Small-town bustle: The old market of Almora

As a writer and poet, I owe much to the mountains where I grew up. Though by that same sentiment, I absorb and appreciate the character of different kinds of places. For instance, I see a big city's reflection in the children growing up in its lap. They are so confident, fearless, social. I wasn't like that in my childhood.

The mountains teach you to be with yourself. You don't look for company, for there's so much to explore. As a child you are one with nature; you haven't yet learnt that mud is dirty, that the water from the spring is contaminated, that talking to yourself can look crazy. Parvin Shakir, a Pakistani poetess, whilst describing a child catching a butterfly, says: "Ek phool ko titli ke peechhe bhagte dekha (I saw a flower run after a butterfly)." This best describes the essence of a child, especially in the mountains. At a very early age, a door opened within me, giving me access to myself and, by chance, the ability to express myself on paper.

In Almora, the world was my playground. Alighting from the bus, my two sisters and I would race uphill to my nani's house, where only love awaited. There were no restrictions: the houses were never locked, meals of ras-bhaath and treats of bal mithai and "choklate" were never refused, and hugs and smacks were never held back.

There, I felt that it rained because the mountains wanted to be showered clean. I didn't know the meaning of scorching sun, for the sunlight there was always so kind, treating the sleepy town as its playground as it played hide and seek. Even the wind personified itself, whistling, shaking the saankal (chain), knocking on the doors. With winter came the warmth of love—of families sitting huddled around bonfires, sharing a quilt, eating bhune huye bhatt (roasted soyabeans) and recounting stories, usually spooky tales.

Prasoon with his college friends

Hometowns elicit different emotions and definitions. For some, it's the place where they were born, for some the place in which they grew up and went to school or college, and for others where their parents came from. Having led a nomadic life, for me none of these are completely true. Our ancestors supposedly migrated from Maharashtra or Gujarat. I was born in Almora and grew up in Rampur, Meerut, Rajasthan, Lucknow and Delhi. Mumbai is where I live and work and embrace as home now.

But when I think hard, the place I can truly call my hometown is Almora. I must say it does have an unfair advantage, though. I stayed in Almora mainly during the summer and winter holidays. Its memory does not carry the stench of stagnancy, or the angst of growing up, the pressure of academics, the pain of being shunned, the battle for a job, the fight to survive.

Happiness quotient: A home in one of the many hillside villages of Almora district

Memory can be very subjective and selective, wiping away unpleasant memories from the past. I know that for many people, hometowns often have not-so-pleasant memories attached to them—memories that disturb, memories they don't want to keep. Some can vividly recall times when they wanted to run away because the place was so devoid of energy, devoid of the sights and sounds of the big city where people spoke in different languages, rode in luxury cars, visited fancy restaurants and had more interesting things to do than wait for an evening telecast of Doordarshan. Or memories of that disappointing visit back home when one found that the familiar people and places had changed and the town was in decay, the landmarks, so bright and shiny in memory, now devoid of life and colour. I guess it is for the most part true that memory is not about how things really were, but what you choose to nurture.

Almora will remain for me a place where the stones on the road speak, where I don't need to ask for directions, where there are no worldly expectations, where one can get such joy from doing nothing, where the soul is soothed because it feels anchored.