YESTERDAY I DREAMED AGAIN THAT I WAS LOST IN A LARGE city of blinding lights and traffic. I was feeling quite helpless, until a small boy took my hand and led me to the safety of these mountains that I know so well. I wanted him to stay—I was certain I knew him—but he turned and walked away, whistling, hands in the pockets of his khaki shorts, and as I called out to ask his name, I woke up.
Outside the window at the foot of my bed, it was still night, the sky tremendous with stars. I decided I would wait for the faint light of dawn to come slipping over the mountains, turning the sky light grey and blue, and when the first rays of the sun reached my bed, I would bask in the warmth and sleep for another hour.
For many months now, I’ve been waking up at three or four in the morning. Perhaps it is the dream; and the dream may have something to do with age, for we become like little children when we are old.
Or it could be the muted conversation of some long-departed residents of this house in the living room. I hear them from my small bedroom-cum-study, murmuring in the dark over the clink of teacups and spoons. But they are no bother to me at all. They sound like civilized, contented spirits, and if they had a good life here, they are welcome. Because on balance, I have had a good life too—in this house and others in these hills; in this land where I was born and where I have written my books and found friendship and love, and a family to call my own.
I had a lonely childhood growing up in a broken home and a boarding school in the hills. Later, companions came into my life and went away, often never to return. Or it was I who left them behind and moved on. Then, in middle age, the world embraced me for good—or I embraced it, it is hard to tell the difference—and I have been lucky ever since.
The sparrows that will come at noon to squabble on the windowsill, the geranium in the old plastic bucket, the elegant king crows sleeping in the oak trees that grow on the surrounding slopes—they are also family. As are the trees, my brothers. I have walked among them, feeling I am a part of the forest; I have put out my hand and touched the grey bark of an old tree, and its leaves have brushed my face, as if to acknowledge me.
For the last thirty-six years, I have lived on the top floor of this windswept, somewhat shaky house on the edge of a spur in Landour. My bedroom window opens onto sky, clouds, the Doon valley and the Suswa River—silver in the setting sun—and range upon range of mountains striding away into the distance. Looking out from this perch on the hillside, I feel I am a part of the greater world; of India and the planet Earth, and the infinite worlds beyond, where all our doubles live, just as we do—with some hope and some love.
Hope, love and pig-headedness. Without these, I would not have survived into my eighties and remained in working order. I have also been lucky by temperament: the things I wanted were not out of reach; I only needed to persevere and remain optimistic. When the weather got rough, I pulled my coat tighter around me, turned up the frayed collar, and waited for the storm to pass. Then the clouds dispersed; splashes of sunshine drenched my writing table, and good, clean words flowered on the pages of my notebook.
It has never taken a lot to make me happy. And now here I am, an old man, an old writer, without regrets.
But I must correct that. I decided long ago to stop trying to grow up; and writers are only as old or as young as their readers. So here I am, a young boy, an old writer, without regrets.
No life is more, or less, important or interesting than another—much of it, after all, is lived inside our heads. I have finally yielded to friends who have been persuading me to write the story of my life, but I am still not convinced it will be of any great value. I can only hope that it is, at least, a curiosity; a record of times gone by, an introduction to some interesting and unsung people, and a glimpse into one kind of writerly life.
Almost everything I have written has been drawn from my own experiences, and in that sense, fragments of my autobiography are scattered everywhere in my novels, stories, essays and poems. But there is more imagination than truth in them. An autobiography must stay closer to the truth—even though memory is unreliable, and certain things must be disguised or omitted in order to avoid hurting people, or embarrassing them unduly.
So this book is about how things happened to me—more or less. It is the story of a small man, and his friends and experiences in small places.