Ruskin Bond - A Book of Simple Living: Brief Notes from the Hills

Mist fills the Himalayan valleys, and monsoon rain sweeps across the hills. Sometimes, during the day, a bird visits mea deep purple whistling thrush. She perches on the window sill, and looks out with me at the rain.

This personal diary records the many small moments that constitute a life of harmonywith the self, the natural world, and friends, family and passersby. In these pages, we watch a wild plum blossom and the moon come up between two deodar trees; we hear a redstart whistle and the rain drum on a tin roof; we recognize the aftermath of loss and the consolation of old companions.

A Book of Simple Living is a gift of beauty and wisdom from Indias most loved, and most understated, writer.

Ruskin Bond was born in Kasauli in 1934. He grew up in Jamnagar, Dehradun and Shimla, worked briefly in Jersey, London and Delhi, and moved to Mussoorie in the early 1960s to write full time.

One of India's best loved and most popular authors, Ruskin Bond has written over a hundred books of fiction, non-fiction and poetry, including the best-selling classics Room on the Roof (winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize), A Flight of Pigeons, The Blue Umbrella, Time Stops at Shamli, Night Train at Deoli, Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra (winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award) and Rain in the Mountains. He was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India in 1999 and the Padma Bhushan in 2014.

A Book of Simple Living

In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.

Leo Tolstoy

After all, it is a good thing to laughand if a straw can tickle a man, it is an instrument of happiness.

John Dryden

Introduction

W hat have I learnt after eighty years on planet earth? Quite frankly, very little. Dear reader, dont believe the elders and philosophers. Wisdom does not come with age. Maybe it is born in the cradlebut this too is conjecture. I only know that for the most part I have followed instinct rather than intelligence, and this has resulted in a modicum of happiness. You will find your own way to this reward, which is in the end the only reward worth having. All that this book can do is to show you that there was a fellow traveller.

To have got to this point in life without the solace of religion says something for all the things that have brought me joy and a degree of contentment. Books, of course; I couldnt have survived without books and stories. And companionshipwhich is sometimes friendship, sometimes love and sometimes, if we are lucky, both. And a little light laughter, a sense of humour. And, above all, my relationship with the natural worldup here in the hills; in the dusty plains; in a treeless mohalla choked with concrete flats, where I once found a marigold growing out of a crack in a balcony. I removed the plaster from the base of the plant, and filled in a little earth which I watered every morning. The plant grew, and sometimes it produced a little orange flower, which I plucked and gave away before it died.

This much I can tell you: for all its hardships and complications, life is simple. And a nature that doesnt sue for happiness often receives it in large measure.

Was it accidental, or was it ordained, or was it in my nature to arrive unharmed at this final stage of lifes journey? I love this life passionately, and I wish it could go on and on. But all good things must come to an end, and when the time comes to make my exit, I hope I can do so with good grace and humour.

But there is time yet, and many small moments to savour.

Landour, Mussoorie RUSKIN BOND

New Years Day, 2015

A small ginger cat arrives on my terrace every afternoon, to curl up in the sun and slumber peacefully for a couple of hours.

When he awakes, he gets on his feet with minimum effort, arches his back and walks away as he had come. The same spot every day, the same posture, the same pace. There may be better spotssunnier, quieter, frequented by birds that can be hunted when the cat is rested and restored. But there is no guarantee, and the search will be never-ending, and there may rarely be time to sleep after all that searching and finding.

It occurs to me that perhaps the cat is a monk. By this I do not mean anything austere. I doubt anyone in single-minded pursuit of enlightenment ever finds it. A good monk would be a mild sort of fellow, a bit of a sensualist, capable of compassion for the world, but also for himself. He would know that it is all right not to climb every mountain.

A good monk would know that contentment is easier to attain than happiness, and that it is enough.

A nd what of happiness, then?

Happiness is a mysterious thing, to be found somewhere between too little and too much. But it is as elusive as a butterfly, and we must never pursue it. If we stay very still, it may come and settle on our hand. But only briefly. We must savour those moments, for they will not come our way very often.

A cherry tree bowed down by the nights rain suddenly rights itself, flinging pellets of water in my face. This, too, is happiness.

M ist fills the Himalayan valleys, and monsoon rain sweeps across the hills. Sometimes, during the day, a bird visits mea deep purple whistling thrush, hopping about on long dainty legs, peering to right and left, too nervous to sing. She perches on the window sill, and looks out with me at the rain. She does not permit any familiarity. But if I sit quietly in my chair, she will sit quietly on her window sill, glancing quickly at me now and then just to make sure that Im keeping my distance. When the rain stops, she glides away, and it is only then, confident in her freedom, that she bursts into full-throated song, her broken but haunting melody echoing down the ravine.

A squirrel comes, too, when his home in the oak tree gets waterlogged. Apparently he is a bachelor; anyway, he lives alone. He knows me well, this squirrel, and is bold enough to climb on to the dining table looking for tidbits, which he always finds, because I leave them there. Had I met him when he was a youngster, he would have learned to eat from my hand, but I have only been in this house a few months. I like it this way. Im not looking for pets; it is enough that he seeks me out when he wants company.

A cold, cold January. There is a blizzard. The storm rages for two dayshowling winds, hail, sleet, snow. The power goes out. Theres coal to burn but it is hardly enough. Worst weather that I can recall in this hill station. Sick of it. Why do I stay here?

In March, theres gentle weather at last. Peach, plum and apricot trees in blossom, birds making a racket in the branches. So this is why I stay.

A s I walked home last night,

I saw a lone fox dancing

In the cold moonlight.

I stood and watched; then

Took the low road, knowing

The night was his by right.