Legends of the Hill

Title of the Book: Legends of the Hill
Author: Ruskin Bond
Genre: Stories
Publisher: Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd.

Everyday life and things are not as commonplace as they are made out to be. There are quaint, interesting, intriguing stories lying hidden in them. You just need to have the eye and ear for them. Ruskin Bond sees the extraordinary amidst the very ordinary. And he weaves amazing stories around them.

In “Legends of the Hill”, Bond’s writing flows like a mountain breeze. It carries the fragrance of the forests and the echoes of the valley. Characters are incredibly natural. Even the ghosts are like normal beings. There is no suspense built up around them, for they are part of the environment, the people, the setting.

The author often writes about little things – deceptively unimportant things – that make up charming stories – stories that recreate the life on the hills.

“Had it all been a dream, that strange episode on Pari Tibba? Had an overactive imagination conjured up those aerial spirits, those siddhas of the upper air? Or were they underground people living deep within the bowels of the hill? If I was going to keep my sanity I knew I had better get on with the more mundane aspects of living – such as going into town to buy my groceries, mending the leaking roof, paying the electricity bill, …” [p. 59]

It is interesting to note that while the author refers to the safety and sanity of ordinary, “mundane” things, his stories on ordinary people and their ordinary lives get the readers’ eyes glued to the pages. The reader is captivated by the beauty in the mundaneness, so to say.

“The truth is, what we commonly call life is not life at all. Its routine and settled ways are the curse of life, and we will do almost anything to get away from the trivial, even if it is only for a few hours of forgetfulness in alcohol, drugs, forbidden sex or golf. Some of us would even go underground with the fairies, those little people who have sought refuge in Mother Earth from mankind’s killing ways; for they are as vulnerable as butterflies and flowers. All things beautiful are easily destroyed.” [p. 59]

The author paints pretty pictures with his words. I wished I were an artist when I read this book. Why, I could have created a whole gallery of pictures inspired from his writings!

“The train would reach Deoli at about five in the morning when the station would be dimly lit with electric bulbs and oil lamps, and the jungle across the railway tracks would just be visible in the faint light of dawn. Deoli had only one platform, and office for the stationmaster and a waiting room. The platform boasted a tea stall, a fruit vendor and a few stray dogs; not much else because the train stopped there for only ten minutes before rushing on into the forests.” [p. 61]

The author continues to write about the railway station. If you are the kind of person who have felt a strange connect with lonely places (I am), and if you feel something stirring within you if you see a quiet, unpopulated place like a railway station (I do), then you will instantly relate to the following passages.

“Why it stopped at Deoli, I don’t know. Nothing ever happened there. Nobody got off the train and nobody got on. There were never any coolies on the platform.
…
I used to wonder what happened in Deoli behind the station walls. I always felt sorry for that lonely little platform and for that place nobody wanted to visit. I decided that one day I would get off the train at Deoli and spend the day there just to please the town.” [p. 61]

As the author narrates a story, he leaves so many stories untold between the lines, urging the reader to take off on their own imagined tales. Often, the author leaves his own story midway, happy to hang on in a state of expectation, revelling in the joy of anticipation.

“In the last few years I have passed through Deoli many times, and I always look out of the carriage window half-expecting to see the same unchanged face smiling up at me. I wonder what happens in Deoli, behind the station walls. But I will never break my journey here. It may spoil my game.
…
I never break my journey at Deoli but I pass through as often as I can.” [p. 66]

Stories have a way of conveying the simplicity of the common folk. Especially when Ruskin Bond narrates them. It’s right there in front of your eyes in all its innocence and charm. Exposed, naive, vulnerable. Like a dainty, delicate bubble. Your thoughts hover on it and move on. You might as well not touch it, lest it burst. You leave it well alone.

‘Won’t you feel scared returning alone?’ he asked. ‘There are ghosts on Haunted Hill!’
‘I’ll be back before dark. Ghosts don’t appear during the day.’
‘Are there lots of ghosts in the ruins?’ asked Binya.
…
‘Because, Grandfather says, during a terrible storm, one of the houses was hit by lightning, and everyone in it was killed. Even the children.’
‘How many children?’
‘Two. A boy and his sister. Grandfather saw them playing there in the moonlight.’
‘Wasn’t he frightened?’
‘No. Old people don’t mind ghosts.’ [p. 68]

Have you ever looked at a beautiful picture, be it a painting, drawing or a photograph, and felt like going to that place in the picture? I have, always. And I am stirred by the same feeling when I read Bond’s stories. I want to be in that place, among those people, walking down the roads there, feeling the air, listening to the sounds of the people, the birds, the wind, the trees. Drinking in all the sights. Capturing moments and storing them in my mind forever.

