Shimla
Baba Bhalku Smriti Kalka Shimla Sahitya Rail Yatra organized by Himalaya Sahitya Sanskriti Evam Paryavaran Manch on 12th and 13th April, 2025. 33 writers from different parts of the country will participate. Bhalku’s family members will be felicitated. All the writers will be felicitated and welcomed by Himachal at Shimla Railway Station.
The very popular Baba Bhalku Smriti Kalka Shimla Sahitya Rail Yatra organized by Himalaya Sahitya Sanskriti Evam Paryavaran Manch is being organized this time on 12th and 13th April, 2025 in which 33 writers from different parts of the country are participating. This time the Department of Language and Culture is also giving partial support for the journey. On April 12, the writers will go from Shimla to Barog and return to Shimla in the evening. On the second day, this journey by bus will go from Kufri Chail to Bhalku’s ancestral village Jhajha where the writers will meet Bhalku’s family members and will also felicitate them. The writers will also visit the Hiareas Hotel complex of Himachal Tourism Development Corporation in Chail. This information was given by the President of Himalaya Sahitya Manch, S.R. Harnot informed the media today. He informed that on the second day of the train journey, a seminar will be organized in Jhajha village in which senior artist writer B R Mehta along with Bhalku’s sixth generation relatives Durga Dutt, Kanti Thakur, Ramswaroop Thakur and Sushil Kumar Thakur will be honored for the important work of preserving Bhalku’s memories. The writers do this journey with mutual cooperation but the railways provide great support in organizing the journey. Northern Railway’s Divisional Railway Manager Ambala Mr. Vinod Bhatia will organize this event with special guidance and Railway Officer Gaurav Saxena and Shimla Railway Station Station Superintendent Sanjay Gera and Station Master Joginder Singh Bohra will cooperate. Kalka Shimla Railway started on 9 November 1903 and in the year 2008 it was declared a heritage railway by UNESCO. This 96 km long narrow gauge line from Kalka to Shimla reaches Shimla passing through 103 small and big tunnels. There are 869 bridges and 919 turnouts on this track. There are 12 popular stations from Kalka to Shimla. This toy train passing through hilly villages and forests of deodar and ban is a wonderful blend of natural beauty.
S.R. Harnot informed that Himalaya Manch is organizing this journey every year since 2017 which is dedicated to the labourers working in the Hindustan Tibet Road during the British period along with Bhalku labourer and the heritage Kalka Shimla Railway. Bhalku was an illiterate labourer with divine powers who played an important role in the construction of Hindustan Tibet Road from Shimla to Kinnaur and helped in building many bridges on Sutlej. Later when the British failed in the survey of the track for the Kalka Shimla Railway, Bhalku not only did the survey from Parwanoo to Shimla but also played a major role in the construction of the longest tunnel like Barog. This was the reason that the railways also established a museum in the memory of Bhalku near the Old Bus Stand. The link road with Mashobra which goes towards Theog is named Bhalku Road. The main attraction of this journey is the literary seminars in the moving train and bus.
Among the writers participating in the journey are Prof. Hubnath Singh, Raman Mishra, Dr. Arjun Parat, Dr. Pramod Yadav, Dr. Shashi Srivastava from Mumbai, E. S. P. Singh from Patna, Bihar, Madhur Kulshreshtha and Neelam Kulshreshtha from Guna, Madhya Pradesh, Rajesh Arora from Kanpur, Harish Monga from Ferozepur, Sunaini Sharma from Chandigarh, Seema Gautam from Kiratpur, Punjab, Priyamvada Sharma from Sundar Nagar, Rachna Pathania from Kangra, Anil Sharma Neel from Bilaspur, Anju Anand from Solan, Jagdish Bali and Hitendra Sharma from Kumarsain, Dr. Vijay Laxmi Negi, Anil Shamsheri, Daksh Shukla, Sneh Negi, Jagdish Kashyap, Lekhraj Chauhan, Deepti Saraswat, Dr. Dev Kanya Thakur, Vandana Rana, Hemlata Sharma, Shanti Swaroop Sharma, Virendra Kumar, Jagdish Gautam and Yadav Chand from Shimla.
