‘Young adults should focus on their story, the medium doesn’t matter’

If you’ve wanted to move to the hills with dogs and swings, you may have Ruskin Bond to blame. The 84-year-old celebrated author has written some of the most popular children’s books set in small towns like Dehradun and Mussoorie. He’s written the semi-autobiographical The Room on the Roof (1956), Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra (1991), The Blue Umbrella (1980), and over 500 short stories. At a recent event organised by publishing house, Ratna Sagar, the author interacted with educationists from Maharashtra and Gujarat. HT caught up with Bond to talk about the reading habits of young Indians in the age of technology. The writing doesn’t have to change. You see, readers are buying books online – physical hardbound copies. That’s what has changed.

Their access to the internet and the ability to buy whatever they want to read has changed. It’s something they couldn’t do it before or even say 10 years back. Bookshops only existed in larger cities and some are even shutting down because of the online competition. Authors just need to focus on their story. Medium is irrelevant. In a way, shorter the better. I’ve always had difficulty writing very long stories. I’ve never written novels, I’ve written novellas and short stories. I enjoy the shorter medium far more.

I’ve recently picked up books, especially the crimesuspense novels, for fun but I peter out halfway through. The reason being I felt the author was forced to fill up so many pages.

If you have an idea or a story, put it on paper and don’t worry about the length or writing a novel. Just start writing. As for a line or two long stories – they seem gimmicky to me. similar subject, it would soon be out of date. Books are supposed to last, aren’t they? That’s why some books are dated. A topical subject may be of interest today but if you look back a year or two later it’s forgotten.

So it’s best to stick to an article if you want to tell something significant today in a long read.