Queen of hills, Shimla not only has been a big tourist attraction for ages but has also been known for stimulating literary nerves and inviting the writers and poets to station at this beautiful town and pen one of their best works. The city has been honouring these literary geniuses from the fields of literature, art, music, poetry, and freedom of expression every year by organising Shimla International Literary festival every year. The festival among others honoured the literary legends this year who have lived in this hilly town and created many literary marvels.
Rudyard Kipling and J.R.
Nobel Prize winner, short-story writer, and poet Joseph Rudyard Kipling had spent the majority of his time in the hills. His major writings, Plain Tales from The Hills, The Phantom Rickshaw and Other Tales, and Kim, are inspired by Shimla and describe the town in the nineteenth century.
Many of the sites depicted by Rudyard Kipling in his works are still what one can see in Shimla, but in an altered form.
Rabindranath Tagore
The author and composer of the national anthems of India and Bangladesh, Rabindranath Tagore moved to Woodfield in western Shimla in 1893 to live with his brother, Satyendranath (renowned for becoming the first Indian to join the ICS). Rabindranath Tagore used his time in Shimla to create picture puzzles. Apart from that, while at Woodfield, he produced several letters and eight poems, which were published in the Sonar Tari monthly.
Salman Rushdie
The majestic Himalayas provided peace for an Indian–American writer, Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie. He frequently visited the place near Shimla. Rushdie owns an ancestral property there. On April 13, 2000, Rushdie’s last visit to the place, he planned to turn the property into a writer’s residence or library for authors. Rushdie’s wish remains a dream.
Kushwant Singh
Kushwant Singh, an eminent author, journalist, and writer who refers to himself as a Half-Himachali, has lived his whole life in the Himachal Pradesh hill station known as Kasauli. According to Singh, who had written several volumes on jokes, the modest livelihood of the residents of the town inspired him to compose these jokes.
Bhisham Sahni
Bhisham Sahni, a Sahitya Academy winner and prolific writer of Hindi literature, was a scholar student at the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies in Shimla and was well known for his book and television script “Tamas.”
The snow-capped Himalayas, narrow paths, and deep woods of Shimla are thought to have influenced him to develop his fierce literary style.
There have been plenty of works with titles inspired by the town’s attractiveness in recent years.
Others, such as Barbara Cleverly, who used Shimla as the setting for her mystery novel Ragtime in Shimla, made the town a character in their work
A historic town and its relationship with literature is still intact.