ANDRETTA ICONS OF INDIA

An idyllic village in the heart of Himachal Pradesh is - at a passing glance indistinguishable from the rest of the state. But this village has been the muse and home to many of Indian's most acclaimed artistic minds as experienced by Dipayan Dutta

- Dipayan Dutta

Hidden away in the heart of Himachal's Kangra valley, set to the tea gardens and the snow-covered peaks of the Dhauladhar range is a little-known and seldom talked about town called Andretta. The name itself all but gives it away. This quaint little hamlet is anything but just another Himalayan village, despite being visually indistinguishable at first glance. This little town though, forgotten in time, was the melting pot for some of the most acclaimed minds in theatre, art and pottery over the last century. To this day Andretta stands out as something of an epicentre for many a cultural renaissance.

This was not a story worth telling unless experienced first hand. So we loaded up the Hyundai Verna and set off to find the idyllic creative paradise. It stood out that such a significant cultural and social brewing had gone almost unnoticed and it was our duty to unearth this icon that has been sitting in plane sight for the better part of a century.

In the 1920s, when the British Empire was waning, a spirited Irish woman named Norah Richards embarked on a remarkable journey to Andretta astride a horse. Yet, this wasn't her first affair with India. Having tied the knot with Philip Richards, a professor in Lahore, in 1908, Norah had a significant role in establishing Punjabi theatre in the city. She later returned to England after her husband's passing. The tale weaves a narrative of a discontented Norah yearning for her Indian abode. Fate had her cross paths with an Englishman willing to part with a piece of Kangra land for a mere one rupee. She seized the opportunity and boarded the next ship to India, bidding a final farewell to her English homeland. Whether she ever set foot on the land she acquired remains a mystery. Still, Norah found herself in Andretta, an off-thegrid village accessible only through a gruelling journey: a 12-hour train ride, followed by a bus trip, and several miles traversed on foot or horseback.