Once You Have Lived with Mountains, by Ruskin Bond.

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Once You Have Lived with Mountains,

by Ruskin Bond.

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Most of it is relaxing to read, pleasant and clear, much like the mountain landscapes he writes about.

Suddenly there's a disturbing sensation that remains after one is finished reading - it's that he says of his contemporaries naming two, that unlike them he doesn't write to please everyone. That leaves a sensation not unlike expecting to eat a nice milk pudding and having a stone crunch in your teeth.

What's much more questionable is the juxtaposition of Forsyth and Sheldon, the two he names. Its not so much that the two have little in common, it chiefly that Forsyth's work evidently needs and takes a lot more than trying to please anyone. And the other is not on the same planet, much less category.

So the pleasure that one anticipated, is spoiled due to this one sentence he could easily have deleted, or at least found other names that one could smile at and let go.

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Landour Bazaar

Tales of Old Mussoorie

On Fairy Hill

And Now We Are Twelve

Friends of My Youth

A Good Place for Trees

Up the Spiral Staircase

Love and Cricket

Kipling’s Simla

Sacred Shrines Along the Way

A Village in Garhwal

The Dehra I Know

Joyfully I Write

Things I love most

Best of All Windows

The Gentle Nights Befriend Me

Once You have Lived with Mountains

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Reviews

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Introduction

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" ... In London, I once lived in a small attic, and a few similarly claustrophobic years in Delhi as well, for ‘Once You Have Lived with the Mountains’ it is not easy to live elsewhere. I longed to return to the hills and live in a place with windows facing beautiful views. ... "

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January 17, 2022 - January 17, 2022

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Landour Bazaar

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" ... From Mussoorie to Chamba, a distance of some 35 miles, the road seldom descends below 7,000 ft, and there is a continual vista of the snow ranges to the north, and valleys and rivers to the south. ... "

"Through a gap in the rows of buildings I can see Pari Tibba outlined in the moonlight. A greenish phosphore-scent glow appears to move here and there about the hillside. This is the ‘fairy light’ that gives the hill its name Pari Tibba, Fairy Hill. ... "

"Although the shopkeepers and tradesmen are fairly prosperous, the hill people—those who come from the surrounding Tehri and Jaunpur villages—are usually poor. Their small holdings and rocky fields do not provide them with much of a living, and men and boys have to often come into the hill station or go down to the cities in search of a livelihood. They pull rickshaws, or work in hotels and restaurants. Most of them have somewhere to stay."

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January 17, 2022 - January 17, 2022

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Tales of Old Mussoorie

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" ... One of the remarkable features of the Himalayas is the abruptness with which they rise from the plains, and this gives them a verdure that is totally different from that of the plains.

"None of the common trees of the plains are to be found in the hills. At elevations of 4,000 ft, the long-leaved pine appears. From 5,000 ft there are several kinds of evergreen oak, and above 6,000 ft you find rhododendron, deodar, maple, the hill crypress, and the beautiful horse-chestnut. Still higher up, the silver fir is common; but at 12,000 ft the firs become stunted and dwarfed, and the birch and juniper replace them. At this height raspberries grow wild, amongst yellow colt’s-foot dandelion, blue gentian, purple columbine, anemone and edelweiss.

"Not every hillside is covered with foliage. Many hills are bare and rugged, too precipitous for cultivation. Sometimes they are masses of quartz, limestone or granite."

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January 17, 2022 - January 17, 2022

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On Fairy Hill

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"Those little green lights that I used to see, twinkling away on Pari Tibba—there had to be a scientific explanation for them, I was sure. ... "

"After some time I stood up and surveyed the scene. To the north, Landour with its rusty red-roofed cottages; to the south, the wide valley and a silver stream flowing towards the Ganga. To the west, rolling hills, patches of forest, and a small village tucked into a fold of the mountain."

"I am sitting at my window in the gathering dark, penning these stray thoughts, when I see them coming—hand in hand, walking on a swirl of mist, radiant, suffused with all the colours of the rainbow. For a rainbow has formed a bridge from them, from Pari Tibba, to the edge of my window."

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January 17, 2022 - January 17, 2022

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And Now We Are Twelve

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"My first name was Owen, which in Welsh means ‘brave’. As I am not in the least brave, I have preferred not to use it. One given name and one surname should be enough.