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Human in Economy: The Social in the Science

Title of the Book: Human in Economy
Author: Sivadas R. Warrier
Genre: Non-fiction
Publisher: Tureeyam Media
Book Stores: Amazon, Flipkart, Google Books, Bookscape

This write-up has taken a long time in getting written. Often, it’s like that. You write something in your mind several times, then rewrite, revise, and refine it. But you never get around to putting your pen to paper or, rather, your fingers to the keyboard, to see your thoughts manifest in a scribble. However, when the subject remains as fresh as ever, and the experience refuses to lose its flavour, the urge to write gets the better of you. Thoughts re-form and words get re-phrased.

Human in Economy. The title is intriguing. The content is simple and straight-forward. The author is as unpretentious as can be in his writing. Both, the author and his book, don’t claim to be anything they aren’t. They don’t project themselves to be more or less than what they are. Simply put, the author is as unpretentious as he is unapologetic. The narrative or the story-telling approach keeps the reader connected to the book, as the thread of interest remains unbroken.

The narrative is set in two towns, Coimbatore and Thrissur, which lie on either side of the Sahyadri – the Western Ghats. The book recounts biographical sketches, and events and anecdotes from the lives of two karanavars – male heads – of two families who lived in the said cities. It talks about their impact on the different societies they lived in – their role in the sustainability and growth of their families and the communities that surrounded them. Two different people in two different settings – what is common in them is their selflessness, their perseverance, and their distinct social consciousness.

The author writes about what he has seen, heard, experienced and understood. He writes about times in the past that had solutions to potential economic challenges interwoven into the fabric of life. The solutions, the reader realises, were so taken for granted that later, the people lost sight of the problems, and the solutions gradually became a tradition, a custom, a practice.

As the author traces the growth of the economy, especially in the Indian context, he throws light on how, in the pursuit of modern science, man let go of his ancient wisdom. He writes:

The sacred was removed from science. And science came to be known as secular knowledge. The intention should have been the removal of the religious influence on science, however, they removed the mysticism as well. It was like throwing the water out along with the baby.

Today, we have increasing number of questions on what a good economy looks like and how to get there, but the answers are elusive. And there lies the relevance of this book – where many of these questions and answers meet.

According to the author, economics is human behaviour. Deriving from the knowledge imparted by the seers and masters of all times, the author writes:

The culture and civilization of a region are inseparable from its economics. Economics, as a human science, has also to be lived – as true human behaviour. People learn what they are taught and behave as per what they imbibe.

"Human in Economy" is, obviously, about economics. But the account is autobiographical and weaves into its narrative slices of history of a particular region, its geography, the social structure of a section of its people, and glimpses of the culture and lifestyle they followed. The narrative is strewn with insights into Indian spirituality and philosophy, and excerpts from the ancient scriptures. For someone (and that’s me) who believes in the unity – the oneness – of knowledge, this book is a simple reaffirmation of how the various disciplines – the branches of knowledge – are interconnected and interdependent. The more you delve into knowledge, the more you see the lines that divide it into different specialities getting thinner and finer, until, perhaps, they fade.

The author does not dwell on past glories. Rather, he’s trying to pave a way into the future. Economics, as he perceives it, is not about being frugal at the cost of enjoyment, nor is it about being indulgent at the cost of well-being. It is not sustainability at the cost of growth. It is not at all about philanthropy at the cost of profit. It is none of that, nor vice versa. It is about creating wealth and preserving it in the society. It is about creating wealth for yourself, while you also help others create wealth. This apparently should be, the reader understands, an individual’s constant, conscious endeavour as well as their subconscious, habitual behaviour in an economy.

Warrier navigates from the past to the future, from the scriptures to science, and from tradition to technology without ever losing focus on the purpose of his book. His narrative never deviates from the essential theme of the book. This in itself is a feat.

That the book is the first volume of the tetralogy, The Indic Roots, gives the reader much to look forward to.

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A Chat with Up Words

In a brief conversation with Abhijit Ganguly of Up Words Channel during the Thinkers' & Writers' Meet organised by International Society for Intercultural Studies & Research, Kolkata, held from March 9 to 11, 2025, at Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, and Kolkata International Foundation for Art, Literature & Culture.

