Called by the Hills: A Home in the Himalaya

Anuradha Roy

A book about building a home and a wild garden on the edge of a Himalayan forest, illuminated by the author's own watercolours.

When novelist Anuradha Roy and her husband stumble upon a derelict cottage in the hill station of Ranikhet, they decide it is where they will now live. Leaving behind the freneticism of Delhi, Roy is initially bemused by the gentle pace of life in the mountains. Before long, however, she is won over: spellbound by the landscape, taken to the heart of her sometimes recalcitrant neighbours and adopted by several mountain dogs.

Over twenty-five years, as Roy becomes accustomed to living among forests where leopards roam freely, she will come to encounter nature at its most fierce, beautiful and vulnerable – and bear witness to the destructive impact of global warming on the alpine ecosystem.

Called by the Hills: A Home in the Himalaya is an intimate portrait of a home, a community and a rugged, extraordinary landscape. Written with unsentimental clarity, humour and poignancy, this is an account of profound transformations.