i have a penchant for such places. it is a kind of a throb that i feel. anthony: fond memories of british rule? maybe not what you d expect to hear. but kanwar ratanjit singh, that s reggie for short, his family was different. indian royalty with palaces, the one percent of the one percent. so life for reggie, as a young boy, was, relative to the millions and millions of others his age, enchanted. shimla is from a time before partition, when nearly the entire ruling class of
anthony: the monkey temple looks down on shimla. overrun by its namesakes. twisting up further into the himalayas, i find myself at a place known as the land of the gods . nearly every village credited with having its own deity. getting there you might well have an opportunity to meet one of those deities, as you tear around narrow, guardrail-free mountain roads, overlooking terrifying drop-offs. i could do heights, like, you know, i ve done the jumping out of planes thing a number of times. but i feel it. you know like, looking over a precipice like that one? i feel it in my knees. you know like if my knees could
anthony: what am i eating? this is eggs oeuf a la florentine. ooh, that s good. this was a small town. raaja: it was a small town with a very, very big government. rakejhwar: shimla enjoys the unique distinction of having been the summer capital of india, and surprisingly, it was the capitol of burma during the war days. raaja: so, here you have this tiny, little village up on the hill, connected to the rest of the world by a narrow mountain path, and they rule approximately a fifth of the human race for eight months every year. in today s context, it would almost seem bizarre. thank you. anthony: mulligatawny soup. classic example of what we think of as indian food in the west, but not at all, this was