"When my granny said, ‘But you should try to be brave, otherwise how will you survive in this cruel world?’ I replied: ‘Don’t worry, I can run very fast.’

"Not that I’ve ever had to do much running, except when I was pursued by a lissome Australian lady who thought I’d make a good, obedient husband. It wasn’t so much the lady I was running from, but the prospect of spending the rest of my life in some remote cattle station in the Australian outback. Anyone who has tried to drag me away from India has always met with stout resistance."

"Apart from these and a few other colourful characters, the area was inhabitated by some very respectable people, retired brigadiers, air marshals and rear admirals, almost all of whom were busy writing their memoirs. I had to read or listen to extracts from their literary efforts. This was slow torture. A few years before, I had done a stint of editing for a magazine called Imprint. It had involved going through hundreds of badly written manuscripts, and in some cases (friends of the owner!) rewriting some of them for publication. One of life’s joys had been to throw up that particular job, and now here I was, besieged by all the top brass of the Army, Navy and Air Force, each one determined that I should read, inwardly digest, improve, and if possible find a publisher for their outpourings. Thank goodness they were all retired. I could not be shot or court-martialled. But at least two of them set their wives upon me, and these intrepid ladies would turn up around noon with my ‘homework’—typescripts to read and edit! There was no escape. My own writing was of no consequence to them. I told them that I was taking sitar lessons, but they disapproved, saying I was more suited to the tabla."

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January 17, 2022 - January 17, 2022

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Friends of My Youth

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"Sudheer"

" ... Although I was three or four years older than Sudheer, he was much stronger, being about six foot tall and broad in the shoulders. His parents had come from Bhanu, a rough and ready district on the North-West Frontier, as a result of the partition of the country. His father ran a small press situated behind the Sabzi Mandi and brought out a weekly newspaper called The Frontier Times."

" ... I agreed to help with the newspaper for a couple of hours every morning. This involved proofreading and editing news agency reports. Uninspiring work, but useful."

"The Royal Cafe Set"

"Suresh spent whatever cash came his way, and borrowed more. He had an advantage over the rest of us—he owned an old bungalow, inherited from his father, up at Rajpur in the foothills, where he lived alone with an old manservant. And owning a property gave him some standing with his creditors. The grounds boasted of a mango and lichi orchard, and these he gave out on contract every year, so that his friends did not even get to enjoy some of his produce. The proceeds helped him to pay his office rent in town, with a little left over to give small amounts on account to the owner of the Royal Café."

" ... William Matheson had everything going for him from the start, when he came out to India as an assistant to Von Hesseltein, correspondent for some of the German papers. Von Hesseltein passed on some of the assignments to William, and for a time, all went well. William lived with Von Hesseltein and his family, and was also friendly with Suresh, often paying for the drinks at the Royal Café. Then William committed the folly (if not the sin) of having an affair with Von Hesseltein’s wife. Von Hesseltein was not the understanding sort. He threw William out of the house and stopped giving him work."

"And there was old Colonel Wilkie, living on a small pension in a corner room of the White House Hotel. His wife had left him some years before, presumably because of his drinking, but he claimed to have left her because of her obsession with moving the furniture—it seems she was always shifting things about, changing rooms, throwing out perfectly sound tables and chairs and replacing them with fancy stuff picked up here and there. If he took a liking to a particular easy chair and showed signs of setting down in it, it would disappear the next day to be replaced by something horribly ugly and uncomfortable."

"‘BIBIJI’"

"She was, in fact, my Punjabi stepfather’s first wife. ... "

"I had just started freelancing from Dehra and was not keen on joining my mother and stepfather in Delhi. When ‘Bibiji’—as I called her—offered me a portion of her flat on very reasonable terms, I accepted without hesitation and was to spend the next two years above her little shop on Rajpur Road. Almost fifty years later, the flat in still there, but it is now an ice cream parlour! Poetic justice, perhaps."

"Bibiji and Mrs Singh both made plans to get me married. When I protested, saying I was only twenty-three, they said I was old enough. Bibiji had an eye on an Anglo-Indian schoolteacher who sometimes came to the shop, but Mrs Singh turned her down, saying she had very spindly legs. Instead, she suggested the daughter of the local padre, a glamourous-looking, dusky beauty, but Bibiji vetoed the proposal, saying the young lady used too much make-up and already displayed too much fat around the waistline. Both agreed that I should marry a plain-looking girl who could cook, use a sewing machine, and speak a little English.

