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Listen to the Mountains
Pamela takes a peep into the homes of the hill peasants, observes their living and working conditions and realises their lives are not easier or more comfortable or stress-free in the environs of the village. The simple village folk are prey to fear insecurity, disease, poverty, and ignorance, and have to wage a constant battle to tame the nature for their personal benefit and progress. Their minds and hearts are bound up with their everyday problems: getting fodder, water, firewood, hiring labour for their fields. Toiling in their small land holdings without machinery and artificial fertilizers, they have to be self-contained and self-supporting. The hill folk may be ignorant, poor and backward, but their lives are richly filled with customs and traditions associated with religious rites that dictate their manners, activities and cultural expression. Progress means little to them, their minds are bound to the past, to their traditions and their ancestors. Off and on, someone adventurous takes a new leap forward when he goes to the city to work. He returns with new knowledge and modem theories, which give him a superior status in the village. A simple homesickness, echoing a delicate charm, is discernible in the treatment of relationships. The family may be the unit of society, but the extended family in the village is no less important. Domestic animals, too, depict a near-human relationship and add a little colour and light to the private, dingy lives of their masters. Strewn in the book are musings of the author drawing an analogy between the subject and her own philosophy of life. At times, these reflections are abrupt. Pamela Chatterjee’s knowledge of the birds and flowers is commendable and educative. The sketches do credit to the book. The wide variety of word sketches are superficial observations—hence, the flat life groups and domestic scenes lack substance and do not evoke much interest. The narration skims over the peasant’ way of life, their thinking and feelings. The figures are not rich in charm or colour, they lack life and spirit and sparkle, they are not individuals with personalities, but mere names—Tara Dutt, Krishna Devi, Narayan Ram—that give no vivid impression of who or what they really are. The interest of the reader wanes with every page he turns. The "sameness" is tedious and monotonous. Ultimately, the reader wonders whether the book is informative or inspirational or an entertainer—sadly, it is none of these. |
THE book is a collection
of vignettes of hill life in an Uttaranchal village. After a long time
spent in Mumbai, the author decides to make her home in a village in the
hills away from the noise and turmoil and uncongenial atmosphere of the
city. Her everyday experiences and observations are recorded in small,
word pictures.