When you travel in the hills and mountains of India it is not uncommon to find the ruins from the late colonial era. The British tended to gravitate to the cooler regions of these higher elevations when possible. Often that meant that the administrative apparatus would go into very long breaks in the two warm seasons (summer and Indian summer). When the Raj collapsed, they sold what they could and moved back to the Old Blighty. What they couldn’t, slowly fell into ruin as the country reverted to its normal way of life.
Just past the bazaar in Mukteshwar I came to one such set of buildings: a late colonial barracks. Mukteshwar was perhaps at its bustling busiest in the 1920s. There had been continuous growth since the beginning of the 20th century until the Black Tuesday market crash in New York. Arguably, the punitive taxes imposed by Britain on its colonies in the aftermath of the crash led to the invigoration of the independence movement, and Britain’s eventual exit from India. But this past is a prologue to the sunny day on which I took these photos and wondered what could happen to this row of two-room apartments, each separated from its neighbour by just one wall. I suppose it will be torn down, and the stones reused to build something more suited to today.
Perhaps the most dispiriting aspect of these old barracks was the miserly view they gave of the beautiful vistas behind them: the high Himalayas on one side, this lovely forest on the other. I left the ruins behind and followed the road, under the deodars and the firs, into a land full of the sounds of insects and birds.
Don't hold your breath 
it must be so cool to see these ruins in person – thanks for the brief history lesson too
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You’re welcome. I find my appreciation of any old thing improves with the context.
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Interesting ruin, though not as picturesque as some of the red tile roof bungalow ruins we see in the hills, probably because this was a barrack and not a house.
Is the roof broken in, maybe I see some debris inside from the window? Or was it left unconstructed?
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The roof was made of corrugated metal sheets. I think the wooden beams which held it up would have collapsed. I could see some of the debris. The doors and windows have been torn from their frames.
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