"‘And be strong in the legs,’ I added, much to Mrs Singh’s approval."

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January 17, 2022 - January 17, 2022

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A Good Place for Trees

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"As my father had told me, Dehra was a good place for trees, and Grandmother’s house was surrounded by several kinds—peepul, neem, mango, jackfruit, papaya and an ancient banyan tree. Some of the trees had been planted by my father and grandfather."

"The banyan tree grew behind the house. Its spreading aerial roots which descended into the ground formed a number of twisting passageways in which I liked to wander. The tree was older than the house, older than my grandparents, as old as Dehra. I could hide myself among the roots, behind thick green leaves, and spy on the world below.

"It was an enormous tree, about 60 feet high, and the first time I saw it I trembled with excitement because I had never seen such a marvellous tree before. I approached it slowly, even cautiously, as I wasn’t sure the tree wanted my friendship. It looked as though it had many secrets. There were sounds and movement in the branches, but I couldn’t see who or what made the sounds.

"The tree made the first move, the first sign of friendship. It allowed a leaf to fall.

"The leaf brushed against my face as it floated down but before it could reach the ground I caught and held it. I studied the leaf, running my fingers over its smooth, glossy surface. Then I put out my hand and touched the rough bark of the tree and this felt good to me. So I removed my shoes and socks, as people do when they enter a holy place, and finding first a foothold and then a handhold on that broad trunk I pulled myself up with the help of the tree’s aerial roots.

"As I climbed, it seemed as though someone was helping me, that invisible hands, the hands of the spirit in the tree, touched me and helped me climb.

"But although the tree wanted me, there were others who were disturbed and alarmed by my arrival. A pair of parrots suddenly shot out of a hole in the trunk and, with shrill cries, flew across the garden, flashes of green and red and gold. A squirrel looked out from behind a branch, saw me, and went scurrying away to inform his friends and relatives.

"I climbed higher, looked up, and saw a red beak poised above my head. I shrank away, but the hornbill made no attempt to attack me. He was relaxing in his home, which was a great hole in the tree trunk. Only the bird’s head and massive beak were showing. He looked at me in a rather bored way, sleepily opening and shutting his eyes."

" ... I moved away from the hornbill, crawled along a branch and so moved quite a distance from the main body of the tree. I left its cold, dark depths for an area penetrated by shafts of sunlight.

"No one could see me. I lay flat on the broad branch hidden by a screen of leaves. People passed by on the road below. ... "

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January 17, 2022 - January 17, 2022

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Up the Spiral Staircase

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"We lived in an old palace beside a lake. The palace looked a ruin from the outside, but the rooms were cool and comfortable. We lived in one wing, and my father organized a small school in another wing. His pupils were the children of the raja and the raja’s relatives. My father had started life in India as a tea planter; but he had been trained as a teacher and the idea of starting a school in a small state facing the Arabian Sea had appealed to him. The pay wasn’t much, but we had a palace to live in, the latest 1938 model Hillman to drive about in, and a number of servants. In those days, of course, everyone had servants (although the servants did not have any). Ayah was our own; but the cook, the bearer, the gardener and the bhisti were all provided by the state."

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January 17, 2022 - January 17, 2022

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Love and Cricket

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" ... "I relaxed in the easy chair of the hotel’s garden restaurant, here I was an occasional customer. Sweet-peas filled the air with their heady perfume. Snapdragons snapped in the mid-March sunshine. A carpet of soft pink phlox was soothing to the eyes. New Delhi in the spring is kind to flower gardens."

"Twenty years ago we had held hands and walked barefoot across the grass on the little hillock overlooking the stream that tumbled down to Mossy Falls. I still have photographs taken that day. Her cousin had gone paddling downstream, looking for coloured pebbles, and I had taken advantage of his absence by kissing her, first on the cheeks, and then, quite suddenly, on the lips."

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January 17, 2022 - January 17, 2022

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Kipling’s Simla

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"Every March, when the rhododendrons stain the slopes crimson with their blooms, a sturdy little steam engine goes huffing and puffing through the 103 tunnels between Kalka and Simla. This is probably the most picturesque and romantic way of approaching the hill station although the journey by road is much quicker.

