Mint fresh and crisp, proudly showcasing the misty Kausani
hills painted blue and pale, and the name ‘Ruskin Bond’ printed in white, the
book (or rather its cover) was not to be left in the bookstore shelf where we
first met – it was love at first sight.
Casual browsing made me pat myself for getting a good catch
and ever since the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (last book
in the series) I don’t remember waiting this eager to read a book. But this
book, unlike HP is not to be rushed through. It is to be enjoyed like a good
wine, be at peace, take a sip, savour its flavour, feel its warmth go down your
throat to the soul.
The book is a collection of 40+ essays, all about Indian
Hills – mighty Himalayas as well as the Western Ghats, by writers, both Indian
and foreign, including the eminent gems like Rabindranath Tagore, Jawaharlal
Nehru, Khushwanth Singh, Jim Corbett and John Lang. It would be unfair not to
mention about the plasticised shining middle pages dedicated to exquisite
photos that capture the indescribable beauty of the hills, which added to the
charm the book held.
These 40+ essays are not all describing the beauty of the
hills which we cannot hear enough, but some of it are from authors who belong
to the hills, who lived there with all hardships and not just as a summer
visitor.
When we broadly categorise the essays as from foreign and
Indian authors, the main difference seen is that Indian writers write with a
touch of love, treating the hills like something very precious and close to
their heart, while most of the foreign authors (mostly members of the Raj,
spending their summers or vacations there) put in a lot of words to pour what
their eyes saw; one fails to connect with those words, which, like their
creators stands alien. Few exceptions to these are Jim Corbett, Francis
Younghusband, Nicholas Roerich etc.
There are some stunning pieces of work especially one from
Rabindranath Tagore, another from his nephew Abanindranath Tagore, one chapter
about Kinnaur by Vijay Prakash Singh and another on his prison days in the
foothills in Dehradun jail by Jawaharlal Nehru are a few handpicked favourites.
The way these artists talk about the hills, its beauty, warmth, coolness,
wilderness, trees, forests, birds, squirrels with full of love and passion, one
doubts whether the hills itself are more beautiful or their words!
The “beauty” part aside, some essays discuss other serious
topics, like in the chapter Fire! By Ursula Graham Bower, the author describes
a forest fire she was a part of, in Imphal and the horrors it left behind.
Pushpesh Pant, a leading expert in Indian cuisine writes about the harsh winter
and food scarcity in the hills. Going through his essay “Mountains and
memories’ one gets to know how food was never treated as a luxury but a bare
necessity in the hills.
On another note, Bill Atkein lays out his spiritual journey
and how he permanently displaced to the Himalayas in the chapter ‘Binsar and
Beyond”. There is Siddharth Pandey expressing his views on how all the hill
stations have been associated with femininity from long back and there is
Ganesh Saili with the mandatory writing on ‘spirits’ ‘prets’ and ‘ghosts’ in
the hills.
Then there is an eye-opener and self-check essay
‘Sanatorium’ by Mihir Vatsa in which the author accurately briefs his condition
of depression and his soul-searching journey when he returns to his home at
Hazaribargh, the land of thousand gardens, where he recovers and finds peace.
There is also an article by Shashwathi Thalukdae which looks
into the cultural importance of the “hill stations”, how these were built for
the Raj and/or for the foreign missionaries to serve their purpose, how (like
in all colonial stories) the natives were pushed back and denied of their
rightful place while invaders invented a ‘home away from home’, and how this
recreation contributes to the Gothic architecture associated with hills even
today.
Overall, the book, though a tad big, is worth the time you
spend and is a good read for sure. The editors Ruskin Bond and Bulbul Sharma
has done justice to picking up the works, which is not a surprise owing their
undying love for the mountains, clearly expressed through their share of words
in the book.
There are a number of noteworthy excerpts, some of which
are:
“The blue of the sky has trickled down the mountains
slope, the blue of the mountain has spread itself on the edge of the forest,
the blue of the forest is moving across the sandy bed dreaming of the endless
water of the ocean”.
-- Abanindranath Tagore
“The cultivation of usefulness produces an enormous
amount of failure, simply because in our avidity we sow seeds so closely”.
– Rabindranath Tagore
“Why is that almost every hill station has a suicide point? What terrors and pains could not be soothed by the serenity of the hills?” -- Vijay Prakash Singh
