THE LAKE CITY-NAINITAL

MUKUL CHANDRA (160421)

Nainital is a Himalayan resort town in the Kumaon region of India’s Uttarakhand state, at
an elevation of roughly 2,000m. Formerly a British hill station, it’s set around Nainital Lake, a
popular boating site with Naina Devi Hindu
Temple on its north shore. A cable car runs
to Snow View observation point (at
2,270m), with vistas over the town and
mountains including Nanda Devi,
Uttarakhand’s highest peak.
My city Nainital is known for its
Tourism and its scenic beauty but beside this
there lie many amazing facts about it.
I want to tell you about how it name
was kept. It is believed that the Naini Lake
Figure 1 View from cheena peak Nainital
is one of the 64 Shakti Peeths, or religious
sites where parts of the charred body
of Sati (Parvati) fell on earth while being carried by Lord Shiva. The spot where Sati's eyes
(or Nain) fell, came to be called Nainital or lake of the eye. The goddess Shakti is worshiped at
the Naina Devi Temple, known by locals as Naini Mata Temple on the north shore of the present-
day lake.
There is famous Mall Road in Nainital which connects Mallital to Tallital. This is a two-
way road and one way is at higher elevation than others and it has a reason behind this. Britishers
used to rule in the city long back, they keep local Indians as slave and there was a hierarchy
established between the Britishers and Indian. They made separate road for Indians to travel which
was in lower elevation than the road the Britishers used to travel.
There is flat ground there used to be a lake. After the earthquake in 1880, there was a major
landslide, in which large chunks of the mountain surrounded the lake and the holy temple was also
affected. From ancient times, the Naina Devi temple has been situated on the banks of the lake, so
the temple was shifted a few meters away on the banks and the displaced debris from the mountain
was fashioned into the flat ground.
Famous Landmarks are Nainital Lake, Naini Peak, Tiffin Top, Snow view Point, Gurney
House, Gurdwara Singh Sabha, Naina Devi Temple, Cave Garden, Sat Tal, Mall Road, Pt. G.B.
Pant High Altitude Zoo, Nainital Tibetan Market, Himalaya Darshan St. John’s Church, Kilbury,
Thandi Road, High Altitude Zoo, Hanuman Garhi, Tibetan Market.