"The train journeys taken to Simla stand out in my memory—the little restaurant at Barog, just before we get to Dharampur, where the roads for Sanawar and Kasauli branch off; and the gorge at Tara Devi, opening out to give the weary traveller the splendid and uplifting panorama of the city of Simla straddling the side of the mountain."

"Simla is worth a visit at any time of the year, even during the monsoon. The monsoon season is one of the most beautiful times of the year in the Himalayas, with the mist trailing up the valleys, and the hill slopes, a lush green, thick with ferns and wild flowers. The call of the kastura, or whistling thrush, can be heard in every glen, while the barbet cries insistently from the treetops."

"Simla has a special place in my heart. It was there that I went to school, and it was there that my father and I spent our happiest times together."

" ... He told me stories of phantom rickshaws and enchanted forests and planted in me the seeds of my writing career. I was only ten when he died. But he had already passed on to me his love for the hills. And even after I had finished school and grown to manhood, I was to return to the hills again and again—to Simla and Mussoorie, Himachal and Garhwal—because once the mountains are in your blood, there is no escape. Simla beckons. I must return. And, like Kim, I will take the last bend near Summer Hill and look up and exclaim: ‘Ah! What a city!’"

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January 17, 2022 - January 17, 2022

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Sacred Shrines Along the Way

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"Nandprayag: Where Rivers Meet"

"As for Nandprayag, perhaps I’d been there in some previous existence, I felt I was nearing home as soon as we drove into this cheerful roadside hamlet, some little way above the Nandakini’s confluence with the Alakananda river. A prayag is a meeting place of two rivers, and as there are many rivers in the Garhwal Himalayas, all linking up to join either the Ganga or the Jamuna, it follows that there are numerous prayags, in themselves places of pilgrimage as well as wayside halts enroute to the higher Hindu shrines at Kedarnath and Badrinath. Nowhere else in the Himalayas are there so many temples, sacred streams, holy places and holy men. Some little way above Nandprayag’s busy little bazaar is the tourist rest-house, perhaps the nicest of the tourist lodges in this region. It has a well-kept garden surrounded by fruit trees and is a little distance from the general hubbub of the main road."

"Along the pilgrim path are several handsome old houses, set among mango trees and the fronds of the papaya and banana. Higher up the hill the pine forests commence, but down here it is almost subtropical. Nandprayag is only about 3,000 feet above sea level—a height at which the vegetation is usually quite lush provided there is protection from the wind."

"Now, once again, while I sit on the lawn surrounded by zinnias in full bloom, I am teased by that feeling of having been here before, on this lush hillside, among the pomegranates and oleanders. Is it some childhood memory asserting itself? But as a child I never travelled in these parts.

"True, Nandprayag has some affinity with parts of the Doon valley before it was submerged by a tidal wave of humanity. But in the Doon there is no great river running past your garden. Here there are two, and they are also part of this feeling of belonging. Perhaps in some former life I did come this way, or maybe I dreamed about living here. Who knows? Anyway, mysteries are more interesting than certainties. ... "

"The Magic of Tungnath"

"The temple of Tungnath, at a little over 12,000 feet, is the highest shrine on the inner Himalayan range. It lies just below the Chandrashila peak. Some way off the main pilgrim routes, it is less frequented than Kedarnath or Badrinath, although it forms a part of the Kedar temple establishment. The priest here is a local man, a Brahmin from the village of Maku; the other Kedar temples have South Indian priests, a tradition begun by Sankaracharya, the eighth century Hindu reformer and revivalist.

"Tungnath’s lonely eminence gives it a magic of its own. To get there (or beyond), one passes through some of the most delightful temperate forest in the Garhwal Himalaya. Pilgrim, or trekker, or just plain rambler such as myself, one comes away a better person, forest-refreshed, and more aware of what the world was really like before mankind began to strip it bare.

"Duiri Tal, a small lake, lies cradled on the hill above Okhimath, at a height of 8,000 feet. It was a favourite spot of one of Garhwal’s earliest British Commissioners, J.H. Batten, whose administration continued for twenty years (1836–56)."

