Title: Scenes from the Magic Mountain: Five Seasons in the Mussoorie Hills and Beyond
Author: Ruskin Bond
Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books
Introduction
Sixty-one years ago, almost to the month, I made the highland of Mussoorie in the Garhwal foothills my home. It was a sunny afternoon, and by my side was a gentle-faced elderly lady—a bit of a loner by circumstance, like me. I had mentioned in passing that I wanted to shift from Delhi, where I had been living somewhat unhappily for a couple of years, and she was showing me the vacant upper floor of her home—an old, isolated cottage at the edge of a forest of oak and maple, green, red and gold. You couldn’t see the Himalayas, or the Doon Valley below, for the cottage was tucked away in the shadow of a hill. But it was spring and when I opened the window of the small living room, the forest seemed to rush upon me, as if in welcome. And from the deep ravine rose the sweet, haunting call of the Himalayan whistling thrush. That decided it for me—the forest, which seemed full of possibilities, and the birdsong. I moved into the cottage—it was called Maplewood Lodge—and settled for good in these hills.
I was still young, and in my romantic frame of mind, I was susceptible to magic casements opening wide. I decided I would make a window-seat and lie there on a summer’s day, writing lyric poetry…But long before that could happen I was opening tins of sardines and sharing them with Miss Bean, the elderly lady who continued to live in the rooms below me. It was a solidarity of the indigent! I went away from the hills at times, but returned as soon as possible, and when I had to leave Maplewood, I rented other homes, each one old and modest, but always with a view.
Once you have lived with the mountains, you can never leave. You belong to them.
Sometimes it is hard to believe that I have been up here all these years—sixty summers and monsoons and winters, and the short autumns and even shorter Himalayan springs (there is no real spring in the plains). When I look back, it seems like yesterday when I first came up with my meagre belongings and a head full of dreams. I like to think that I have become a part of this Magic Mountain; that by living here for so long, I can claim a relationship with the trees, wild flowers, even the rocks that are an integral part of this landscape. I am too old now to walk among the noble oaks and deodars and the ancient pines, but I feel their presence at all times. The wind brings me their words of wisdom and encouragement when my spirits are low, and their benediction when I give of myself freely in love and friendship. They have seen these hills change and yet remain the same through countless seasons—renewing and healing themselves and all the life that lives upon and within them.
p. 52-53
Maplewood Lodge, Mussoorie.
The summer of 1963.
The forest is still silent, until the cicadas start tuning up for their performance. On cue, like a conductor, a bird perched high in the branches of a spruce tree begins its chant. Umeew—umeew!
The forest begins to pulse with the hypnotic buzzing of the cicadas.
Big white ox-eye daisies grow on the hillside. The sorrel—almora grass—has turned red. I sit in my garden, contemplating my old Olympia typewriter. Still writing stories, still trying to sell them.
As a boy, loneliness. As a man, solitude.
And loneliness was not of my seeking. The solitude I sought. And found.
I am to spend many summers in this cottage. Mornings in the sun, evenings in the shadows.
Some mornings, I carry my small table, chair and typewriter out on to the knoll below one of the oaks and take a little help from the babblers and bulbuls that flit in and out of the canopies of leaves. White-hooded babblers; yellow-bottomed bulbuls. Never still for a moment, they help me with my punctuation.
For dialogue I depend more on the crickets, cicadas and grasshoppers who keep up a regular exchange, debating the issues of the day. But for reflective and descriptive writing I look into the distance, at the purple hills merging with the azure sky; or I examine a fallen leaf as it spirals down from the tree and settles on the typewriter keys. The summer sun bathes everything with clear, warm light. Somewhere high up on the hills, cows are grazing. I don’t see them, but I hear the bells tied around their neck.
I write in leisure. There is no hurry.
p. 125
Maplewood. Early October, and the hill slopes are showing off their post-monsoon foliage in a variety of hues: dahlias gone wild in shades of mauve, magenta and startling red; tall cosmos swaying in the breeze; wild geranium tucked away among the ferns; asters flourishing on retaining walls; and bronzed chrysanthemums vying for attention with massive marigolds. On the knoll, the grass is just beginning to turn October yellow. The first clouds approaching winter cover the sky. The trees are very still. The birds are silent. Only a cricket keeps singing on the oak tree. Gardens both natural and man-made are at their best in the brief autumn before Diwali.
The sun goes down with a lot of fuss. First a fiery red, and then in waves of pink and orange as it slides beneath the small clouds that wander about on the horizon. The brief Autumn twilight of northern India passes like a shadow over the hills, and dusk gives way to darkness. Sometimes, I’ll step outside to watch the sunset, and to see a lamp came on in Miss Bean’s sitting room below mine, followed by the veranda light. An atmosphere of peace and harmony descends on the hillside.
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ABOUT THE BOOK
Ruskin Bond has spent a lifetime paying attention to the seasons of the hills—watching their arrivals and departures, their repetitions and small variations, the ways in which they shape both landscape and daily life. He’s written of spring’s first leaves and tentative warmth; the long, insect-filled days of summer; the monsoon’s rain, mist, and abundance; autumn’s burnished light and ripening fruit; winter’s cold silences and snow-laden trees; and finally, the eternal season—the quiet renewal that begins where all endings meet.
In Scenes from the Magic Mountain, he gathers his writings and remembered moments across these six seasons, observing the natural world—along forest paths, during walks, storms, solitary afternoons, and shared silences. Birds and trees, rain and light, houses, animals, neighbours, and memories pass through these pages without hurry.
Thoughtful, attentive and reflective, Scenes from the Magic Mountain offers the seasons not as events to be marked, but as a way of living in time. A companion for slow reading, this is a book to return to across the year, as the seasons turn and return again.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ruskin Bond was born in Kasauli in 1934, and grew up in Jamnagar, Dehradun, Delhi and Shimla. He is the author of over a hundred books of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Among them are The Room on the Roof, A Flight of Pigeons, The Blue Umbrella, A Book of Simple Living, Friends in Wild Places and Lone Fox Dancing. He received the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 1956, the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1993, the Padma Shri in 1999 and the Padma Bhushan in 2014.
He lives in Landour, Mussoorie with his adopted family.
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