Ruskin Bond turns 92: How a childhood dream of meeting the master storyteller taught me to write
Ninety two seasons on, Ruskin Bond's writing forever smells of pink Rhododendron and sounds like the sweet song of the whistling thrush.
Ruskin Bond turns 92: How reading Ruskin Bond growing up influenced me May often welcomes the scorching heat in the rugged plains of north India, and yet it had become my favourite month during my childhood days. It was not only the time of summer vacation but was a time to earnestly wish for a chance to meet Ruskin Bond.
I have always been more of a visual learner, so reading for me felt incredibly challenging without any pictures. However, the first non-visual book I was gifted was none other than The Room on The Roof, his first book, which also won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. And so I began my journey to read more and more, yet somehow, Bond became an inevitable part of my reading. With my growing interest in reading and Bond’s writing through the years, I started becoming restless, hoping that one day I would get to meet him or at least talk to him.
Ruskin Bond photographed with sister Ellen Bond. (photo credit: wikipedia)
It was only after a couple of years into reading Bond’s writing, that I had realised the deodars of Kasauli and the oaks of Dehra started growing on me, and I started looking at the world very differently. I started spending more time with nature, alone on walks, and began to appreciate small gifts from nature with much contentment.
That is when I started reading more of his writing. There was something in his writing that was not only soothing, but it also transported the reader to his very world of seeing the mountains. Reading his work led me to believe in nature’s power and its ability to find us in our darkest times.
His simplistic writing
One of the most touching pieces, I have had the privilege to read from Bond, is an anecdote he shares in one of his collections. It is about the time he spent before his father went back to Kolkata for his posting only for him to find out through a postcard that his father would die from malaria. I profoundly remember, crying, after reading it, like I had lost someone so close to me.
Ruskin Bond occasionally wrote many stories for his adopted family. (photo credit: facebook: fans of ruskin bond)
Over time, I really pondered, what did his writing have that was so captivating. I realised that it was not only the simplicity with which he held the pen in his hand, but more importantly his wondrous capability of positioning a young boy’s vulnerability who was still trying to make sense of the world around him. This helped me profoundly, when I was myself struggling to go back to writing more frequently.
My very first book review, was for his book The Rain in Mountains, that was published in my school newsletter, wherein, my mentor told me to never stop writing.
From the Archives: ‘I have seldom had writer’s block’: Ruskin Bond
Could I still meet him?
While many of you would have anticipated that I would have met him till now, I actually haven’t. And the more I think about this wish I have always had as a kid, the more I want to let it go.
As a kid I tried writing him many postcards, letters, and emails, but they simply never found a way to him. I also entered a silly contest a couple of years back, hosted by a book publishing company, pouring my soul into a letter I wrote to him, wishing that he had read it. I don’t think it even reached him.
As I have grown older, I have realised that maybe meeting him wasn’t the end goal. The end goal was to always strive for better words on the paper through simplicity and wade through criticisms and choose vulnerability behind the keys of the laptop.
And as I mark infinite trips around the mountains, through Bond’s books, I thank him for lighting up the way to numerous escapes in our lives that make us forget everything but our childish innocence.
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