It is a book that begs wonder. A slow meandering stroll through it. It leaves you with the same feeling of connectedness with all things living, like a Mary Oliver poem.

So many religions, so many religious texts, so many prophets and godmen and wars over nothing. Yet it is writing like this, little books like this one that reminds me that the whistling thrush and I are one.

To see the mountains of Mussoorie through the gift of Ruskin Bond's eyes is a singular joy. Every page feels like a holiday.

We travel so obsessively, checking off bucket lists, acquiring passport stamps. Yet here is a man who watches the seasons change through his window and it remains wonderous for 60 years. Such is the abundance of nature.

In this book, I found a summer day from 1963, a cherry tree and a little boy lazing on the grass looking at a blue sky through its leaves.

It was my first brush with birding. I found myself googling white hooded babblers, yellow bottomed bulbuls, and barbets.

I found a Kakar deer, a family of porcupines, a power cut and a yellow moon hanging low over the hills.

There was always an open window somewhere.

Sometimes a breeze blew in. Sometimes it was a firefly.

There are big, rumbling monsoon clouds in these pages.

The meeting of mountain streams.

A great wild scarlet dahlia in full bloom cradling an emerald green grasshopper.

When I look up from the book, I see a little bit more of the world around me.

I look at the tree outside my window that is there every day and yet my tired city eyes don't see the flock of parakeets playing hide and seek in its leaves. Or the kites circling high above.

I meet a walnut tree that loses its leaves come autumn but then I get to daydream about jade-green hills, alive with a crowd of wildflowers — crimson, mauve, pink and yellow.

I stumble upon a few spectacular mountain sunsets. As is expected.

Quite unexpectedly, I stumble upon a baby bear climbing a plum tree and biting into a sweet, juicy plum.

I smell mint and myrtle, wild violets and rain.

The only thing I never meet here is a sense of hurry.

The seasons take their time. Sal trees and Jacarandas, Deodars and Oaks follow no bosses or orders. Only an internal rhythm.

Three butterflies dance above a raspberry bush.

There's snowfall on a moonlit winter night.

Every time I turn a page it makes me think about how much magic a life can contain.

It makes me think how much a voice like Ruskin Bond's is needed now.

On this little blue space rock that seems so insistent on setting itself on fire.

A voice to tell us a life lived at a gentle pace, where there's no rush to conquer summits, and the company of butterflies and buttercups along the way, is a life well lived.

As "development" creeps up the hills of Dehra, as Mussoorie's mountains light up at night like electric fireflies while real fireflies disappear, in these pages, the hills will always remain lush, the trees will always grow tall.