At home in Dehradun

Growing up in the hills of Mussoorie and Almora - within the sights and sounds of deodars and scent of pines - made me a misfit in the cement environs of cities forever after. I now live in the Doon Valley which, apart from its nearness to the hills, I enjoy for its cross-cultural ambience. Monocultural societies, like people with closed minds, are so boring. Up the road from my house in Dehradun, the Tibetan Sakya Centre stands a few yards away from the temple to Shirdi Sai Baba. Further up, in the Rajpur bazaar and the houses sloping up from it, the camaraderie of the Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Buddhist mix is a sign of communities that have known each others&rsquo families for a generation or two.