You can see above a panoramic view of the town of Chamba. This was the capital of the erstwhile State of Chamba. This state became subsumed into the State of Himachal Pradesh in 1948. This blog should really be read after reading "An Indian Summer", especially the Chamba section. You are looking at pencil sketches by my Father (Edinburgh College of Art) drawn in 1944 while on leave from the 10th Baloch Regiment of the Indian Army. My brother Jonty and I undertook the journey to try to recapture the views 55 years later. Father had the drawings bound into an album, one of many others. He starts by describing the place and his journey there. Much of that journey hasn't changed much and was pretty well what we experienced. I realise that the text is not easy to read but please persevere as there is some excellent primary source history.
For each illustration we have both written contemporaneous comments. In each case the text immediately precedes the illustration.
Now we move on to the pictures and their individual commentaries.
I can't find my original comments on this picture but a couple of observations on the drawing. You will notice that it's signed and dated. This happened after Father returned to Edinburgh after the war during the Independence of India in 1947. He took it out of the album and had it framed. Apart from a portrait of Abdul, his bearer, this was the only one of all his Indian work that was framed. He gave it to me over 50 years ago. I have subsequently returned it to the album.
Looking at the photo you can recognise a number of surviving buildings from 1944. We bought some souvenirs from the shop on the immediate left.
