Key Points
As a blanket of blazing heat descends on the north Indian plains, its time for the great summer exodus to the hills..
Singling out just a few is not easy, but Ill go with two stories, both by women: one by the very-well-known Usha Priyamvada, now 92, who has seven novels and over 40 short stories to her credit; the other by a lesser-known writer whom even Hindi-speaking readers may not be familiar with, the talented Zahra Rai (1917-1993; incidentally, the wife of Premchands son Sripat Rai)...
They depict the yearnings of two very different young single women, for whom a fleeting encounter in the hills becomes a memory they will cherish all their lives; a memory to help them through difficult, desolate times...
Dorahas protagonist Kesari walks on a mountain road late in the evening, wrapped in an overcoat, smoking a cigarette; Miss Pal lives alone in a cottage in Kullu, trying desperately to escape her stifling life in a Delhi office...
Rakeshs 1968 novel, Na Aanewala Kal, is set in a school in the hills, where the protagonist, Manoj, is trapped in a life he didnt want, with a wife and a job (as Hindi master) that he cant bear. Rakesh, an inveterate traveller himself, taught at Shimlas Bishop Cotton School for two years...
