The Ruskin Story

Brisk walks, strawberry milkshakes, and a good solid English breakfast—these make up the modest, one-with-nature author Ruskin Bond’s primary necessities in his hierarchy of needs. In contrast, in today’s fast-paced world, where our attention spans are limited and reading an entire book is a rare pursuit, the generationally influential “Ruskin Bond reader phase” has endured for decades. His work exemplifies the little things that often fade away in the haste of our background visuals, reminding us to be heedful of what truly makes up the bigger picture in the end.

K: Your contributions to literature and the nation have left a lasting impact, touching the hearts of generations and continuing to inspire readers today. Having grown up during the Nehru era, you've had the unique privilege of witnessing India evolve from its post-independence days to the modern era. From your own experiences, how do you perceive the changes in the country’s culture and social fabric over the years?" 

RB: Thank you, you’re very kind. So I finished school in 1950, and my first story was published in 1953. My first novel came out in 1955, and my latest book was published just a few weeks ago. Looking back, a lot has changed over the years, but the transformation has been gradual. In 1947, I was about 12 or 13, and India was going through a massive change with independence and partition. There was a lot of trauma at the time, but the '50s were relatively peaceful. People got along well with each other, and there was a sense of unity, even though India was still finding its feet as a new nation."

India has certainly evolved. Back in the 1950s, the middle class was small, and there were fewer schools. Today, children have much more access to education. I wasn’t the ideal schoolboy myself—I ran away from school a few times (laughs).

Technologically, we’ve made incredible strides as well. The world has become more interconnected, and information is easier to access than ever before. But personally, I’m not very tech-savvy. I don’t keep a mobile phone, and I don’t even have a landline because it doesn’t work (laughs). For me, life’s simple joys like writing and connecting with people are more important than keeping up with technology.

K: How has the meaning of home evolved for you over the years?

RB: I've had a very lively life, in that I’ve had a large family around me over the years. So, I’m used to home life, unlike some bachelors who don’t have that. I’m a bachelor with a family, but if I go back to my 20s, 30s, and 40s, I lived alone for long periods. Back then, I was quite a skinny fellow, and now, well, I’ve made it to the opposite of being skinny. So, that’s something home life does to you (laughs).

But it was great fun being a freelancer, and sometimes I even had to serve myself what I cooked. I’m the world’s worst cook, though (laughs). Although my masterpiece is yet to be written—‘Fifty Different Ways of Boiling an Egg’ (laughs). I can boil an egg, and I’ve lived on boiled eggs and failed omelettes.

K: If you were given the chance to live your life all over again, is there anything you would change?

RB: A few things, maybe. I would try not to hurt people. At some stage in my life, I might have been unkind or done something that hurt others—perhaps my mother, a family member, or a friend. Those are the kinds of things I would change. But, overall, not my life as a whole. The pattern of my life, I mean—I would still want to be a writer. If I had to live my life again, maybe I’d be a better writer, but still, a writer.

"I’d like to be as I am now—close to nature, living amongst books. And yes, while I wouldn't want the exact same life again, I would like something similar, just slightly better (laughs). We always want something better, don’t we? We’re greedy. I always want that second strawberry milkshake!" (giggles).

K: It's a given that bread, butter, sausages, and brunch, along with the added delight of a strawberry milkshake, are the little pleasures that provide you instant gratification. That being said, what are other small pleasures that you love to indulge in?

RB: I think just sitting in the early morning sun, watching the dawn break. I get up early enough to watch the dawn break and the sunrise. After that, I might go back to sleep, but I don’t want to miss the sunrise. I also like to hear the birds, though it's hard now because the road below is filled with traffic, from early morning till night.

I can’t walk as much as I used to. I used to be a great walker and hiker, going all around the place. Now, my eyesight is weak, and I’m not exactly up to Olympic standards now (laughs).”

Just this morning, when I had my writing pad with me, I remembered, out of the blue, a visit to Meerut (a small town outside Delhi) 50 or 60 years ago. One incident stands out vividly. I had gone for a morning walk after a heavy rain the previous night. The footpath was covered with neem pods, leaves and pods all over the ground. As I walked, my foot crunched on the neem pods, and the wonderful aroma of neem rose from them. That’s what I remember most vividly from that visit.

So, if you have a memory for small things, the very memory becomes friendly and useful to a writer. If you can remember the atmosphere of the period, or just a ladybird on your desk, rather than a mountain of work, those little things stay in your memory. It stayed in mine, and I think it stays in the minds of sensitive writers.

K: Why do they call you the ‘road inspector’?

