If you're listening, this hilltown will whisper stories beside the Kempti Falls or a misty park.

Where do you think Ruskin Bond got so many to tell?

MUSSOORIE was in her arms in a hotel that has been shut down now. Like Paris, it was a town filled with mist. Even when he bought her silver from a corner store that evening in his youth, he wadded through mist besotted by it. Mussoorie, thank God, is one of the places where God's mercy reigns. Nothing will change but the memories of youth and mist and a hope with you in my veins.

Any other man in my place would have never been where I was not.

Seeking bliss and merriment on the Isle.

There is dust on the brown carpet that was then filled with the start.

There is rust on the bed, where the anguish set and the tragic lie multiplied.

The chair in the room has been left without a trace of where that night went.

There is a curtain that was drawn to see the bedazzling thousand lights.

There is a bathroom that was luxurious lit with a dark rose laughing and blushing away There is a fruit basket in the spaces outside the bedroom where he picked up an apple on his way out into the groggy morning, down the grand staircase and through the regal hallway into the soft morning breeze smiling as he sauntered out.

Passion was trampled by his mind and he came to achieve what he now reveals as the supreme catastrophe Not thinking of the moment in the game but the moment that had just gone by.

He was always a moment behind and she was obviously with the tide and time.

He couldn't ride the wave he wanted to, his boat was forever sinking in the boundless sea. He never made a show, which he should of this calamity.

There are walls in this hotel that are falling to pieces now, There is grandeur in the Victorian hotel that once reigned supreme.

There is dust in its face and its soul is pristine.

There should be someone who will come out and play in the sheets again.

There should be some angel who will fly to these skies.

Lift the face some autumn twilight and dance the waltz at night.

There is a silence with her head down that was a teardrop in an eye There is magic waiting for you like it is for every soul that's gone white Mussoorie has a waterfall where beauty was on the threshold of a life Mussoorie had the Kempti Falls where many a caravan are still alight And then the highway changed it's course, and brought in the delight There is a monastery in the evening with fluttering pray if you please Let's go there and I will show you the evening that is splayed out just for you The overcast skies and the sun that is still piercing through Sun appeared after rain to bring you joy to see the sky in different hues Because the orange, red and violet and all the blue Then came the rainbow because it's the fun that you construe The breeze was soft and you allowed to it caress your face The evening was here and eternal togetherness and grace We had then met a man somehow like Ruskin Bond With a floppy hat and a pair of shorts, with kindness on his brow Who smiled when asked if he was the writer of short stories for children?

Since a few are on the way, you might want to meet him now I still don't know if he was Bond, a legend in these hills Then to dress up in costume and be photographed by the falls A black robe, a fake gun and headgear that makes me tall And that house by the side for the girl of the lost side show That house with the spirits of yesterday That house with the phantoms of old hands shaking with bone China Reflective of loveliness hanging over the balcony Overgrown fauna and creepers that line the stonewalls Witness to a fairytale that you can feel and not touch at all A wooden home now crumbling like the lines in a poem These are many of the fables that haunt the misty town But you want some hot soup so you make a face and frown So we get down to the market and you sweetly sigh at a donkey There were many of them -they see you manufactured in the sky My grandmother used to come here and she told me a crazy story She was taken care of by an English mother and the lady who had two sons One of them she lost in the war and she could not get over the loss She held him close to her heart; mother son and the holy cross Then one day the son appeared coming out of the dead as it were This is what happened in a flash it just appeared Another man came to her, and said his name was David, I was with your son in the war and he sent me to you with this All of a sudden he went berserk; his body was flying all over the vintage home Let go off your son he said, his soul is not at peace, She was agog and frightened to bits and I let go off him she burst out So when she looked around, David had disappeared from there Now evening has fallen and she is called to come to and visit the church Where mother Mary and the music lifts us to the isle of the soul to the birch This is the town of graveyards and veils, and a history that draws my soul, Of stories of the World War II and nurses in run down hospitals Ghosts that frighten us with their omnipresence Then God has a role in the night as we snuggle with fright What is a ghost? Would you like us to make you some supper dear?