 

The Singer who Stirred the Soul is No More

കഥ മുഴുവൻ തീരും മുമ്പേ
യവനിക വീഴും മുമ്പേ…

P. Jayachandran. The singer, who set the heartbeats of millions, is no more.  He was known for his soulful, passionate singing. At eighty, he could still evoke a wide range of emotions through his soulful numbers. His fans could still drown in the emotions that flooded his songs.

മഞ്ഞലയിൽ മുങ്ങിത്തോർത്തി
ധധുമാസ ചന്ദ്രിക വന്നു…

His arrival on the horizon of film music was without much ado. Without as much as a flutter. Like the moon, he sailed across gently, as tides of emotions rose and fell in the listeners’ hearts. He carved a niche for himself with the unique tenderness that filled his songs.

ഉറങ്ങുന്ന ഭൂമിയെ നോക്കി
ഉറങ്ങാത്ത നീലാംബരം പോൽ
അഴകേ നിൻ കുളിർമാല ചൂടി
അരികത്തുറങ്ങാതിരിക്കാം…

You may be a confirmed, unromantic realist, but his love songs would still send tingles up and down your spine. The romance in his voice would catch you unawares. His songs never ever failed to stir his audiences.

ഇന്ദുവദനേ നിന്റെ നീരാട്ടുകടവിലെ
ഇന്ദീവരങ്ങളായ് ഞാൻ വിടർന്നുവെങ്കിൽ
ഇന്ദ്രനീലാഭതൂകും നിൻ മലർമിഴിയുമായ്
സുന്ദരീയങ്ങനെ ഞാൻ ഇണങ്ങുമല്ലോ…

Listening to him, one felt he explored all possibilities in a composition to make sure the emotion in the lyrics was manifest in his singing. No wonder he was the joy of his music directors. Together they could spin musical webs in which we, the listeners, were only too happy to be entangled.

പണിഞ്ഞിട്ടും പണിഞ്ഞിട്ടും പണി തീരാത്തൊരു
പ്രപഞ്ച മന്ദിരമേ…

To this day, I feel a tremor beneath my feet when I listen to the above lines. He constantly built a world of emotions through his melodies. He connected deeply with the lyrics he sang and did full justice to the writers of his songs.

കനിവോലും ഈശ്വരൻ അഴകിന്റെ പാലാഴി
കടഞ്ഞു കടഞ്ഞെടുത്ത അമൃതാണോ…

A deceptively ordinary number would turn immortal once he churned out its timeless beauty, seemingly, with ease. He doesn’t intimidate you with his rendition, which is like a gentle breeze. He just enwraps you in it and before you know it, you are held by its spell.

എൻ മണിയറയ്ക്കുള്ളിലുള്ളൊരീ
നിർമ്മലരാഗസൗരഭം
ഇങ്ങുനിന്നുപോം മന്ദവായുവും 
അങ്ങു നിന്നരുളീലെന്നോ…

Like good wine, his singing got better and better, and headier as he aged. At seventy or so, he could sing with a teenaged singer a love song that crossed the barriers of genres and age to enchant both the young and the not so young. And that too for a macho romantic hero of thirty and some.

കുപ്പായക്കീശമേൽ കുങ്കുമപ്പൊട്ടുകണ്ടു
കൂട്ടുകാരിന്നെന്നെ കളിയാക്കി…

The hero’s shirt pocket and the unmistakable traces of sindoor on it was really a mushy theme even in 1970, when the movie Ambalapravu was released. But the stirrings of subtle romance triggered by the inflections in the song could not be ignored. Several decades down the line, the theme is still syrupy. The stirrings remain.

ഇന്ദുമുഖീ ഇന്ദുമുഖീ…
എന്തിനിന്നു നീ സുന്ദരിയായീ…

Some of his romantic songs are quite intensely so. They have a haunting quality and they linger in your ears even after the notes have faded away. You catch a drift of the intro, and you get hooked on to the song. You cannot stop listening until you have heard them through.

ഇതുവരെ കാണാത്ത കരയിലേക്കോ
ഇനിയൊരു ജന്മത്തിൻ കടവിലേക്കോ
മധുരമായി പാടി വിളിക്കുന്നു
ആരോ…

His singing style was such that you felt he never held on to his songs. He let them free. He let them linger in the air and in the hearts of the lovers of his music. He left his stamp on each one of his songs without claiming any credit whatsoever for them.

He was witty and humorous. He wasn’t easily flattered, if one goes by the numerous interviews with him which are as popular as his songs. He was very matter-of-fact and down-to-earth, though his singing set his fans soaring high on the wings of longing. Almost all of his popular melodies have an intoxicating sweetness, but those seldom heard are even sweeter.

