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Books for a Rainy Day

All Forest and PWD Rest Houses have Visitor Books, that are mines of information and provide great reading material on a rainy day or, glass in hand, relaxing before a log fire in the evening. Himachal Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh used to ask for the visitors book the first evening he reached any Rest House and woe betide the DFO or XEN who could not produce it.

I remember going through the Visitors Book of one remote FRH in Darjeeling Forest Division of West Bengal, wherein a Forest Officer had recorded in September, 1935 - " Spent four days confined to the Rest House. It has been raining incessantly. I have not been able to step out for a minute."

Thirty years later, his son, also a Forest Officer, had recorded, in July, 1965 - "Dad, it is still raining!"

As a Probationer, I had visited a remote FRH in Kotgarh Forest Division, and remember seeing a few lines of poetry penned in Rudyard Kipling's own hand. Years later, when I was posted as DFO Rampur, I tried to locate the Visitors Book, but could find no trace of it.

Such records should be given the care and respect accorded to rare manuscripts. They are records dating back a century or more, in some cases, and provide an insight to the diligence and mindset of foresters of yore ...

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