If you're someone who is fascinated by the blueness of the mountains as I am, then you'll find many a reason to stop and stare (if Davies fuels your thought), while in Simla. Also called Shimla by the locals, some of its yesteryear charm lives on - in is colonial lodges, wooden cottages and charming alleyways - from the time it has inspired Rudyard Kipling's Kim.

And I took a summer break there to discover that the hill station is alive with more than the sound of music, today.An hour or so later I decided to make a trip to the place where the action was: Mall Road, a pedestrian promenade (every hill station up north really, has one by th same name), and being the advent of summer this was a jamboree of everyone from honeymooners to Himachalis (as they call themselves).