The Forest Research Institute

The Forest Research Institute

Finally, on my third visit to Dehradun, I make it to the Forest Research Institute. What an amazing place! While I had read that the building is quite impressive, I wasn't prepared to see what could be taken for an Indian version of the Chateau de Versailles essentially in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by gorgeous forests. It's a very impressive example of British Colonial architecture and building; an enormous structure, built entirely of red bricks. It is a vast structure, set in manicured lawns surrounded by forests. Dating from the beginning of the 20th century, the building covers an amazing 2.5 hectares just by itself. It is worth visiting for its own sake and there are some wonderful photo opportunities in the long arched colonnades.

The building houses several museums, which can be visited by purchasing a ticket from the princely sum of 25 rupees (about 50 cents). I buy a ticket and walk around the complex, losing myself in the many passageways and getting constantly distracted by the terrific perspective views everywhere.

The first of the museums I visit is the Sylviculture museum. I have never heard of sylviculture, but now I learn that it is essentially the science of improving forests through selective use plants and seeds. The room looks old fashioned, which it is. It is dominated by large dioramas in wooden cases with glass fronts. Each one represents an enormous amount of work by someone, depicting a scene of forest life, deforestation and so forth. Clever, but not really very exciting. More interesting is the stuffed tiger in a beautiful glass and wooden display box. There are a couple of round white mothballs at his feet and then I spot one in his mouth, which somehow takes away from his fierce look. It's a little like he's sucking on a lolly. There's also a large collection of old B&W photographs which have been hand-coloured. There's an interesting one titled "Australian exotics successfully introduced into India" showing a presumably British colonial forester wearing a pith helmet (they really did dress like that) standing underneath a large eucalyptus. I can't help wondering how "successful" eucalypts really are in India, and what their long-terms effects have been on the native forests. A little further along in a lovely hand-coloured photograph of a teak plantation with an Indian forester, stiffly standing to attention in his colonial uniform. I walk around, regretting the fact that none of the exhibits have any dates on them. Then I spot another photograph: "Effect of the frost of 1905, seen six years later". So now I have a date for these images; 1911.

Bright tops compensate for the drab uniform of these schoolgirls

A long line of schoolgirls shuffles through the museum, politely looking into all the display cases while secretly whispering and giggling with each other. I am guessing they may not be discussing the exhibits. Later I ask a couple of them which school they are from, and am quickly corrected: they are from a "college". A little later, one of their teachers asks me for directions (which I find quite amusing, given that I am as lost as they are, but as it happens, am heading for the same place). From her I learn that this is a nursing college and these girls (and in fact a couple of boys) are training to be nurses.

Next I visit the timber museum, which is much more to my liking. It's a large room, with three of the four walls lined with panels of wood from all the different types of trees in India. Each panel has a picture of the tree, and a sample of finished and unfinished wood. Wonderful. There's a large assortment of models of wood-drying kilns and the like. First I am impressed by a section of a 330-year old tree, but then I spot at the end of the room an enormous slice of tree, which is almost 800 years old, having been "born" in 1215 AD. The diameter of the tree is almost 3 metres! The explanations and markings on the cross-section state that the tree is 704 years old, so the exhibit itself dates from 1919.

At one end of the room are a couple of replica living rooms, built entirely from wood panelling, wooden floors, and lovely wooden furniture. Beautifully rich. In one of the rooms, there's a curious apparatus built into the sideboard. It's a rotating (wooden) drum that contains many cut-outs which hold glass plate photographs. It's internally lit and looks like some sort of slide display system; something that would predate slide projectors and of course television (and even commercial radio, for that matter) as a source of family entertainment perhaps.

Colours at the Forest Research Institute