His singing was effortless. His approach egoless. He would randomly pick any song of any of his contemporaries, sing it to a tee, but still leave around it a magical aura of his own.

From singing for the comedians and the side-kicks in the movies to crooning for generations of heroes, he came a long, long way, sustaining through changing times, unlike many of his peers. His fans never had enough of his songs though. They forever yearned for more. However, the cycles of beats had to come to an end. The refrains had to fade away. And the singer finally gave in, as he had to, and merged with the rhythm of the universe.

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Urmila - The Dilemma

Just a few days back, I saw the play “Urmila”, produced by Adishakti, staged at Kerala Fine Arts Society Hall, Kochi. I had to cross several hurdles to watch it. The cab which had confirmed my ride, turned and rode the other away without so much as the courtesy of cancelling the ride. Well, that left me sour, to put it mildly. So, mind you, I didn’t cancel the ride either. And I dashed to the auto stand to catch a rick to board the Metro to alight at a station closest to the venue, which was still not close enough.

To cut the long story short, I reached the venue 15 minutes late – “only”. By the way, I had made use of the time on the Metro to complain about the cab service and the driver on all possible platforms. In the end, the play was worth all the r’s – the wrath, the revenge, the rush, the rick, and the relay rides.

The play was well through its intro by the time I settled into my seat. But my spirit was not dampened in the least. I had done my homework well. The play was about Urmila Nidra or, rather, Urmila’s sleep. Apparently, Urmila had received a boon of sleep, by virtue of which her husband Lakshman could spend his fourteen years of exile wide awake, taking care of his brother Ram and bhabhi Sita every minute of it. That Urmila never asked for the boon, nor wanted it, was another matter. Yes, the play addresses gender issues and some of the many ethical dilemmas raised by the epic Ramayan in the casual reader’s mind.

However, what is most incredible about the play is the medium used by Nimmy Raphel, who enacts Urmila. Her body, the medium, in a state of sleepy wakefulness, carries the message of the play. And as the play unravels, you see the medium merge with the message. And you watch in awe, as Urmila continuously swings between sleep and awakening.

Sleep is not always synonymous with peace, as we have always been led to believe. In the play, the boon turns out to be the bane, no less, of Urmila’s life. Thanks to the "gift of sleep", as she sarcastically calls it, not only would she have to live her life for a full fourteen years without her newlywed husband by her side, she also has to drift through the entire time in slumber. No, the boon was never her choice. Nimmy Raphel as Urmila is amazing as she wades through her semi-conscious state, all the while holding out against the unfairness of it all.

Raphel’s acting is praiseworthy for her attention to the tiniest of details. In her woozy state, as she tries to find her feet, she quite literally tries to find them, as though wondering if they are in their rightful places at all. She even lifts up her foot and looks at it as though she’s surprised to know that it’s right there, where it should be, after all.

Raphel uses up the full length and breadth of the stage as she struggles to stay awake, staggering, swaying and faltering, and trying to fight the sleep warriors who try to push her back into the infinite abyss of sleep. Time and again, Urmila slips and falls, every time flailing her arms and legs in her effort to float upwards, to wakefulness. The inappropriateness of her carriage, the lack of propriety in her movements, and her sheer helplessness even as she is aware of the state she’s in leaves the audience stunned at the spontaneity of Raphel's acting.

Nimmy Raphel has scripted the play, and directed it as well. So it's no wonder, she is visibly in control of the whole act. In the visual conception of Urmila’s subtle state of suspense between sleep and wakefulness manifests Raphel’s brilliance. We have all experienced this state of being at least once, albeit for a fraction of a second, just before falling into deep sleep or right before turning fully awake. Raphel’s representation of her stupor is so palpable that she keeps the audience perching on their seats, almost still, for the full duration of an hour and a half. Sleep is not always peaceful. Not when it comes unwanted. And then, it is full of disquiet.

One cannot but wonder at Urmila’s dilemma. What could she have actually chosen? To wake up to the harsh reality of the life of a new bride estranged from her husband, by default, for a long fourteen years? Or to languish in the numbness of sleep, until the return of her husband who never considered for once that she could have had a choice in the matter in the first place?

The performances of Vinay Kumar and Sooraj as the warriors of sleep maintain the focus and enhance the experience of the play. 

The stage setting, the lights, and the costumes have all enriched the play. This audience looks forward to seeing more from Raphel and her team Adishakti.

[Pictures Courtesy: Adishakti Website, Social Media]

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