Dehra-Ache in Seven Beats
Reading Secrets (2011) by Ruskin Bond brings to mind Nocturne (2010) by Kazuo Ishiguro. The similarity in their choice of the locale from where the stories take off strikes one as an afterthought. Kazuo situates all his five stories in hotels in an unnamed Italian city. The pick of hotels and houses in Dehradun as the backdrop of all the seven stories of Bond is appositely reflected in the cover design that depicts a spectral-looking palace, apparently depeopled, as if housing a mine of painful secrets.