About the Book
Drawn from Ruskin Bond's life, Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra includes an assortment of delights that span the period from the author's childhood to the present. We are introduced, in a series of beautifully imagined and crafted cameos, to his family, friends and various other people who left a lasting impression on him. And we revisit Bond's beloved Garhwal hills and the small towns and villages that he has returned to time and again in his fiction.
With two new stories, 'The Bar That Time Forgot' and 'Desert Rhapsody', this enchanting collection resonates with the humour and tenderness that are the hallmarks of Bond's writing.
About the Author
Ruskin Bond's first novel, The Room on the Roof, written when he was seventeen, won the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize in 1957. Since then he has written several novellas (including Vagrants in the Valley, A Flight of Pigeons and Delhi Is Not Far), essays, poems and children's books, many of which have been published by Penguin India. He has also written over 500 short stories and articles that have appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies. He received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1993 and the Padma Shri in 1999.
Ruskin Bond was born in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh, and grew up in Jamnagar, Dehradun, Delhi and Shimla. As a young man, he spent four years in the Channel Islands and London. He returned to India in 1955 and has never left the country since. He now lives in Landour, Mussoorie, with his adopted family.
Introduction
It isn't many years since I left Maplewood, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the cottage has disappeared. Already, during my last months there, the trees were being cut and the new road was being blasted out of the mountain. It would pass just below the old cottage. There were (as far as I know) no plans to blow up the house; but it was already shaky and full of cracks, and a few tremors, such as those produced by passing trucks, drilling machines and bulldozers, would soon bring the cottage to the ground.
If it has gone, don't write and tell me: I'd rather not know.
When I moved in, it had been nestling there among the oaks for over seventy years. It had become a part of the forest. Birds nestled in the eaves; beetles burrowed in the woodwork; a jungle cat moved into the attic. Some denizens remained, even during my residence. And I was there-how long? Eight, nine years, I'm not sure; it was a timeless sort of place. Even the rent was paid only once a year, at a time of my choosing.
I first saw the cottage in late spring, when the surrounding forest was at its best-the oaks and maples in new leaf, the oak leaves a pale green, the maple leaves red and gold and bronze, turning to green as they matured; this is the Himalayan maple, quite different from the North American maple; only the winged seed-pods are similar, twisting and turning in the breeze as they fall to the ground, so that the Garhwalis call it the Butterfly Tree.
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