Recommendation
A Hill Station Memoir That Feels Surprisingly Personal
Book Review: “Pugmarks and Pugdandees” by Shiveshwar Raj Singh
Shivi’s Pugmarks and Pugdandees arrives with the unhurried pace of a pastryman cycling up a hill road. You know he’s coming, and when he finally arrives, everything he’s carrying is worth the wait. This is a book about Nainital in the ’70s and ’80s, but really, it’s about all of us who grew up in that particular era in India. The one before television flattened our reference points. Before we were sold the dreams of apartment style living, but caged in matchboxes. Before every town started to feel like every other town.
Shivi, an old friend from advertising days, is a profoundly skilled copywriter and filmmaker, one who knows his craft better than most. He deploys that skill with precision. His writing is vivid—you can see, smell, and feel everything—and deeply personal, yet somehow universal.
Here’s why.
Whether you grew up in Nainital or Nagercoil, Almora or Aizawl, Gandhinagar or Guwahati, Dhanbad or Dibrugarh, if there was even a modicum of stimulation around you in the ’70s and ’80s, the coordinates of childhood were remarkably similar. Summers with cousins who appeared like migratory birds every May. Homes with verandahs and lawns, not balconies and potted plants. The Ambassador car that could pack over a dozen of us like a magic trick—five in front, seven in the back, and two in the boot. That prized two-in-one, our escape hatch from the world of homework and chores. Wealth measured in jars filled with marbles. Wisdom gained from Amar Chitra Kathas—because mythology was more credible in comic form. Afternoons with rubber-band cricket balls that stung like betrayal when they hit bare skin, and adventures with Tintin, Hardy Boys, and Nancy Drew that we’d stretch until someone’s mother called us in for dinner. Our sporting spirit shaped by the Borg-McEnroe rivalry—because watching grown men argue over line calls was peak entertainment. Our parties soundtracked by Osibisa and ABBA. Our business acumen honed trading Western comics outside the school gate. Our cinema defined by Bruce Lee’s flying kicks and Clint Eastwood’s fastest draw in the West, both of which we’d practice on random unsuspecting targets. We spent hours pressing our noses against shop windows, cataloguing magazine covers and music cassettes we’d save up furiously to own and exchange. And the contraband thrill of slipping a comic into our schoolbag on the way out of the bookshop? Priceless.
Pugmarks and Pugdandees brings back memories of our own growing up stories. It’s a personal memoir, yet it speaks of all of us. It reminds you why stories matter, why places shape us in ways we only understand years later, and why, despite everything, growing up in that particular era in India was something rather wonderful.
Reading this book reminded me of a little anecdote from my personal #NainitalDiaries.
In the early ’80s, I spent a couple of months in Nainital at my uncle’s place on self-imposed exile. You see, my father was posted in Benaras for a while. The holy city. And my parents seized the opportunity and took the irreversible decision to get my head tonsured while we were there. Despite the legitimate protests of an 8th standard teen who’d spent considerable time in front of every mirror perfecting his hair, my locks were chopped off with ceremonial flourish and surrendered to the gods. Everyone was pleased. Except me. In an act of dignified rebellion, I decamped to Nainital, refusing to return until my hair grew back to respectable lengths. In an era of Amitabh Bachchan and Vinod Khanna, my carefully curated teenage persona was at stake, and I just couldn’t walk back into school looking like a lightbulb.
So yes, I do know those hills from that particular era. The pristine air, the light shimmering through the deodars, the scent of the forest after rain. The routes to take downhill, the pony rides, the shortcuts on the way up. The way time moved differently up there, as if the altitude had slowed the clock itself. And I certainly know the precise number of weeks it took for adolescent dignity to be restored—follicle by follicle.
A few years ago, I had the chance to spend a weekend at Shivi’s family home—Clifton Bungalow in Nainital. Reading this book brought all those tales that his younger brother Rudy regaled us with into sharp focus. What struck me was how familiar it all felt, even beyond those stories.
With Pugmarks and Pugdandees, Shivi has written an ode to the hills. And in doing so, he’s written one to all our childhoods. Do read it. Preferably in the hills, if you can manage it.
Read our review of Clifton Bungalow here.
