Summer vacation - these two words filled us with unrestricted joy as we raced home from our last day in school and even the bulging homework diary failed to dampen our spirits. We romped up and down the house often getting in the way of our mother, as she packed up the stuff that would accompany us on the seasonal summer move to the hills.
Decades later, having become a father and then a grandfather, I kept up this tradition, but avoided making Murree our destination because of the chaotic crush of young holidaymakers and their juvenile merrymaking. Our lovely house in Sunny Bank having been sold, we found a quiet secluded commercial residential facility in Bhurban and made it our retreat for a fortnight, instead of the memorable three months of my childhood.
The British hill stations that fell to Pakistan’s lot on independence were of two main types. First, there were hot weather cantonments or camps that either housed training schools or army units that moved up from the plains to escape the ravages of heat and cholera outbreaks. These were relatively small in size and consisted of training, parade and sports grounds, offices, stores, barracks, bungalows, an officers’ mess, an infirmary and a bazaar. Cliffden Camp, Kuldana, Jhika Gali, Upper and Lower Topa, Gharial Camp, Bhurban, Barian Camp and Nathia Gali belonged to this category.
Then there were the larger stations, complete with many mini city frills, which also served as summer seats of district or provincial governments. The most prominent of these were Murree and Abbottabad. All these places continue to be functional to this day, thanks to the army and air force and their penchant for restoring old billets.
Of the aforementioned places, Bhurban became famous, thanks to a 1960s Pakistani movie starring the movie icon Nayyar Sultana, whose role as a ‘ghost’ gave rise to a popular rumour featuring ‘Bhurban ki Rani’ - a spectral figure that roamed the densely forested slopes in the area.
The story also spawned one of the most elaborate and successful practical jokes played by pranksters in my family on one of their cousins. It was during one of our summer jaunts to the area that this hapless young man received a mobile phone message from a hidden number seeking urgent help and imploring him to come to a remote rendezvous. There followed a barrage of messages indicating that the sender was a young female in dire need of help. Then a chilling SMS was received to the effect that the sender was young local girl, who had been molested and killed by two British soldiers in the years before 1947 and that she now desired this young man to exhume her remains that lay concealed in the nearby forest for a proper burial. The pranksters went to the extent of first commandeering the car key of their distraught and by now scared cousin and then asking him to go to the bazaar and get a pack of playing cards. A search for the missing key was launched and everyone pitched in to try their hand at unlocking the doors. It was now that the coup de grâce was delivered through another message from the ghostly female saying that she had the power to unlock his car, but would not do so because tragedy awaited him if he drove out now. By now, the recipient was thoroughly convinced that a paranormal entity had attached itself to him and escape was impossible. It was at this point that we decided to end the show and rolling with mirth, revealed the truth. Needless to say that overwhelmed with relief, the young man readily agreed to take all of us to a sumptuous dinner.
Talking of dinner, if you are ever around Kashmiri Bazaar small community astride the main road in Bhurban, do not hesitate to try the sajji and karhai prepared by a small scruffy-looking establishment known as Punjab Tikka House. These two items on this restaurant’s menu are simply out of this world - and who knows that while you are busy enjoying your dinner, you may for one fleeting moment see a white-robed ethereal figure flit through the dark recesses of the forest below you.

The writer belongs to a very old and established family of the Walled City. His forte is the study of History.