All this week we celebrated the birthday of the much adored Ruskin Bond who made the hill town of Landour (near Mussoorie) his home. Here’s a lovely painting titled ‘Doon from Mussoorie’ by Marianne North—an English artist who visited India in 1877-79. In her autobiography, North wrote: 

"Masuri is a long scattered place, covering an uneven ridge for about three miles, looking over the wide Dun valley on one side, and into the rolling sea of mountains on the other. The ever-changing lights and shadows over the great mountains were a continual wonder for me to watch...One day we went up the hills and saw a tribe of black-faced monkeys, with long tails and grey whiskers, jumping from tree to tree and shaking the very trunks with their sudden springs. Those hills were full of wild nooks, great overhanging rocks, and scraggy twisted oaks...The climate was delicious between the showers, which were as frequent as in England."

A special bonus: This puzzle by The Heritage Lab features another North painting—titled ‘The Bazaar in Mussoorie’. Play it to win Bond’s latest book of short stories—titled ‘Song of the Forest’—published by Aleph Books!