The names of the prestigious and coveted Padma Awardees were flashed on the television at 9 pm primetime news. The news marquee read, “Padma Bhushan for Ruskin Bond- Literature and Education”. No, I have never met Ruskin Bond personally yet, thrilled and delighted is what I felt, after all, my favourite writer had been conferred with the high-status Padma Bhushan on the eve of the 65th republic day. Is a middle column enough to applaud and praise one of India’s most loved and prolific story-teller? Of course not, but, as Ruskin Bond’s biggest fan ever, I can’t help but do so.
As an Indian author of British descent, Bond has played a pioneering role in the augmenting the growth potential of children’s literature in India. Most of his works are deeply influenced by his life spent in the in the foothills of the Himalayas, the hill stations of Dehradun and Mussorie. In the course of an illustrious writing career spanning almost 45 years, he has penned down over a hundred short stories, essays, poems, novels et all. My literary soul lost its virginity to The Room on the Roof, which was his debutant novel, written when he was just seventeen years old and it received the John Llewellyn Rhys memorial prize in 1957. Vagrants in the Valley was also written during his teen years and the story picks up from where the Room on the Roof leaves off.
What makes Ruskin Bond so special? For over half a century, he is one writer who has understood, felt and celebrated the wonder and magnificence of nature, which other contemporary Indian writers have been disastrous at. Whether he writes about his escapades in the natural world, or the encounter with the snow leopards and cheetahs in the dark streets of Mussorie, or visualizes the first pre-monsoon shower of the Himalayas, the fragrances of the petite rose-begonia, the elfin ivy veil that creeps into his room, the chorus of the insects in the shadow of the full moon. He truly yields magic with his fountain pen and paints opulent and majestic images, which we as readers can feel, experience and visualize. Like a magician, he beckons us to slip into imagination and slowly drift into the tranquil and peaceful life with nature- truly idyllic, which today most of us are unable to lead as we find ourselves increasingly trapped in the cobweb of mundane tasks and trials.
Ruskin Bond, is a writer who does not make headlines. Quietly, he writes straight from the heart about something he cares for- his readers, his adopted family, the valleys, the mountains, the rivers and the roads, the villages and small tea-stalls, all which are a part of the India- he loves! Congratulations, Dear Ruskin Bond!
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