I picked up a few books in a little bookstore in Darjeeling. One of the winners was a slim volume titled "Delhi is not far" by Ruskin Bond. I don't see it available on Amazon, but his "Best Of" collection has the story.
Like many short stories it has a tremendous sense of place including the brooding last two paragraphs.
"This is the real land, the land I should write about. My Mohalla [neighborhood] is but a sickness, a wasting disease, and I should turn aside from it to sing instead of the splendors of tomorrow. But only yesterdays are splendid ... There are other singers, sweeter than I, to sing of tomorrow. I can only sing of today, of Pipalnagar; where I have lived and loved.
Yesterday I was sad, and tomorrow I may be sad again, but today I know that I am happy. I want to live on and on delighting like a pagan in all that is physical; and I know that this one lifetime, however long, cannot satisfy my heart."
---Ruskin Bind, "Delhi is not far"