"He wrote "

" ... The next morning when the sun appeared, the Chaukhamba and many other peaks extending as far as Kedarnath seemed covered with a new quilt of snow, as if close at hand. The whole scene was so exquisite that one could not tire of gazing at it for hours. ... "

" ... Duiri Tal is still some way off the beaten track, and anyone wishing to spend the night there should carry a tent; but further along this range, the road ascends to Dugalbeta (at about 9,000 feet) where a PWD rest house, gaily painted, has come up like some exotic orchid in the midst of a lush meadow topped by excelsia pines and pencil cedars. Many an official who has stayed here has rhapsodized on the charms of Dugalbeta; and if you are unofficial (and therefore not entitled to stay in the bungalow), you can move on to Chopta, lusher still, where there is accommodation of a sort for pilgrims and other hardy souls. ... "

"The trek from Chopta to Tungnath is only three and a half miles, but in that distance one ascends about 3,000 feet, and the pilgrim may be forgiven for feeling that at places he is on a perpendicular path. Like a ladder to heaven, I couldn’t help thinking."

"A tiny guardian-temple dedicated to Lord Ganesh spurred us on. Nor was I really fatigued; for the cold fresh air and the verdant greenery surrounding us was like an intoxicant. Myriads of wildflowers grow on the open slopes-buttercups, anemones, wild strawberries, forget-me-not, rock-cress-enough to rival Bhyundar’s ‘Valley of Flowers’ at this time of the year.

"But before reaching these alpine meadows, we climb through rhododendron forest, and here one finds at least three species of this flower: the red-flowering tree rhododendron (found throughout the Himalaya between 6,000 feet and 10,000 feet); a second variety, the almatta, with flowers that are light red or rosy in colour; and the third chimul or white variety, found at heights ranging from between 10,000 and 13,000 feet. The chimul is a brush-wood, seldom more than twelve feet high and growing slantingly due to the heavy burden of snow it has to carry for almost six months in the year.

"These brushwood rhododendrons are the last trees we see on our ascent, for as we approach Tungnath the tree line ends and there is nothing between earth and sky except grass and rock and tiny flowers. ... "

"When we arrived, clouds had gathered over Tungnath, as they do almost every afternoon. The temple looked austere in the gathering gloom."

"On Shivratri or Night of Shiva, the true believer may, ‘with the eye of faith’, see the lingam increase in size; but ‘to the evil-minded no such favour is granted’. The temple, though not very large, is certainly impressive, mainly because of its setting and the solid slabs of grey granite from which it is built. ... "

" ... We are halfway down the Tungnath ‘ladder’ when it begins to rain quite heavily. And now we pass our first genuine pilgrims, a group of intrepid Bengalis who are heading straight into the storm. They are without umbrellas or raincoats, but they are not to be deterred. Oaks and rhododendrons flash past as we dash down the steep, winding path. ... "

"Tungnath, as yet unspoilt by a materialistic society, exerts its magic on all who come here with an open mind and heart."

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January 17, 2022 - January 17, 2022

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A Village in Garhwal

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"Through the open window, I focus on a pattern of small, glossy lime leaves; then through them I see the mountains, the furthest Himalayas, striding away into an immensity of sky.

"‘In a thousand ages of the gods I could not tell thee of the glories of Himachal.’ So confessed a Sanskrit poet at the dawn of Indian history. ... "

" ... I see a small river, a tributary of the Ganga, rushing along the bottom of a steep, rocky valley. On the banks of the river and on the terraced hill above are small fields of corn, barley, mustard, potatoes and onions. A few fruit trees, mostly apricot and peach, grow near the village. Some hillsides are rugged and bare, masses of quartz or granite. On hills exposed to the wind, only grass and small shrubs are able to obtain a foothold.

"This landscape is typical of Garhwal, one of India’s most northerly regions, with its massive snow ranges bordering on Tibet. ... "

" ... Lansdowne, chief recruiting centre for the Garhwal Rifles. Garhwal soldiers distinguished themselves fighting alongside British troops in both the World Wars, and they still form a high percentage of recruits to the Indian Army. ... "

"Lansdowne is just over 6,000 ft in altitude. From there we walked some twenty-five miles between sunrise and sunset, until we came to Manjari village clinging to the terraced slopes of the Dudhatoli range."

"He is an expert on wild fruit: the purple berries of the thorny kingora (barberry) ripening in May and June; wild strawberries like drops of blood on the dark green monsoon grass; sour cherries, wild pears and raspberries. Chakradhar’s strong teeth and probing tongue extract whatever tang or sweetness lies hidden in them. In the spring there are the rhododendron flowers. His mother makes them into jam, but Chakradhar likes them as they are. He places the petals on his tongue and chews till the sweet juice trickles down his throat. He has never been ill."

