A Book of Simple Living Read online

  I don’t think I could have got through life without the company of flowers. They sustain and stimulate. My desk is just a place of work until Beena or one of the children places a vase of flowers upon it, and then it becomes a place of delight. Be it a rose or a chrysanthemum or a simple daisy, it will help me in my work. The flowers are there to remind me that life has its beautiful moments.

  My preference, though, is for wild flowers. Most things that will not be tamed are more appealing than those that are eager to please. When I step out for one of my walks, I look for wild flowers, even the most humble of flowers hiding on the hillside. And if don’t know their names, I invent their names, because it’s nice to know someone by his or her name.

  An amateur botanist I know is dismissive of the names I have invented. ‘The correct name,’ he begins in his learned, unbending manner—and then he utters many complex and unpronounceable scientific words. Is it any surprise that flower enthusiasts like me blunder when it comes to distinguishing types and families of flowers?

  Botanists have done their best to intimidate and confuse the nature lover. But we should not allow ourselves to be discouraged; we have as much right to the enjoyment of wild flowers as they.

  So I will disregard the botanist and I will go looking for the pretty flower that I have named Merry Heart. It is always nodding and dancing in the breeze. It is a happy flower, deserving of a happy, light name.

  There’s beauty in the sight of things, in the sound of things. And, in the clear air of the mountains, there’s beauty in the smell of things.

  I like the smell of certain leaves, even more than the scent of flowers. Crushed geranium and chrysanthemum leaves, mint and myrtle, lime and neem trees after rain, and the leaves of ginger, marigolds and nasturtiums, and fallen pine needles.

  When I lie on summer grass in some Himalayan meadow, I am conscious of the many good smells around me—the grass itself, redolent of the morning’s dew, bruised clover, wild violets, tiny buttercups and golden stars and strawberry flowers and many others I shall never know the names of (which makes the fragrance sweeter).

  And the earth itself. It smells different in different places. But its loveliest fragrance is known only when it receives a shower of rain. And then the scent of the wet earth rises as though it would give something beautiful back to the clouds. A blend of all the fragrant things that grow upon it.

  I remember an aunt who sometimes came to stay with my grandmother, and who had an obsession about watering the flowers. She would be at it morning and evening, an old and rather lopsided watering can in her frail hands. To everyone’s amazement, she would water the garden in all weathers, even during the rains.

  ‘But it’s just been raining, Aunt,’ I would remonstrate. ‘Why are you watering the garden?’

  ‘The rain comes from above,’ she would reply. ‘This is from me. They expect me at this time.’

  In a month of fluctuating moods, some of the things I have enjoyed:

  Three bright orange nasturtiums taking the sun at my window.

  Two women, seen from a distance, chattering and laughing under a walnut tree.

  Tuning in at random to a BBC request programme and hearing Nelson Eddy sing ‘Rose Marie’.

  Watching little Shrishti grow quite pretty.

  Getting a cheque in the mail.

  We shall not spoil what we have by desiring what we have not, but remember that what we have too was the gift of fortune.

  —Epicurus

  Epicurus gave us the word epicurean, denoting a love of the good things in life, and presumably he enjoyed the best of all possible worlds, or else he would not be so uncomplaining.

  Good fortune is usually passed on to us by our forebears, who have made fortunes by dint of hard work and by ‘desiring what they have not’; and so Epicurus, dear man, was talking a lot of rubbish.

  To be born in a hovel is not the gift of fortune; to grow up hungry is not the gift of the gods. It is only by desiring what we have not, and striving for it, that we have any chance of sharing in that good fortune which may have been ‘gifted’ to the lucky few.

  What we should worry about is not desiring what we have not, but desiring too much, and desiring only for ourselves.

  Holi brings warmer days, ladybirds, new friends. And trees in new leaf.

  I love the pine, but my guide is the hospitable deodar tree. It allows other things to grow beneath it, and it tolerates growth upon its trunk and branches—moss, ferns, small plants.

  I may not have contributed anything towards the progress of civilization, but neither have I robbed the world of anything. Not one tree or bush or bird or flower. Even the spider on my wall is welcome to his space.

  I’m watching the stars from my window. Every time I see the sky I am aware of belonging to the universe rather than to just one corner of the earth.

  And in the silence that settles in the hills at night, the smallest sounds become clear—a field mouse rustling through dry leaves, a seed falling, and the drip of the dew running off the roof.

  If I am lucky, I see the moon coming up silently over the far mountains.

  There are moments that come to each of us, moments when we feel deeply moved or inspired, when time seems to stand still and we become acutely aware of the benediction of sun and wind and trees. Then heaven is here, compensating for the irritations and disasters that we build around ourselves each day.

  And heaven seems to turn up when we least expect it. Many years ago, I gave up a good job in Delhi and came to live in the Mussoorie hills, partly because I love mountains and forests, partly because I wanted to devote more time to writing, and partly because I knew, instinctively, that I would find companionships here that would endure. I lived at the edge of a forest of oak and maple. I was happy among trees but the full magic of a tree was only brought home to me some years later, when I was visiting the plains.

  I was walking through a stretch of wasteland, a desert that seemed to stretch endlessly across a wide, flat plain. Just as I was beginning to find the heat and the glare a little discouraging, I saw a tree, just one small, crooked tree shimmering in the distance. And seeing it there all by itself, but growing stubbornly where other trees would not grow, I was filled with love and admiration for it. When I reached the tree, I found that it had given shelter to other small plants from the sun. A pair of parrots emerged from a hole in the tree trunk and flew across the plain, flashes of red and green. Finding that tree there, struggling on its own but giving life to other things, was like finding a bit of heaven where I least expected it.