RB: (Laughs) " wherever I lived—whether it was in Dehradun, Delhi, or London. I liked getting to know a town, a city, or a village by walking all over the place.

A lot of my material and stories came out of these walks. So, people who knew me—my neighbours or others in the streets—would often see me walking around at all different times and in all different parts of the town. They started to call me the ‘road inspector’ as a joke (laughs).

K: If given the opportunity, would you still choose to remain in Mussoorie, or if you were to consider moving to another place, is there anywhere else you would like to be?

RB: So, yeah, because I knew it from childhood. I grew up partly in Dehradun, where my maternal grandparents were settled, so it was familiar territory. I had been working in Delhi for about 3-4 years, and well, I was pretty fed up with city life, particularly life in Delhi at that time—say, the early 1960s. Maybe it’s more interesting now, but at that time, I wasn’t writing very well, living in the city. So, I wanted to escape. And I thought I would come up to the hills, since I knew the area well. It was easy to find a place to live, and I moved up here in the mid-1960s. And here I am, like an old boulder that won’t shift.

K: Writing a memory, in many ways, can be an act of reliving that moment. Which memories would you choose to revisit and explore further?

RB: I have a good memory, especially for childhood memories, particularly the early years. I can recall places and incidents from the age of about 3 or 4. My early years were spent in Jamnagar, a small town near the sea, where my father ran a small palace school for girls. It was almost like a fairytale, surrounded by palaces and the sea. When the war broke out, my father joined the RAF, and I was sent to boarding school. The first one was dreadful, but the second was much better.”

My father died when I was 10, and I had to adjust to a new family dynamic with my stepfather. During that time, I became a very lonely boy, spending a lot of time by myself. That’s when I developed the habit of walking and reading—a diverse variety of books. Becoming a writer felt like a natural progression.

Probably the reason my memory sticks so well is that I had a strange habit of making lists. I would list books I’d read, movies I’d watched, and even the cast of films from the '40s and '50s. I don’t make lists anymore, except for one—of publishers who owe me royalties. (laughs)

K: Oftentimes, the themes of your stories revolve around unhurried moments and the unnoticed things in life. In today’s fast-paced world, where attention spans are shrinking, how can a storyteller encourage readers to pause and reflect?

RB: "It’s not easy to become a reader, in a way. There are so many people who aren’t readers, or who don’t even want to be readers. Maybe they glance at a newspaper or read a prescribed text in school or college, but once a person becomes a reader, they become a committed reader. Once a reader, always a reader. But to start off, discovering books doesn’t come automatically. Kids, especially, grow up with parents who may not be interested in reading, and hence, the curiosity isn’t passed down. Teachers, too, don’t always have the time, especially when they’re managing large class sizes and can’t give individual attention to a child who might be a potential reader. “I guess books come our way accidentally, almost. It happened to me too. My father did put books in my way, but they were rhymes, picture books, and comic books. It was only when I started living with my stepfather and mother that things changed. They didn’t read at all, and they took me on this hunting expedition in the jungle near Dehradun, where they wanted me to shoot a tiger (they weren’t very good shots, so they never came anywhere near a tiger!) But anyways, I wasn’t interested in following tigers, so they left me in this dark bungalow, a forest rest house, where I discovered an old bookshelf that had been lying there for years, unused. And that’s when I started reading.

I discovered all sorts of writers—from Dickinson to P.G. Wodehouse, Agatha Christie, and many others from that period. Within a week, I’d read half a dozen books. And one day, sitting on the veranda, I saw a leopard pass by. When the hunters, my mom, and my stepfather came back without having shot anything, I told them I saw a leopard. They thought I was making it up and laughed at me (laughs). But I did see a leopard that morning. Since then, I’ve seen a few more, without being attacked by one and without attacking one.

K: Had you been born into the internet generation, do you think it would have influenced the extent or nature of your writing?

RB: "It's an interesting question. I don’t know, I might not have written as much. As a boy, I wanted to act, but there were no opportunities. Now, with technology, there are so many opportunities. We’re talking through the internet, something that would have been impossible 40-50 years ago. If I wanted to act, I would have had to get into theatre or something like that. That’s why I didn’t write a play—I wrote radio plays instead because back then, radio was popular. I didn’t try writing a theatrical play because there were no theatres in India, unless I settled in London or New York. There was no point in writing a play sitting in Dehradun.”

