Last week, just as this columnist was trying to find a fitting line to wrap up a story amidst the cacophony that was being played out behind her [courtesy, the noisy housing society that she resides in], a photograph tweeted by a friend, an environmentalist, writer and author, made her go doubly green with envy, not to add, the distraction and day-dreaming that ensued. It was a frame of the friend’s study desk by the banks of the Ganga in Rishikesh with the stunning Himalayas offering the ideal backdrop.

A writer’s inspiration

Later that night, as we sat down to begin work on another story in a quieter scenario, we began to think of the challenges that city folk like us sometimes face when it comes to finding that sweet spot to get the writing juices flowing. Memories of having posed this question to authors we’ve interviewed came rushing back. “How can I not want to write when my desk faces this view?” That was Ruskin Bond’s chuckle-filled response when we asked the octogenarian master storyteller. His quaint, brick-walled home in Landour—Mussoorie’s quieter cousin—where we met him was on the incline of a winding, vertigo-inducing road that faced the Himalayas. The veteran writer cheekily remarked that he could never leave his home, even if offered a million dollars to relocate. Little wonder he’s never missed his daily regime of writing a page a day, whether he had to meet a deadline or not.