Does where you live influence your writing? I have been living in Dehradun, in the northern state of Uttarakhand, India, for the last three years, moving here from Delhi, and have been wondering if a change of place affects one’s writing.
Dehradun has around 600,000 people compared with Delhi’s 16 million. Everyone is somewhat laid-back. People drop in unannounced, and stay for hours. There are steep slopes to climb, tall trees, and in the background, the Middle Himalayas, glittering with lights in the dark, very occasionally covered with snow. In the monsoon there is incessant rain.
The city is rapidly changing, the trees being cut, high-rise buildings being constructed.
But there are beautiful buildings too, such as this Buddhist temple.
A little distance behind the house, the Johri forest still survives. With increasing encroachment, monkeys descend from there in hordes, one hears about leopards prowling, and yesterday I saw a jackal.
Rather than traffic, I hear donkeys, pigs, chickens, dogs, and the sound of rain.
Does where one lives affect one’s writing? I don’t really know, but the circumstances in which one lives, has an effect.
Roshen Dalal 