also held annually in Kasauli.
Shobha Nehru
B K Nehru, a distinguished diplomat and the cousin of India’s first Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru, and his Hungarian wife Shobha Nehru had settled in Kasauli after retirement.
Born Magdolna Friedmann in a prosperous Jewish family in 1908, she became Shobha Nehru after her marriage to B K Nehru in 1935. According to the New York Times, Fori (her Hungarian nickname) had narrowly escaped the Holocaust. In Kasauli, the couple lived in Fair View, a bungalow at the Lower Mall. Known as ‘Fori auntie’ among locals, she took keen interest in local issues of Kasauli and would cast her vote in elections. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi would often visit her great grandmother, in Kasauli.
According to the NYT article, when Shobha Nehru was 90, she asked Martin Gilbert, British historian and the Oxford classmate of her son, to suggest reading material on the history of the Jews. The suggestion became the basis for the book “Letters to Auntie Fori: The 5000-year History of the Jewish People and Their Faith” Gilbert wrote and published in 2002.
B K Nehru died in Kasauli in 2001. Shobha Nehru breathed her last in her house in Kasauli on April 27, 2017. She was 108, the oldest resident of Kasauli at that time.
Ruskin Bond
The most-loved Indian author of British descent was born in Kasauli on May 19, 1934 to Aubrey Alexander Bond and Edith Clarke.
As the second World War broke out, Ruskin’s father Aubrey Alexander Bond joined the Royal Air Force in 1939. Often reflected in his writings, Ruskin spent a lonely childhood in the hills of Dehradun and Shimla. He was 8 when his parents separated and two years later his father died.
In Shimla, Ruskin went to the Bishop Cotton school. His love for the hills was passed on by his father and became an inseparable part of Ruskin’s entire life.
Sandra Hotz
Born to Robert Hotz and Marry Hotz, Sandra grew up in Kasauli and later married British film director David Lean, widely considered as one of the most influential directors of all time with epic movies like The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago and A Passage to India to his name.
Sandra’s father Robert Hotz was in the hospitality business and owned hotels including Wildflower Hall in Shimla and Alasia hotel in Kasauli. Robert was also associated with the Himalayan Club and became the club president in 1958.
He had purchased the Alasia hotel in 1960 and it was around this time that David Lean and Sandra ran into each other in Kasauli. She was 20 at that time and Lean had visited Kasauli, most probably for a shoot.
Sandra married Lean in 1981. She also did a cameo in Lean’s A Passage to India. The couple divorced in 1984, about 7 years before Lean’s death. Lean had married six times and Sandra was his fifth wife. Robert Hotz, the last of the Hotzs in India, died in 2001.
Rahul Bose
Actor Rahul Bose has also a house in Kasauli and is a frequent visitor to the small town. Bose has been associated with the annual Khushwant Singh Lit Fest in Kasauli.
Rahul’s father Rupen Bose lived in Kasauli. Rahul rushes back to Kasauli whenever he finds time as he said an interview to the Business Standard it’s his second home, “Whenever I am in Delhi and am able to snatch some time, I go to Kasauli. It’s one place I can call home.”
