Tale of Two worlds

The book has a vivid,first-hand account of the earthquake on January 15,1934. It had a magnitude of 8.2 on the Richter scale. “The earthquake damaged the fields and our home became dust,” Dyer recalls. “My mother protected us from the all that was falling here and there. That’s how she,my four brothers and I managed to survive that dreadful day.”

The title of the book refers to the commonly held belief in India that flying foxes,which were abundant in the Champaran region of north Bihar,augur prosperity. “The foxes left the fields after the earthquake and what remained was only destruction and devastation. Prosperity went up in smoke,” says the author.

Dyer decided to pen down her memories 10 years back on encouragement from friends and family. “I would tell my friends abroad about the experiences I had while growing up in such a beautiful and magical place. They always encouraged me to write them down in the format of a book. Ten years back,I decided to tell my story,” says Dyer. In this period,she always kept a pen and notebook handy to write down whatever memories came to her mind. “I would remember things in my dreams and suddenly wake up with a start to jot down the incidents of my childhood days,” she says. Dyer even studied and researched on the subconscious mind to bring herself to a state of mind between wake and sleep to connect with the part of the brain that stores deep-seated memories of younger days.

The book is divided into three parts. The first tells the story of her grandfather’s struggle to gain success; the second is called ‘Sugar Coated Days’ as it describes the author’s childhood days with friends and her brothers and is written in a light and humorous tone. The third part describes the political trouble of 1942 and the partition of India and Pakistan with the onset of land reforms and the end of the zamindari system. “We do not realise what beautiful and fairy-tale like lives we live unless we tell it to someone who has lived an uneventful and mundane life. It took me some time to realise that if I had not written this book,it would have been a waste of a beautiful story,” she smiles.

Now,Dyer is set to tell another story about the wonderful memories of her school days at St Helen’s Convent in a small hill station in West Bengal called Kurseong. “My second book is untitled at the moment,but it deals with the Second World War,” reveals Dyer.