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January 17, 2022 - January 17, 2022

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The Dehra I Know

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"It was very different from the Dehra Dun of today—much smaller, much greener, considerably less crowded; sleepier too, and somewhat laid-back, easy-going; fond of gossip, but tolerant of human foibles. A place of bicycles and pony-drawn tongas. Only a few cars; no three-wheelers. And you could walk almost anywhere, at any time of the year, night or day.

"The Dehra I knew really fell into three periods. The Dehra of my childhood, staying in my grandmother’s house on the Old Survey Road (not much left of that bungalow now). The Dehra of my schooldays, when I would come home for the holidays to stay with my mother and stepfather—a different house on almost every visit, right up until the time I left for England. And then the Dehra of my return to India, when I lived on my own in a small flat above Astley Hall and wrote many of my best stories."

"When I was a boy, many of the bungalows (such as the one built by my grandfather) had fairly large grounds or compounds—flower gardens in front, orchards at the back. Apart from lichees, the common fruit trees were papaya, guava, mango, lemon, and the pomalo, a sort of grapefruit. Most of those large compounds have now been converted into housing-estates. Dehra’s population has gone from fifty thousand in 1950 to over seven lakh at present. Not much room left for fruit trees!"

"There was a wild flower, a weed, that grew all over Dehra and still does. We called it Blue Mint. It grows in ditches, in neglected gardens, anywhere there’s a bit of open land. It’s there nearly all the year round. I’ve always associated it with Dehra. The burgeoning human population has been unable to suppress it. This is one plant that will never go extinct. It refuses to go away. I have known it since I was a boy, and as long as it’s there I shall know that a part of me still lives in Dehra."

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January 17, 2022 - January 17, 2022

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Joyfully I Write

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"Writers are often chided for repeating themselves. Artists and musicians are given more latitude. No one criticized Turner for painting so many sunsets at sea, or Gauguin for giving us all those lovely Tahitian women; or Husain, for treating us to so many horses, or Jamini Roy for giving us so many identical stylized figures.

"In the world of music, one Puccini opera is very like another, a Chopin nocturne will return to familiar themes, and in the realm of lighter, modern music the same melodies recur with only slight variations. But authors are often taken to task for repeating themselves. They cannot help this, for in their writing they are expressing their personalities. Hemingway’s world is very different from Jane Austen’s. They are both unique worlds, but they do not change or mutate in the minds of their author-creators. Jane Austen spent all her life in one small place, and portrayed the people she knew. Hemingway roamed the world, but his characters remained much the same, usually extensions of himself."

"I am not, by nature, a gregarious person. Although I love people, and have often made friends with complete strangers, I am also a lover of solitude. Naturally, one thinks better when one is alone. But I prefer walking alone to walking with others. That ladybird on the wild rose would escape my attention if I was engaged in a lively conversation with a companion. Not that the ladybird is going to change my life. But by acknowledging its presence, stopping to admire its beauty, I have paid obeisance to the natural scheme of things of which I am only a small part."

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January 17, 2022 - January 17, 2022

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Things I love most

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"Sea-shells. They are among my earliest memories. I was five years old, walking barefoot along the golden sands of a Kathi-awar beach, collecting shells and cowries and taking them home to fill up an old trunk. Some of these shells have remained with me through the years. I still have one which I place against my ear to listen to the distant music of the Arabian Sea.

"A jackfruit tree. It stood outside my grandfather’s house in Dehra Dun: it was easy to climb and generous with its shade and in its trunk was a large hole where I kept my marbles, sweets, prohibited books and other treasures.

"I have always liked the smell of certain leaves, perhaps even more than the scent of flowers. Crushed geranium and chrysanthemum leaves, mint and myrtle, lime and neem trees after the rain, and the leaves of ginger, marigolds and nasturtiums."

"As a boy, I travelled to Shimla on a little train that crawls round and through the mountains. In March, the Dowers on the rhododendron trees provided splashes of red against the dark green of the hills. Sometimes there would be snow on the ground to add to the contrast."

"In the hills, I have loved forests. In the plains, I have loved single trees. A lone tree on a wide, flat plain—even if it is a thin, crooked, nondescript tree—gains beauty and nobility from its isolation, from the precarious nature of its existence.

