Creating a memory from imagination

Bram stoker in his classic epistolary novel Dracula, describes his character, Johnathan Harker’s and the reader’s first encounter with the un-dead monster Count Dracula in the very first chapter of his masterpiece.

Stoker had never been to the then rather obscure part of Europe but then on a vacation in the port town of Whitby, he chanced across a book describing the geography, culture and history of the Carpathian region. At one point in his book, Harker expresses an opinion upon noticing the people and the culture that “all the superstitions of the world seem to have gathered under the horseshoe of the Carpathian”. This statement on the other hand might also reflect the English sense of superiority that Harker very often displays on his eastern sojourn.  The picturesque Transylvanian mountains can be compared to our own Sahyadri ranges and the hotel where Harker puts up in can be any of the hotels near Naini lake. We would suggest you take a tour of the hill station to get the feeling.

Snobbery aside, the book also presents a breathtaking description of the Transylvanian landscape. The forests and the mountains seem to jump out of the pages of the novel when Stoker puts his genius to work. This is all the more fascinating given the fact that Stoker had never actually seen the place and was merely reconstructing it from the pages of another writer’s book.

A budding writer should consider walking through the mall road of Nainital filled with hotels and shops selling local wares to give shape to their own story. They will have the added advantage of actually experiencing the place for themselves.