Mountains of Glory

The storyworld of ‘Mountains of Glory’ was first written as an unpublished manuscript in 2012, founded on my previous local conservation work for the RSPB and London Wildlife Trust where I was inspired to learn about wildlife, like the Peregrine Falcon and wild animals like the Red Fox, both now urbanised wild animals, having adapted through years of human urban habitation moving into their natural habitat.

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Aspects of the protagonist snow leopard, Jiva is founded on my own life history as English-South Asian born in Yorkshire, brought up in both England and India whose family settled in the UK during the Windrush Years. I first found out about the snow leopard from my elder brother’s wildlife, mammal based project from our schooling years in Fitzjohn’s Primary, London NW3. The snow leopard image from this time resonated and journeyed with me all these years.

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Much of my own journey of displacement, both internal and external and the trauma experienced from my families’ personal history during the Windrush years and their subsequent exile in India left me isolated. Upon studying and travelling to the Himalayas, the snow leopard became my avatar spirit-animal.

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Jiva encounters both tragedy and adventure in his life, he finds young love and a loving friendship in Prithvi. They grow up together and with Prithvi’s help, he grows to become a gracious king and protector of the mountains alongside his queen, amidst a growing human presence, sometimes hostile, and against internal rivalry within the snow leopard world, all within the backdrop of an ever-increasing impact of climatic shifts and geological changes on the mountains of the Himalayas.

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Neil Mukherjee

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Writer/Director & Actor.