Tales from the hills

To be loved by generations of readers is the sort of good fortune that most writers can only dream of. If you are Ruskin Bond, you get to live that dream. The man from Landour who has written short stories, poems, novels, essays, and memoirs, turns 88 next week. His creative output remains undiminished by age. Such is the power of his prolific pen!

In 2022 alone, he has several new books hitting the market. Granny’s Tree-climbing, published by Talking Cub, is about the adventures of a bespectacled booklover of a grandma who likes to hide amidst the branches of a tree and read to her heart’s content. She has bright red earrings that look like berries dangling from her ears. Her family is worried that she might have a fall while climbing up or climbing down but she does not exercise caution.

One day, she loses her balance, and falls with a thud. The doctor advises a week of rest but being “confined to her bedroom” is like “a brief season in hell”. She commands her son to build her a tree house. She moves in, lets her hair down and enjoys a glass of wine while her doting grandson follows with trays of food. Ekta Bharti’s illustrations bring Mr Bond’s words to life. The tree-house is picture-perfect with a table lamp, a fish bowl, books and cats.

A Little Book of India: Celebrating 75 Years of Independence is another new title by Mr Bond. Published by Viking, it reads like a series of jottings from the diary of someone who is proud of his Indian heritage. Mr Bond, born in 1934 to “British and Anglo-Indian parents”, has spent most of his life in India. He writes fondly of his “memories and impressions of this unique land — of its rivers and forests, literature and culture, sights, sounds and colours.”

He recalls being a 12-year-old in Shimla when the Union Jack on the flagpole in his boarding school’s playing field came down and the Indian flag went up. He writes about the excitement around the birth of the new nation, and the communal strife during the Partition. He has lived through some of the most defining moments of recent Indian history, all of which are documented in the book — including the assassination of M K Gandhi, which Mr Bond learnt about while he was watching a movie at a cinema hall in Dehradun. Ten minutes into the film, the lights came on. Gandhi had been shot dead. The show was ended abruptly.

Aleph Book Company has just published Mr Bond’s book, Song of the Forest: Tales from Here, There, and Everywhere. This anthology brings together his new and old short stories — “Miracle at Happy Bazaar”, “Rhododendrons in the Mist”, “Sher Singh and the Hot-water Bottle”, “Haunted Places”, “Tales of Fosterganj” and “The Garden of Dreams” among others. He has written a charming Afterword that describes his interaction with a girl from Jamnagar, Gujarat. Few might know that Mr Bond spent the first six years of his life there. His father was a travelling teacher who tutored young princes before he joined the Royal Air Force.

How to Live Your Life, published by HarperCollins India, is another new offering for the legion of fans that Mr Bond has acquired. He thanks everyone who has taken the trouble to write to him, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, knowing that he does not use email, messaging apps and “other technical aids”. With illustrations by Shamika Chaves, this book offers affectionate grandfatherly advice on navigating ups and downs. “Do what you are good at,” he writes, remembering that his mother wanted him to join the army instead of becoming a writer. He stood his ground, and encourages all his readers “to be whatever you want to be.”

Listen to Your Heart: The London Adventure, illustrated by Mihir Joglekar, and published by Puffin, builds on this theme. “I followed my heart instead of my head. It is something I have done all my life,” writes

Mr Bond, taking readers on a voyage to England and through his early years of falling in love, having his heart broken, and looking for jobs. Despite staying with his aunt, he felt like “a stranger in an unfamiliar land”. His heart ached for friends in Dehradun, monsoon downpours and mango trees.

My first encounter with Mr Bond’s writing was through his book, The Cherry Tree (1980), an excerpt from which was included in one of my school textbooks. I continue to read him, for his words are like a mug of hot chocolate in the harsh winter. His writing exudes warmth and simplicity. It provides comfort. It stands out because it is heartfelt, easy to connect with, and usually free of the artifice and cleverness that characterises so much contemporary writing.