Editorial: Festive Lights, Lasting Wounds - Cost of Winter Cheer

Shimla Dec 31 Ritanjali Hastir

There is an old saying—there is no free lunch. Every celebration extracts a price, even when it is hidden behind music, lights, and applause.

As the Shimla Winter Carnival nears its end and another New Year stands at the threshold, the city once again prepares to bid farewell to the old year. The festive lights glow, cameras click, and the hills briefly feel alive with spectacle. Yet, as has happened before, the cost of this winter cheer has once again been paid not by planners or visitors, but by the trees.

Across the city, decorative lights have been fixed by hammering nails directly into living trunks—piercing bark that took decades to grow. This is not symbolism; it is physical damage. Iron nails driven into trees in the name of beauty, leaving wounds that do not disappear when the lights are taken down. Last time, the issue drew sharp criticism and even national attention. This time, it has returned quietly, scaled down perhaps, but unchanged in intent.

The uncomfortable question remains: where does the environment stand in all this? The damage is visible, the method unchanged, yet the voices that once objected are missing. Where are the environmentalists this time?

For tourists, Shimla is a seasonal experience—a few days of winter charm before moving on. For residents, it is home. When the floating population leaves and the carnival is dismantled, it is the city’s ecology that stays behind, absorbing the consequences. Trees scarred by nails, roots stressed by infrastructure, and a fragile mountain environment pushed a little closer to exhaustion.

The signs are already visible. Winters no longer feel the same. A white Christmas has become memory rather than expectation. Climate patterns no longer follow rhythm or reassurance. And yet, year after year, celebration is repeated with the same disregard, as if lessons were never written.

This is not an argument against culture, festivals, or joy. It is a call for responsibility. Celebration does not require cruelty, and beauty does not demand damage. When nails are hammered into trees, the message is clear: convenience has been placed above conscience.

When the lights are finally switched off and the carnival fades into history, the trees will remain—bearing scars of a season they never consented to. What lingers is not festivity, but a quiet reminder that progress without sensitivity is just another form of loss.

*Video is taken on Dec 31, 2025 : The famous Chinar Tree On Ridge