The Warp & the Weft & A Pick- Independent Threads so Entwined.

The Warp: Chapslee Hotel - Conservation, preservation and a labour of love

This was the ultimate goal. The preservation of the family legacy. The maintenance of an ancestral home and a piece of history. The showcasing of a way of life; An era of gracious living. And so Reggie, the mentor and master of The Chapslee Experience, started Chapslee Hotel in 1976, which although registered as the 8th heritage hotel in India, was an exclusive home which he and Pronoti would share with their guests. This entire website speaks of Reggie’s, passion and hence it is left for the reader to judge the success of these endeavours.

The Weft: Chapslee School - Social responsibility.

An Illustrious family, an ancestral heritage, a life of entitlement. After independence, the eradication of poverty, illiteracy, social and economic backwardness for a young nation became the need of the hour. Thus it was only in the fitness of things that those who hitherto enjoyed a life of privilege should give back to society and contribute to the scheme of nation building. And what better way than by providing quality education and lighting the lamp of knowledge in children who were the agents of change.

Thus in 1973, only 2 years after the state of Himachal Pradesh came into being, Pronoti Singh decided to open Chapslee School in the premises of Chapslee Estate with just 3 children in two little rooms. Slowly and steadily as numbers increased, the old godowns and basements were converted into classrooms, the tennis court into a playground and soon the school began to grow from strength to strength. More importantly it was done in a manner that the premises of the house/hotel and the school remained independent and did not impinge on each other.

Given the key location location that Chapslee commands in the capital city of Shimla, the property could well have been put to far more lucrative use in terms of commercial space for offices, shops, eateries, or even residential units. Instead, the family resolved to hand over prime land to The Chapslee Educational Society for the expansion of Chapslee School with the income earned to be ploughed back entirely into the institution for its betterment and growth. In their view, this was the most befitting tribute to the family name and it’s age old legacy.

In the years that followed Chapslee School grew by leaps and bounds and needed more space. By this time Pronoti had inherited Northwood Estate from Mrs Hermoine Montagu where the campus of the senior school was set up. And so the school became a full-fledged educational institution from Kindergarten to Class XII. Reggie had already stepped in as Administrator while Pronoti continued to be the guiding light as Principal and later Director of the School.

As we speak today, Chapslee School, with the Junior School at Chapslee and the Senior School at Northwood, is one of the most prestigious educational institutions in Shimla. Established with the aim of providing affordable, quality and value based education it has over 1100 students and provides employment to nearly 75 teaching, administrative and subordinate staff.

Needless to say, the children of all the staff employed by Chapslee Hotel are provided free education at Chapslee School.

A Pick: The Naina Devi Foundation: A story of empowerment

What better single thread or ‘Pick’ to weave into the Chapslee Tapisserie than the story of Reggie’s mother Nilina, known to the world as Naina Devi, a doyen of Indian Classical music in the genre of Thumri, Dadra and Ghazal, awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India for her contribution to music.

She was born Nilina Sen, into an aristocratic family of Bengal whose patriarch was the famous Brahmo social reformer Keshab Chandra Sen. She had her early training in Hindustani Classical Music but when she was wedded into the royal family of Kapurthala as Rajkumar Rani Nilina Ripjit Singh, her life changed dramatically as she moved to her new home at Chapslee where the duties of the royal household and the demands of conservative protocol defined her space.

When she was widowed at an early age, she once again sought refuge in the world of music and out of her personal strife was born NAINA DEVI. She took to music at a time when the idea of a woman from a respectable family, let alone royalty, performing in public was unheard of. Not only did she take society head on she spent the rest of her life supporting poor and ailing musicians and especially women who were the greatest repositories of this genre but were considered socially untouchable. Apart from being an accomplished artist she was a benefactor and a devoted patron for which she expended all the energy and resources at her disposal.

After her demise in 1993, the family has set up the Naina Devi Foundation, to honour her memory and keep her legacy alive. In that spirit, the Foundation provides medical insurance to ailing and needy musicians and has regularly held festivals of classical music and workshops at Delhi as well as evenings of classical music at Chapslee for the people of Shimla. Furthermore, Chapslee School holds an annual talent contest for all school children of Shimla to encourage and inculcate a love for Classical music in our youth.