Rain in the Mountains

After my long Himalayan treks, as I am reading ‘Rain in the Mountains’ , everything comes alive to me: the lush green pine forests, a take of the lungful of fresh mountain air, the aroma of the flowers, the big dogs of the Himalayan shepherds, the shinning snow covered black rocks…. and the mighty magnificent Himalayan wilderness …. What more do I want from this book? This one book actually takes me to my beloved Himalayas.

Far from all that the urban environment offers me, the quiet stillness of the mountain and the little joys of the humble lives lived on the mountains attract me most. It is in Ruskin’s writings that I reminisce most of what I see in every trek. It offers me a great revival of my mountain thoughts.
 Simple candid writings of Ruskin Bond tell about the life in the hills, his affection for the rain and the wind, his thoughts on the snow and the gale…. and the stories go on and on.

Listen to the night wind in the trees, Listen to the summer grass singing; Listen to the time that’s tripping by, And the dawn dew falling.

Listen to the moon as it climbs the sky, Listen to the peddles humming; Listen to the mist in the trembling leaves, And the silence calling.

Born in 1934, in the hilly Himachal Pradesh, Ruskin was blessed growing up in a period in Indian history when the colonial icons of Raj were fading away. Ultimately, Ruskin decided to settle for life at the hill station he loved: Dehradun. He stories are based on his growing up in the simplicity of the mountain life and about the spirituality of living a life a-day             at-a-time. In every Himalayan story, Ruskin writes about the sights and sounds of the hills. Every narration has an aroma of mountain spirituality. The beauty of his writing is that they are very simple: words and the narration. Yet, they are live with the all the sensations of a mountain life.

‘Rain in the Mountains’ is a fine journal for a mountain lover like me to read. I have gone up and down the hills of Ruskin Bond in the ‘Rain in the Mountains’

Ruskin writes: ALL NIGHT THE rain been drumming on the corrugated tin roof. There has been no storm, no thunder, just the steady swish of ta tropical down pour. It helps me to lie

awake; at the same time, it doesn’t keep me from sleeping.
He goes on to write: It is a good sound to read buy – the rain outside, the quiet within- and , although tin roofs are given to springing unaccountable leaks, there is a feeling of being untouched by, and yet in touch with, the rain….

About the Bells in the hills Ruskin writes: A school-bell ringing, and the children’s voices drifting through a open window. A temple bell heard faintly from across the valley. Sheep bells heard high on the mountainside. Heavy silver ankle bells on the feet of sturdy hill women…
…. And so we return to the rain, with which my favorite sounds began. I have sat out in the open at night, after a shower of rain, when the whole air is murmuring and tinkling with the voices of crickets and grass hoppers and little frogs. There is one melodious sound, a sweet repeated trill, that I have never been able to race to its source. Perhaps it is a little tree frog, or it may be a small green cricket. I shall never know. There is so much that we shall never know. Ah, sweet mystery of life!

IN the opening page of the ‘Once Upon A Mountain Time’ Ruskin quotes a beautiful belief of a typical mountain lover: My solitude is not my own, for I see now how much it belongs to them- and that I have a responsibility for it in their regard, not just in my own. It is because I am one with them that I owe it to them to be alone, and when I am alone they are not ‘they’ but my own self. There are no strangers! … (from Confessions of a Guilty Bystander – Rev. Thomas Merton)

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Photos : From Hampta Trek, Himalayas

Cycling In Posters

ALL OF US has books that have reached us from nowhere. ‘Cycling in posters’ is a book that has reached me from nowhere. I cannot remember where I got that book from. All I know is that, it is the only book on cycles that I have.

Sometime back in the end of 19th century cycles became a force in the Western society. It represented freedom and independence in personal transport. The urban population of the Continent and that of the US quickly adapted to the different models of cycles that various manufactures came up with. It was a period when constant variations and inventions in fundamental designs in the manufacture of cycles posted exiting experience for the users. During this period, various cycle manufactures came together and utilized the best talents of the time to design for them advertisement posters. “Cycling in Posters’ is a collection of some of those excellent posters that are both romantic and historic.

Cyclists of all generations have had their own dress codes. Way back in 1890s too there were strict dress codes: tight Knickerbocker suits and pillbox caps were the order of men. Women wore classic skirts and designer caps. The correct costume for a bicycling lady was a hot issue. In 1883, the English Cyclists’ Touring Club recommended the following dress code for a cycling woman: a woolen garment worn next to the skin, dark gray woolen stockings, lose knickers fastened under the knee underneath a plain skirt, a fitted bodice under the jacket and a hat
Did you wonder how a woman could navigate the crossbar framed cycles during those early years of commercial cycles? Well, the drop-frame bicycles came to their rescue when they were invented in the US by late 1890s. Women no longer struggled with their flowing skirts over the crossbars! Should a woman cyclist choose to keep her skirt on, then drop-frame was a tryst with freedom. Soon, the accepted convention was that a woman would only buy the drop-fame “ladies” cycles. Even the Indian women, with their sarees would have found it almost impossible to mount, but on their drop-frames.

As a cycle lover, I wonder how much the world of cycling has changed since olden days. Like any other art, the art of cycling too has lost some of its color and romance. Even then, the passion remains… to see the young lasses with bright color skits, flowing away on their cycles.

With the arrival of commercial safety bicycles in the 1880s, the aristocratic society of the Continent responded great.  One group that really made daily news was the lovers. Young men and women deep in love wanted a space for flirtation. Since cycling was accepted as a social form of recreation, it was the easiest thing to ride away with boyfriend from the watchful eye of the parent or chaperon. To fight back, in 1896, the Chaperon Cyclists Association was formed in London. The idea was that girls and boys would take cycles on rental from the Association and that the parents can track their moments. No… it did not work! In fact, not only the aristocrats but also the ordinary lasses were freer to go on their own cycles. They peddled their love far away from the watchful eyes of the society just to be in the arms of each other for a while!  

I think, it was fascinating for a girl and a boy to flirt on their cycles back in 1880s. Today, as boy and girls do it in their car and as they do it underwater, they are far related to their brothers and sisters who did it on their cycles.

Year was between 1878 … 1890. The bicycle was as pampered as the horse it partly displaced and was, in many ways, treated like a horse. One fad was to paint it in the family colors and protect it with a similarly painted cover a night. Then it was brought into the grand entrance lobby. A lackey would bring it round to the front door to be mounted by the master. There was excessive attention to dress too, one had to look one’s best as he mounted the bicycle and cycled it around. Only the aristocrats could do it.

 H. G. Wells wrote, “The world is divided into two class: those who ride bicycles and those who don’t”

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