A ‘Bond’ for life
It was the 1980s, a time when the only place romance throbbed for prepuberty kids was in the pages of a book. And Ruskin Bond ensured kids across India fell in love. It it wasn't with the English language, it was with life and its little moments. His slice-of-life stories and lucid style propelled us into a fairytale world that felt familiar, never foreign. But that wasn’t all. The author’s name had us equally fascinated.
Now let me context this for those who are internet natives. I am talking of a time when our unbridled imagination was all we had to paint a picture of ‘truth’ in our heads as we did not know of a machine called a computer and I don’t think the word internet was even mentioned in the Oxford English Dictionary at the time. In such a scenario, a name as exotic as Ruskin Bond stood for a suave, swashbuckling assistant spy to the other more iconic Bond, and one who in all probability moonlighted as an author of children’s books in his downtime. Either that, or as a friend used to believe, the name was a fancy alias of an otherwise ‘ordinary’ man hoping to live vicariously through his fictitious name. (Ignore the scepticism.)
Cut to the 90s when the world wide web, cable television and media collectively gave us easy access to our idols and role models, and we came to know the real Ruskin Bond. Honestly, we were part overawed, part curious. What was a loveable elderly Englishman, with melancholy in his eyes and poignancy in his demeanour, doing in the hinterlands of the Himalayas? Did he get left behind by his countrymen when they left India?
A name as exotic as Ruskin Bond stood for a suave, swashbuckling assistant spy to the other more iconic Bond, and one who in all probability moonlighted as an author of children’s books in his downtime
Irrelevant questions. What is most relevant is that this 88-year-old grand daddy of English literature in India continues to write, ignite imaginations and, more importantly, teach how to seek strength from our failings and fears.
Read our exclusive interview with the author on page 12 and let me know what you think…