"Of course, I have had my favourites among trees. The banyan, with its great branches spreading to form roots and intricate passageways. The peepul with its beautiful heart-shaped leaves catching the breeze and fluttering even on the stillest of days. It is always cool under a peepul. The Jacaranda and Gulmohar bursting into blossom with the coming of summer. The cherries, peaches and apricots flowering in the hills—the tall, handsome chestnuts and the whispering deodars.

"Deodars have often inspired me to poetry. ... "

"The smell of the sea. I lived with it for over a year in the Channel Islands, I liked the sea mist and liked the fierce gales that swept across the islands in the winter."

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January 17, 2022 - January 17, 2022

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Best of All Windows

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"Train windows, naturally, have no equal when it comes to views, especially in India, where there’s an ever-changing panorama of mountain, forest and desert, village, town and city, along with the colourful crowds at every railway station."

"I found my present abode, a windswept, rather shaky old house on the edge of a spur. My bedroom window opened on to blue skies, mountains striding away into the far distance, winding rivers in the valley below, ... "

"When the monsoon rains arrive, the window has to be closed, otherwise cloud and mist fill the room, and that isn’t good for my books. But the sky is even more fascinating at this time of the year. From my desk I can, at this very moment, see the clouds advancing across the valley, rolling over the hills, ascending the next range. Raindrops patter against the windowpanes, drum on the corrugated iron roof. The mynas line up on the window-ledge, waiting for the rain to stop.

"And when the shower passes and the clouds open up, the heavens are a deeper, darker blue. Truly magic casements these… For every time I see the sky I am aware of belonging to the universe rather than to just one corner of the earth."

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January 17, 2022 - January 17, 2022

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The Gentle Nights Befriend Me

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"Here in Landour, India, on the first range of the Himalayas, I have grown accustomed to the night’s brightness—moonlight, starlight, lamplight, firelight! Even fireflies and glowworms light up the darkness."

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January 17, 2022 - January 17, 2022

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Once You have Lived with Mountains

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"It was while I was living in England in the jostle and drizzle of London, that I remembered the Himalayas at their most vivid. I had grown up amongst those great blue and brown mountains, they had nourished my blood, and though I was separated from them by thousands of miles of ocean, plain and desert, I could not forget them. It is always the same with mountains. Once you have lived with them for any length of time, you belong to them. There is no escape."

" ... boom of the Ganges emerging from the foothills. I remembered a little mountain path which led my restless feet into a cool sweet forest of oak and rhododendron and then on to the windswept crest of a naked hilltop. The hill was called Cloud’s End. It commanded a view of the plains on one side, and of the snow peaks on the other. Little silver rivers twisted across the valley below, where the rice fields formed a patchwork of emerald green. And on the hill itself the wind made a ‘hoo-hoo-hoo’ in the branches of the tall deodars where it found itself trapped. During the rains, clouds enveloped the valley but left the hills alone, an island in the sky. Wild sorrel grew among the rocks, and there were many flowers—convolvulus, clover, wild begonia, dandelion—sprinkling the hillside."

"No one lived on the hill, except occasionally a coal-burner in a temporary grass thatched hut. But villagers used the path for grazing their sheep and cattle on the grassy slopes. Each cow or sheep had a bell suspended from its neck to let the shepherd boy know its whereabouts.

"The boy could then lie in the sun and eat wild strawberries without fear of losing his animals. I remembered some of the shepherd boys and girls. There was a boy who played the flute. Its rough, sweet, straightforward notes travelled clearly through the mountain air. He would greet me with a nod of his head, without taking the flute from his lips."

" ... These things I remembered—these, and the smell of pine needles, the silver of oak leaves and the red of maple, the call of the Himalayan cuckoo, and the mist, like a wet face-cloth, pressing against the hills."

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January 17, 2022 - January 17, 2022

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Published by

Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd

2017

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January 17, 2022 - January 17, 2022

Purchased January 10, 2022.

Kindle Edition, 134 pages

Published August 1st 2017

by Rupa Publications India

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0747NKLBQ

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Publisher ‏ : ‎ Rupa Publications India (1 August 2017)

Language ‏ : ‎ English

ISBN:- 8129148331

(ISBN13:- 9788129148339)

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https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4483689252

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Reviews - Books I Read - DRJG

Tuesday, January 18, 2022

Once You Have Lived with Mountains, by Ruskin Bond.

Light Explodes Across Heavens

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