The sky is pale pink and white. Greenish in another part of the city. The moon peeps out from within its layered quilt of grey and white, cocking its head at the sleepless gaiety of people reluctant to go to bed this Friday evening. There is a nip in the air, winter is sending out its feelers. Flimsy curtains billow in the wind, the sails of the adventure-packed dreams of armchair travellers and keyboard traversers.

Here, I have neither mountain nor sea. What I do have is an imagination. And that bright star in the sky agrees with me.

PS: Can you even imagine a world without Ruskin Bond? I greeted the Himalayas like old friends during my first ever trip to them, and I owe it all to him.