Author: Ruskin Bond
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2004
Language: English
Pages: 290
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0670057762
Description
Is Nature your religion? Someone asked, just the other day. It would be presumptuous to say so. Nature doesn’t promise you anything—an afterlife, rewards for good behaviour, protection from enemies, wealth, happiness…No…Nature is a reward in itself.
For over half a century, Ruskin Bond has celebrated the wonder and beauty of nature as few other contemporary writers have, or indeed can. This collection brings together the best of his writings on the natural world, not just in the Himalayan foothills that he has made his home, but also in the cities and small towns that he lived in or travelled through as a young man. In these pages, he writes of leopards padding down the lanes of Mussoorie after dark, the first shower of the monsoon in Meerut that brings with it a tumult of new life, the chorus of insects at twilight outside his window, ancient banyan trees and the short-lived cosmos flower, a new moon in a deep purple sky, a bat who strays into his room and makes a night less lonely.
A collector's edition, this volume proves again that for the serenity and lyricism of his prose and his sharp yet sympathetic eye, Ruskin Bond has few equals.
Loyalty in plants, as in friends, must be respected and rewarded. If dandelions show a tendency to do well on the steps of the house, then that is where they shall be encouraged to grow. If a sorrel is happier on the window sill than on the hillside, then I shall let it stay, even if it means the window won't close properly. And if the hydrangea does better in my neighbour shall be given the hydrangea.
Contents
INTRODUCTION
Grandfather's Zoo
The Civilized Wilderness
Into the Wild
Foothill to Treeline
Trees
Flowers
Rain
The Winged Ones
Big-cat Tales
Nature's Fury
Green Notes