RUSKIN BOND

During my initial years at school I was very introverted and it took me days to start conversing with other kids.I was'nt interested or talented in playing any sports and so I preferred to stay inside during lunch breaks and evenings when everybody darted for the playgrounds.Well as time passed me by I opened up a bit and slowly I became kind of normal.However I still felt uneasy in unfamiliar domains.

At school my favourite subject was English language.The main reason behind it was that my teacher was a wonderful lady who made me feel comfortable.The stories and poems recited by her seemed to take a dream like quality.Unlike others she would be very pleased when we came up with our own interpretations of poems.The danger that my introverted nature posed to me enjoying a wholesome childhood was somewhat offset by my literary inclinations.

Through textbooks I was introduced to Ruskin Bond's short stories like "Woman on Platform 8"(this was the first one) and "Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra".Reading these stories made me an instant fan.The stories transported me from my
own world into some unknown hill station in the foothills of the Himalayas.Through the stories I myself felt like a boy from the hills,with nothing more important than wandering in the hills.How can one create such lively a world with nothing but words still remains beyond my understanding.There have been many authors with a brilliant vocabulary and the right sense to use it efficiently,but Ruskin Bond's gift seems to be extra sensitive senses capable of absorbing even the minutest of details and the wisdom to interpret these details correctly.

Many of his works were semi-autobiographic in nature and most of them were influenced by events of his childhood.A few years later I became a member of the local British library and one fortunate day I stumbled upon "collected works of Ruskin Bond".That whole summer I dedicated myself to this book.Most of the short stories in there were already read by me, but still I read the whole book word by word.In all of his works the surroundings that the characters inhabited was not just a mere backdrop,but it was a character in
itself with its own chemistry with the other characters.The pleasure and calm that one feels while seeing a beautiful stream is what one feels while reading his works.The book also had some novels and novellas like-"Room on the Roof","Vragrants in the Valley","Delhi is not Far" .

Bond wrote "Room on the Roof" when he was just 17 years old and won the "John LLeweLLyn Rhys" prize for it in 1957.It is a semi-autobiographic account of his struggle towards becoming a writer.The book is still one of my favourites and I remember being moved to tears while reading the last pages.The opening lines of that book still remain with me
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And the last puff of the daywind brought from the unseen villages, the scent of damp wood-smoke,hot cakes,dripping undergrowth,and rotting pine-cones.That is the true smell of the Himalayas,and if once it creeps in the blood of a man,that man will at the last,forgetting all else,return to the hilsto die.

The worlds that Bond created were so complete and so life like that my heart yearns to be one of his characters possessed by that last gust of daywind who returns at last to the hills for his nirvana.

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