25 years ago, novelist and her husband did what many now dream about in polluted Delhi -- they moved to remote Ranikhet. But it wasn't all roses. Along with the rhododendrons and deodars came leopards and landslides. 'Called By The Hills', Roy's debut work of non-fiction uses both pen and paintbrush to introduce readers to her recalcitrant neighbours, canine companions and the labour of growing a garden in the forest. The Booker-longlisted author speaks to about mutts and melting glaciers.This book began when Christopher MacLehose, who has published all my novels, suggested during the Covid lockdown that I write about the plants and flowers in the hills around me. Since everyone was confined to their homes not knowing how long the imprisonment would last, he thought the book could let people ramble in other landscapes. But I soon realised I could not separate plants from the place and the people. I am a storyteller and whether it is fiction or non-fiction, I try to find meaning through stories. The most challenging thing in fiction is creating a living, breathing, thinking world out of nothing; but here, I had to work with a world that already exists -- both in memory and in the present -- while ensuring it didn't become a mass of facts. The process was enjoyable and relaxed, especially because it involved painting too.We were very fortunate to find a ruined cottage that we were somehow able to make habitable. Minutes after we stumbled upon the place, a dog appeared with his tail swaying and his eyes shining. It felt as if he were telling us that this hill, this cottage, and a dog in it were eventually where we were headed. At that time, we had just started our publishing house, Permanent Black, and weren't earning, so it wasn't the most rational time to rebuild a ruin and move away from the city... but it really was, as I say in the book, an epiphany.In my fiction, even when I've dealt with historical cataclysms and big political themes, I've approached them through the lives of ordinary people and daily happenings. That's what I mean in that sentence -- things considered small or insignificant are anything but that. The hierarchies that exist between species or material things were long known to be absurd. Now, when we understand what the extinction of a single species does to the planet, battles in gardens -- metaphoric and real -- are ever more significant. Gardening also teaches me that I cannot control things. Writing calls for patience and persistence too.My mother, Sheela Roy, is intensely creative -- painting, drawing and making things all the time. In her, I had a responsive critic and teacher at home. Artist and potter friends have also shaped how I think about ceramics and painting. Drawing from life demands attention and leads to discovery. Even if a painting turns out to be a failure, I never feel the time was wasted. It feeds into my writing.I had a dog named Saki from childhood till my college years. My father -- a geologist -- brought her home from a field trip in his pocket; she was tiny and very sick. But my parents brought her back from the brink and she lived for almost 14 years. Biscoot was my first dog as an adult -- she was a pup a friend found in a park and was with us from our earliest days in Ranikhet. Since then, we've always had genial, loving dogs in our lives -- some we found, some found us. Jerry was one of them, very dear to us. Her story is in the book, as are the others.Community dogs must be sterilised, vaccinated, and fed -- this is basic and those who look after them have fought for this for decades. There's no cause for hostile camps over something so essential. But hurling animals capable of great love and friendship into badly run, filthy shelters -- prisons by another name -- shows how cruelty and indifference toward the less fortunate has become commonplace.We experience far more cataclysmic monsoons now, along with long droughts. From here, we see the peaks black and snowless in winter. Melting glaciers and altered snow behaviour have caused terrifying disasters at higher altitudes, killing many. When I wrote 'The Folded Earth', neither I nor anyone else knew about climate change. But even then, it was obvious that large-scale deforestation, mining etc would have terrible consequences for wildlife and humans.I think in good fiction, it's possible to fit a universe into a teacup.You need an appetite for solitude, wilderness and silence and work that is intensely involving and can be done from anywhere. I wouldn't recommend living in a place like Ranikhet to people merely escaping bad air.