Sumit Raj’s Shimla Bazaar is an unassuming account of everyday happenings – it could be a monkey entering his room and breaking a vase; or a troop of monkeys scaring away unruly youth; or the satisfaction of locating his father’s friend. These scintillating stories are primarily set in Shimla; however, occasionally a story or two move out to places like Dharamsala, or to the campsites in deep valleys. Wherever the author be, Shimla seems to be a part and parcel of his consciousness. By literary definitions, these tales may not fall exactly in the precinct of short stories but each narrative offers a pleasant concoction of reality and imagination and can be called ruminations or reminiscences. At the most intimate and personal level, the book is a dialogue with nature and with his readers.
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Sumit Raj
Sumit was born at Shimla in 1967. His father, a railway engineer by profession also a well known Urdu poet under the pen name of Talat Irfani, was never interested in leaving Shimla. But because of his official transfers had to move first to Rohtak and then to Delhi. Sumit’s phase of academic education was spread over these three towns because of which despite being a nature lover and a writer on nature-based themes could not acquire the culture of big towns.
Shimla has always been his first love. After earning his Post Graduate Diploma in Tourism, he jumped into the field of Tourism and returned to the town he yearned for in 2000.
Now he tells stories, conducts walks, writes books on his travels, and runs an experience providing company to the visitors to the Indian Western Himalaya, is a Tour Companion on Himalayan Valleys outings and helps those British who return to Shimla looking for their family history. In his words, ‘It is impossible for me to live away from the mountains. Mountains travel like blood in my veins and when I inhale; they enter my mind and body.