“Hence, I turned to writing stories, articles, and books because those were the things I could publish anywhere if I was good enough to sell them. In my 20s, I was good at marketing my work. Back then, marketing was new. Nowadays, publishers go all out with marketing—taking writers to literature festivals or even making them do tap dances! (laughs) I was good at finding the right publisher because my work wasn’t for everyone. It wasn’t the kind of work that would appeal to bestsellers.

K: Is there a particular conversation from your life that stands out to you—one that has deeply moved you and stayed with you over the years?

RB: I remember when I was about 18 or 19, I was in Jersey in the Channel Islands after finishing school. My mother had sent me there to stay with my aunt, uncle, and cousins. I took a job, but I was still writing at night. I would send off my stories and articles to various magazines, but they’d always come back with rejection slips. I checked the letterbox every day, hoping for something different. My uncle and cousins would often say, 'There’s another Ruskin story that’s come back!' They used to joke about my attempts to get published (laughs).

Then there was a lady who was staying with us. She lived in India when she was young, and one evening she said to me, 'Don’t be discouraged, Ruskin. I can see you’ve got a very determined chin.' I looked at her, and I said, 'I’ve got a very determined chin?' I looked in the mirror, and my chin didn’t look determined at all. In fact, it still doesn’t (laughs). I’ve got double chins now (laughs)! But somehow, I decided that I did have a determined chin, because she said so. And, of course, instead of getting discouraged, I worked harder. I wrote until people started accepting and publishing my stories—and even my first novel, which I wrote right there on the island in Jersey. So, I always remember that conversation, where she told me I had a determined chin—even though as far as chin goes, it didn’t look any different from anyone else’s!

K: With several books in the pipeline as of now, could you share some details about your first release and your upcoming works, particularly with publishers like Westland and Penguin India?

RB: My first publisher was André Deutsch, who published The Room on the Roof in 1956. Next year will mark its 70th anniversary. At that time, Deutsch was a new publisher, and we were quite successful together. Over the years, some publishers have closed down, and the firm is no longer around. Later, Penguin took up The Room on the Roof and kept it in print, and it’s still doing very well—better, in fact, than when it was first published.

As for my recent work, my latest book is Rhymes for the Times, a collection of funny poems and limericks. I wrote these during sleepless nights—just a bit of nonsense verse. Some verses were so nonsensical I had to discard them, but others made the cut. If it doesn’t keep you awake, it might just put you to sleep!

This year, Hold on to Your Dreams has been my bestseller, and it’s holding its ground quite well. I also write chapter books, short stories that help younger readers transition into longer books or novels. One of these is The Great Grandfather Tickled a Tiger, a well-known story of mine. So, there are a few more things out there that I’m quite excited about!"

K: If you had to give one piece of advice to a writer aspiring to get published today, what would it be?

RB: "Well, it depends on if you want to write the things you want to write or whether you want to make a living out of it and fit into the commercial sector. So, see what’s being published, and if you want to follow a trend, then you should do that. Because if certain kinds of books are in fashion or are now being read—like for instance, every kid seems to be reading horror stories—you might want to write a horror story.

But if you just want to write what you want to write, it’s tougher because then you should be looking at the market more, and try fitting it into the commercial aspect. So, you’ve got to hunt for publishers; I had to hunt for a publisher too, at one point. Sometimes, if it’s a special kind of book or a special subject, it’s easier to find a publisher. Again, you should go to specialist publishers for this. I would say, study the market.

K: It's been known that writing down your dreams is an avid hobby of yours. If yes, what’s the last dream that you wrote about?

RB: Yes, I have very pleasant dreams, and I used to keep a dream book and note them down, but I don’t anymore. I don’t really think dreams have any significant meaning beyond the pleasure or horror of them. I had one dream I didn’t enjoy, though. I was staying in a big five-star hotel in Mumbai, in a nice suite, and I suddenly realised I didn’t have any money to pay the bill. I was stuck—what was I going to do? Fortunately, I woke up before the bill came (laughs).

So, I get these dreams of insecurity, like missing planes or trains or not being able to get to my destination. Maybe they have some meaning or significance.

On the other hand, I sometimes dream of old friends, or sometimes new ones. The past gets mixed with the present.

Dreams have become more regular for me now, and I seem to dream more than I used to. Maybe it’s because I’m sleeping more lightly, and if I remember right, we tend to remember the dreams we see just before we wake up. I stopped writing them down, but I can still remember them if I want to. Dreams can be seen as stories, which may not be important to others, but they are to you. I guess dreams are very personal after all. Yes, I do dream—wonderful dreams. Sometimes, about love affairs I never had. Maybe I’ll look forward to them next time!

Interviewed by Athira Nair