Clippety-clop, clippety-clop… the beat of a horse’s hooves breaks the stillness of a tiny hamlet in the Himalayas. It is the sound of the curtain rising on a real-life adventure, as an Irish actress named Norah Richards rides into a village called Andret. PREMIUM A room at The Mirage, a homestay built in Andretta in 1948. It housed Prithviraj Kapoor’s drama teacher, Jai Dayal. The two would spend years in Andretta, immersed in theatre, before Kapoor moved on to make films, and make history, in Bombay. (Courtesy The Mirage) It sits about 45 km from Dharamshala, in Himachal Pradesh. Soon after she arrives, in 1924, it will be rechristened Andretta and transformed into a haven for artists from around the world, including potters, musicians, writers, actors, a drama teacher named Jai Dayal and his young student, a future auteur named Prithviraj Kapoor. The haven still stands, 100 years on. It still hosts artists, and now draws tourists on artistic pilgrimage too. But let’s start at the beginning. Richards first moved from England to India with …