The Hill Billy

"Good-natured, evoking nostalgia for a forgotten era, this charming memoir is both touching and entertaining. A must read for all those who love the hills."

- Ruskin Bond

A mango ensures the birth of a son...
Ghosts hoot and cackle in a forest...
A tiger strikes terror in the heart of a village...
A boy experiences the first stirrings of desire...

On trips back to his hometown, memories appear, cling, and then fade away like the mist in the Himalayan foothills. Tracing the pangs and pleasures of growing up during the time of missionary schools, wind-up gramophones, hand-pulled designer rickshaws, maharanis in their imitation castles, busty film stars of the black-and-white era - a lone, all-brown boy in an all-white American school comes to grips with his coming of age.

Fast-paced and furiously funny, The Hill Billy zips up the otherwise tranquil, languid, laid-back life in a hill station that hasn't quite got over the hangover of its British past.

The debut work of an author who has spent a big chunk of his life coining advertising slogans and jingles - The Hill Billy runs riot with its take-off on school teachers, hunters, swamis, dairy farmers, and nosy neighbours. In the process, it takes a somewhat whacky, irreverent and cynical view of the characters who love, laugh and come alive through its crackling narrative.