The maiden Mussoorie Writers’ Fes¬tival was held in Woodstock, Mus¬soorieinApril2007.1t lasted five days, from 24 to 28 April Writers from different parts of the world came to attend, not to mention a sizeable number of Indian writ¬ers. I had by then met most of the writers hailing from that region and interviewed them. So, I was not exactly unknown. One of the main reasons for attending was to watch Ruskin Bond getting the Poet Laureate of Landour Award.
Grief, like a violent storm, has a span. While a storm usually spends itself after an hour or two, leaving behind a trail of devastation, the intensity of grief does not peter out that quick. It lasts for several months, in some cases for years. In most such instances, one doesn’t really know how to come to terms with it. A case in point is the moving memoir: H is for Hawk (2014), authored by Helen Macdonald.
Have you ever been to a poetry reading event? If you have, you blow how in most cases there remain in the hall more chairs unoccupied than otherwise. There is apathy towards poetry; maybe it’s got something to do with obscurity it usually entails.
The name I Allan Sealy, for those who dip into his soulful yet difficult prose, conjures up the image of a versatile writer. But the act of writing about what Allan is really known for pales somewhat when his other vocation, gardening, takes over. He beds out very uncommon and near-extinct shrubs and plants at his racecourse retreat in Dehradun. And at a time when the whole world was in a shuttered state last year, Allan was out in the open, right under the sun, tending to his favourite plants. I know this because we exchanged mails, frequently so, stuck at home as we were.
When we reached the Ashram, Lord Krishna had already been put to bed for His siesta. The temple would reopen at 4 pm, the Ashramites told us.