  Almost always, it’s the unexpected that delights us, that takes us by the throat and gives us a good shaking, leaving us gaping in wonder. It may only be a shaft of sunlight slanting through the pillars of a banyan tree or dewdrops caught in a spider’s web or, in the stillness of the mountains, clear, sweet birdsong or the sudden chatter of a mountain stream as one rounds the bend of a hill.

  These little miracles don’t happen especially for us. Sunlight will filter through leaves, dew will settle on a spider’s web, birds will sing and a mountain stream bubble and chatter even when there is no one around to see or hear. All that is in our power is to be there. To be there, wherever we are.

  The wind in the pines and deodars hums and moans, but in the chestnut it rustles and chatters and makes cheerful conversation. The horse chestnut in full leaf is a magnificent sight.

  If you have the ability, or rather the gift, of being able to see beauty in small things, then old age should hold no terrors.

  I do not have to climb a mountain peak in order to appreciate the grandeur of this earth. There are wild dandelions flowering on the patch of wasteland just outside my windows. A wild rose bush will come to life in the spring rain, and on summer nights the honeysuckle will send its fragrance through the open windows.

  I do not have to climb the Eiffel Tower to see a city spread out before me. Every night I see the lights of the Doon twinkling in the valley below; each ni
ght is a festive occasion.

  I do not have to travel to the coast to see the ocean. A little way down the Tehri road there is a tiny spring, just a freshet of cool, clear water. Further down the hill it joins a small stream, and this stream, gathering momentum, joins forces with another stream, and together they plunge down the mountain and become a small river and this river becomes a bigger river, until it joins the Ganga, and the Ganga, singing its own song, wanders about the plains of India, attracting other rivers to it bosom, until it finally enters the sea. So this is where the ocean, or part of it began. At that little spring in the mountain.

  I do not have to take passage to the moon to experience the moonlight. On full-moon nights, the moon pours through my windows, throwing my books and papers and desk into relief, caressing me as I lie there, bathing in its glow. I do not have to search for the moon. The moon seeks me out.

  All this, and more, is precious, and we do not wish to lose any of it. As long as our faculties are intact, we do not want to give up everything and everyone we love. The presentiment of death is what makes life so appealing; and I can only echo the sentiments of the poet Ralph Hodgson:

  Time, you old gypsy man,

  Will you not stay,

  Put up your caravan

  Just for one day?

  Night.

  Glow-worms shine fitfully in the dark. The night is full of sounds—the tonk-tonk of a nightjar, the cry of a barking-deer, the shuffling of porcupines, the soft flip-flop of moths beating against the windowpanes. On the hill across the valley, lights flicker in the small village—the dim lights of kerosene lamps swinging in the dark; there has been no power since the afternoon’s storm.

  The full moon rides high, shining through the tall oak trees near the window. And floating across the valley from your village, my lost friend, the sound of drums, beating. I hope I dream of you tonight. I may have stopped loving you, but I will never stop loving the days I loved you.

  Sometimes it is hard to believe that I’ve been up here in the hills all these years—fifty summers and monsoons and winters and Himalayan springs (there is no real spring in the plains)—because when I look back to the time of my first coming here, it seems like yesterday.

  That probably sums it all up. Time passes, and yet it doesn’t pass; people come and go, the mountains remain. Mountains are permanent things. They are stubborn, they refuse to move. You can blast holes out of them for their mineral wealth; or strip them of their trees and foliage, or dam their streams and divert their currents; or make tunnels and roads and bridges; but no matter how hard they try, humans cannot actually get rid of the mountains. That’s what I like about them; they are here to stay.

  I like to think that I have become a part of this mountain, this particular range, and that by living here for so long, I am able to claim a relationship with the trees, wild flowers, even the rocks that are an integral part of it. Yesterday, at twilight, when I passed beneath a canopy of oak leaves, I felt that I was a part of the forest. I put out my hand and touched the bark of an old tree, and as I turned away, its leaves brushed against my face, as if to acknowledge me.

  The beginning of spring. The sun pouring into my room brings with it a delicious warmth. My bones, muscles, arteries, nerves, all feel relaxed, such a relief after three months of wincing from the cold. A girl from Kerala drops in for a chat, bringing with her all the warmth of the South.

  Outside, small trees and shrubs are in new leaf; tiny flowers appear on the retaining walls and here and there there’s a touch of green; butterflies appear from nowhere. A mynah bird alights on the window sill, delivers a short speech, waits for me to nod my approval and takes off.

  Spring is the time of life renewed, the mynah said. The time of a green and reviving earth, of nesting and mating and birth. Of hope.

  Hope! Yes, it is the season of hope—the season when, like the unfurling leaf, we are reaching for something beyond ourselves.

  It is spring and the sap is rising.

  I feel it too, old as I am. I would like nothing better than to hold someone warm and beautiful in my arms, once again. Am I asking for too much? Well, one can always dream… No one can take our dreams away!

  And until death comes, all is life.

  Bright red

  The poinsettia flames,

  As autumn and the old year wanes.

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  Version 1.0

  ePub ISBN 978-81-930710-3-8

  Copyright © Ruskin Bond 2015

  Ruskin Bond has asserted his right under the Copyright Act 1957 to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in India in 2015 by

  Speaking Tiger Books

  4381/4, Ansari Road

  Daryaganj, New Delhi-110002

  India

  www.speakingtigerbooks.com

  ISBN 978-81-930710-0-7 (Hardback)

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