My Favourite Nature Stories

by Ruskin Bond

It was while I was living in England in the jostle and drizzle of London, that I remembered the Himalayas at their most vivid. I had grown up amongst those great blue and brown mountains, they had nourished my blood, and though I was separated from them by thousands of miles of ocean, plain and desert, I could not forget them. It is always the same with mountains. Once you have lived with them for any length of time, you belong to them. There is no escape.

My grandparents once went to war with each other over the marigold. Grandfather had grown a few in one corner of the garden. Just as they began flowering, they vanished—Granny had removed them overnight! There was a row, and my grandparents did not speak to each other for several days. Then, by calling them ‘French’ marigolds, Grandfather managed to reintroduce them to the garden. Granny liked the idea of having something ‘French’ in her garden. Such is human nature!

Those who advertise rooms or flats to let often describe them as ‘Room with bath’ or ‘Room with tea and coffee-making facilities’. A more attractive proposition would be ‘Room with window’, for without a view a room is hardly a living place—merely a place of transit.

Gosh! Never thought about it this way

And the water was blue and white and very wonderful.

All I want to do is take a deep dive into this cool water.

And you, dear reader, will have similar impressions to carry with you all your days. That first day at school, maybe an agonising parting from your parents. The face of a loved one lost. A pullover knitted by your granny. A favourite toy. A doll, perhaps. A book of rhymes, tattered and torn. Someone who gave you a flower, a kiss on the forehead. To the end of your days you will carry that kiss with you. And may it protect you from all harm.

We never know how precious a moment is until we see it in retrospect.