~Prapti Chaudhari (Std. X Abhinav Vidyalay)
Well, I think you all have guessed it right, yes! It is indeed Ruskin Bond. He is a famous British Indian author and poet. Born on 19th May 1934, he spent his childhood in Kasauli till the age of six and then in Dehradun after his father, Aubrey Alexander Bond joined the Air Force.
His world revolved around his father but the unfortunate death left Bond in grief. But the time he spent with his father is beautifully described in his novel, Looking for The Rainbow: My Years with Daddy.
“No one rules the world forever, the gods grow jealous. If someone is constantly successful or too powerful - be it Alexander or Napoleon or Hitler - the gods will eventually destroy him.”
~Ruskin Bond, Looking for The Rainbow: My Years with Daddy.
Ruskin Bond is one of my favorite authors. I admire how he keeps his writing style simple yet so mesmerizing.
The books below are some of my favorite ones that I would like to recommend to you all.
The Room On The Roof
It is the first book written by Ruskin Bond at the age of 17. This story is about an orphaned Anglo-Indian boy named Rusty. After his parents’ death, Rusty started living with his guardian, Mr. John Harrison. But due to many restrictions imposed on him by Mr. Harrison, he runs away and lives with his Indian friends. Rusty wanders the streets of the bazaar and experiences the diversity of India. At the start, he faced many challenges and difficulties as he had no money but luckily, he soon got a job teaching English to a boy named Kishen, in return for a room on the roof to live in.
This book won the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize.
“Let no man take your dream away. It will sustain you to the end.”
~Ruskin Bond, The room on the roof
The story is set in a small village in Himachal Pradesh. A young girl named Binya falls in love with a blue umbrella for which she successfully trades her leopard’s claw pendant. Her acquisition envied many people of the village and especially an old shopkeeper named Ram Bharosa. He decides to get the blue umbrella by hook or by crook. But he realizes the wrong deed he did to Binya in the end and offers her a toffee. Even Binya realized that she did not need an umbrella to make her happy but indeed her true happiness lay in the people and nature close to her. Hence, she offered her umbrella to the shopkeeper.
“She was always ready with her smile, and would willingly have lent it to anyone who was feeling unhappy.”
~Ruskin Bond, The Blue Umbrella
The Night Train At Deoli
This is also a great intriguing story, where a boy meets a girl, selling baskets, at Deoli station while he was on the way to his grandmother’s house at Dehra. They both met each other only a couple of times but the dark and impatient eyes of hers have already stolen his heart. When his college term ended, as usual, he went to Dehra again and the train halted at Deoli station again, his eyes searched for the girl everywhere but she was nowhere to be seen. Will they ever meet again? Will they not? Where did the girl go? Well, I think this is what makes Ruskin Bond a renowned author, the mysteries in his stories.
“As children, we are all individualists; it is only as we grow older that we acquire a certain grey similarity to each other.”
~Ruskin Bond, The Night Train At Deoli
Thank You for reading!
Image credits:-
1. Ruskin Bond
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