Notes from my Garden
Introduction from my latest anthology, based on my backyard garden As I sit in my small backyard garden, staring at its green, grassy refuge, I sometimes feel — fancifully — like an older, more settled Ruskin Bond. It is a privilege even to entertain such a thought. I do not live in a bungalow nestled in the hills I long for, nor have I abandoned ordinary life for the mountains. That audacity, and the success born of it, belongs to the true writer in the hills. And yet, the analogy begins and ends with something simpler. I can sit in my enclosed patch of green — my imaginary Dehra — watching white clouds morph into snow-capped mountains, and write. Not the Himalayas, perhaps, but a rectangle of earth connected, somehow, to the wider neural network of nature. Enough to bring calm, serenity, and the courage to write a line or two. This collection is born from that patch of serenity: my garden, its hidden nooks and corners, the cyclical throes of the seasons, and t...
