Patrick Moon
What else is there for a boy like me? tells two different, interlocking stories – both of them about changing lives. The first starts with my own decision to abandon a successful career as a City solicitor. With no idea what might come next (I’d been too busy on the treadmill to decide!) I set off to India for the whole of a winter to get twenty years of law out of my system and find out how best to reinvent myself.
The second deals with my attempt to help a young Indian change his life. I’d met Mohamd on a previous short holiday. Born into a poor, primitive and largely illiterate Rajasthani desert community, he had already - by the age of eighteen - taught himself sufficient English, French, Italian and Japanese to work as a tourist guide. It seemed to me that, with a little financial help, he could go much further. So, returning to India, I wanted to meet up with him again to see how that might best be turned into a practical reality. However, I’d badly underestimated how much of the weight of India’s rigidly structured society was going to be stacked against me. So, while one story might be counted a success, the other – for all my best intentions - ended unhappily.
You resigned your partnership at the age of 44 – what made you decide that you wanted something more?
It wasn’t that I hated my life as a lawyer. I’d reached the point where I was pretty much at the top of my field and felt I’d achieved all that I could in that life. I didn't want to wake up one day aged sixty, having done only one thing. I didn't know whether I was going to succeed at anything else, but I knew there had to be time in life to try!
Please tell us about your paintings.
Painting was another thing that I hadn’t had time for since childhood. I wanted to see if I could still do it. I even packed watercolours and brushes for that trip to India, setting up my stool in crowded markets to paint with crowds of jostling, inquisitive children pressing so close that I couldn’t even see the subject I was trying to paint. But the good thing was, they had no experience of Western painting styles and couldn’t see how bad my early efforts were! However, I did (I think) get better and – working nowadays in oils – have even succeeded in selling a fair few. I’ve started uploading some examples on my website www.patrickmoon.co.uk which also has more material about my books.
When and how did you acquire your property in France?
This was in 2000, when the house and its dozen acres of land rather ‘dropped in my lap’. My first book, ‘Virgile’s Vineyard’, tells the story of my inheriting it in a dilapidated, overgrown state and then gradually ‘reclaiming’ it all from neglect. To say more might spoil the book, but I should just add that it also tells the story of a year spent work-shadowing a talented young wine-maker, the Virgile of the title.
What is it about India that makes you return every year?
Obviously the climate is good and the food wonderful, but ultimately it’s the people that keep drawing me back – not just for their quirky differences from ourselves, but for their warmth, charm, open-heartedness, optimism, stoicism and resilience.
Why did you decide to go into law?
It was intellectually satisfying and, of course, it paid quite well. It also provided the kind of structured career that suited me at that time in my life. But then later my priorities changed. I genuinely think it was my first visit to India that altered my perspective. And part of this was a need for more freedom to explore other possibilities.
Tell us about your motivation to change the fortunes of Mohamd.
I felt a strong sense that India had given me so much – not least in playing its part in refocusing my own life – that I wanted to ‘put something back’. I think a lot of people feel this, but perhaps choose a more conventional charitable route. You can’t go far in India without meeting talented individuals who are massively under-achieving because of their social and economic circumstances. In that sense, there was nothing unique about Mohamd. He just happened to be in the right place at the right time. However, once I’d made the offer to help him, I have to say that he went on to prove himself not just unbelievably ungrasping, but also an exceptionally loyal and generous friend. Which makes it all the more heart-breaking that things ended badly, as the book recounts.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to 'fill in the blank sheet of paper' in their life?
Actually, the hard part for most people is creating that ‘blank sheet of paper’. I was lucky. I had cushioned myself a little with some savings. And I didn't have dependants. But then again, I hadn’t taken out mortgages for yachts and second homes like some of my partners! But if you can find a way of securing the ‘blank’ for ‘filling in’, the important thing I would say is to keep yourself open to opportunities and ambitions that you never really suspected in yourself. When I left the law, I had a long mental list of possible futures, but neither writing nor painting featured anywhere!
What is next for you?
There’s another possible book that I’ve been researching off and on for a number of years. It’s also about Rajasthan in India, but very different from “What else…?” A lot of my time in Rajasthan has been spent in the various historic forts and palaces that have recently been turned into hotels. But I found myself frustrated not knowing who built them and what part they played in local history, not how they functioned as living buildings in their heyday. I’d like to produce a book that answers those questions and brings the whole history of the region to life through these fabulous buildings.