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Ruskin Bond8217;s first novel for children, out of print for years, is back now, fresh with all its mountain air. The Hidden Pool came out ...

Ruskin Bond8217;s first novel for children, out of print for years, is back now, fresh with all its mountain air. The Hidden Pool came out ten years after Bond8217;s first novel The Room on the Roof. But the latter, writes Bond, 8216;8216;was not intended for children. Its earnest young author took himself and his subject very seriously.8217;8217; The Hidden Pool was intended for children, but adults become its unintended audience as well.

The plot is simple: three boys and their jaunts. Once Laurie, an English boy, Anil, the son of the local cloth merchant, and Kamal, orphaned by the Partition, a buttons and shoelaces seller dreaming of a college education, get together they are inseparable. On Holi, the English boy joins Anil with the local festivities and enters the loud colourful world of the bazaar. They continue their idlings at a pool Laurie discovers where they swim, fish and ride buffaloes hidden from prying eyes.

But their big adventure of course, is their trek to the Pindari glacier in Kumaon. The dak bungalows where they stay, Bisnu the little Pahari boy who takes on the role of a sherpa, the Himalayan bear devouring pumpkins on a dark tin roof, the formidable tales of the Abominable Snowman and the Lidini8212;the snow-woman, these are all images that Bond conjures effortlessly, gleaned from a childhood well-spent in the mountains. The high-altitude silence, both 8216;8216;impressive and a little frightening8217;8217; 8216;8216;different from the silence of a room or an empty street8217;8217; shine through these plain tales from the hills.

Then there is the eventual parting. Laurie returns to England, the stream changes course and the hidden pool vanishes. But there is the promise of return. As Kamal writes to Laurie: 8216;8216;Come back as soon as you can. The mountains are waiting for us.8217;8217;

Devyani Onial

If you don8217;t compare it to Keneally8217;s most famous book, Schindler8217;s Ark, The Tyrant8217;s Novel will be able to stand on its own. It is another matter that the book more or less reads like a cathartic outburst. The story is set in a Middle Eastern country ruled by a ruthless dictator, Great Uncle. Life is a rosy picture for Alan Sheriff 8212; with a beautiful, talented TV actress for a wife and a blooming career as an accomplished writer 8212; until one fateful day when everything he loved vanishes into thin air. Worse still, he is assigned a task by Great Uncle which, if he falters, could even mean death.

The similarities between Saddam Hussein and Great Uncle are too stark to miss, so much so that you can8217;t help but wonder if Keneally is trying to make a statement against Saddam8217;s Iraq.

Miranda Yambem