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Ruskin Bond, popular and versatile English author, the writer-in-residence in the hill town, has completed sixty years as a writer.
Bond wrote his first book The Room on the Roof at the age of 16. The work has the Doon valley as its backdrop and paints an endearing picture of the pristine beauty of the valley in the 1950s.Generations of children have been studying the book as a text in school.
The writer turns 77 on May 19. “I was seventeen when The Room on the Roof was published. Makes me feel quite ancient sometimes,” Bond said while talking to The Pioneer here.
“This coming week, my book Crazy Times with Uncle Ken is going to be released There are some new Uncle Ken stories added to some of the older ones, making the book quite funny, especially for young readers,” said the writer.
Uncle Ken, Bond’s maternal Uncle, is a popular character in his work and Bond’s readers can never get enough of the stories about this endearing character. He leads a charmed existence and has no worries about earning a living. Having been blessed with several doting sisters, he is a frequent unannounced ‘guest’ at the author’s grandmother’s place too. Bond’s grandmother nevertheless is concerned about his future and tries to get him some job every now and then. Quite easy ones at that. But, Uncle Ken easily manages to ‘lose’ them all.
The other book of the author will be out by July-August .It is a collection of about eight stories titled “Secrets” and tells the tales of some individuals who lived in the Dehradun of the 1940s and 1950s.
“Two or three of the stories are about the pre-independence times in Doon,” says Bond whose stories are inspired from his childhood memories of the Doon valley when he used to stay here with his maternal grandparents on Old Survey Road.
“The Europeans were leaving the valley while some stayed behind. This is one of the themes in this volume,” he said.
It is for the first time that he has penned stories which will give the reader an insight into the Dehra of the 1940s. As an eleven year old, he stayed with his mother and maternal grandparents who owned a house in the valley. It was during these days that he came across many people who were leading ordinary lives and captured his interest.
“I was part of their lives in some way or the other. These people were either neighbours or known to my grandparents. And some were those whom I met during my visits to the bazaar,” the author said. “Each of the stories is based on one of these quirky characters I encountered. In some stories, characters from the other stories also make an appearance…,” he explained.
Bond said that his presence as a “boy narrator” who was observing the rather unusual lives of these people was the anchoring force of the book. “These people will come to the reader as seen from a boy’s eyes”.
“One of the characters is an Anglo-Indian leprosy patient who lives an isolated existence. Some of the characters are Indians, some Anglo-Indians and some Europeans who lived in Doon in the 1940s and 1950s,” Bond said.
Revealing an interesting chapter of Dehra’s history, he said that not many people now remember that there used to be a big hotel by the name of “Greenes” on Rajpur Road, just behind Kwality’s. “Today, there is a cinema hall there. This hotel had a billiards room and a cosy bar where college dropouts, people out of work and others whom society had declared as failures use to gather in the evenings. My mother was managing this hotel for a short while and it was during those days that I came across some very interesting people and stories that have stayed in my mind all my life,” Bond said.
“My encounters with them taught me a lot about life”. He said that through the stories about these folks, he had described how leisurely and relaxed life was in the valley in those days. “Every house had an orchard and just about 45,000 people lived in Dehra. There was just one taxi and a few tongas. I used to go with my grandmother to her bank, Allahabad Bank, near Clock Tower. We went on a tonga. The only thing that has stayed the same is that the four clocks of the clock tower show a different time form each other .That never changes, I hope”.
Bond wrote his first book The Room on the Roof at the age of 16. The work has the Doon valley as its backdrop and paints an endearing picture of the pristine beauty of the valley in the 1950s.Generations of children have been studying the book as a text in school.
The writer turns 77 on May 19. “I was seventeen when The Room on the Roof was published. Makes me feel quite ancient sometimes,” Bond said while talking to The Pioneer here.
“This coming week, my book Crazy Times with Uncle Ken is going to be released There are some new Uncle Ken stories added to some of the older ones, making the book quite funny, especially for young readers,” said the writer.
Uncle Ken, Bond’s maternal Uncle, is a popular character in his work and Bond’s readers can never get enough of the stories about this endearing character. He leads a charmed existence and has no worries about earning a living. Having been blessed with several doting sisters, he is a frequent unannounced ‘guest’ at the author’s grandmother’s place too. Bond’s grandmother nevertheless is concerned about his future and tries to get him some job every now and then. Quite easy ones at that. But, Uncle Ken easily manages to ‘lose’ them all.
The other book of the author will be out by July-August .It is a collection of about eight stories titled “Secrets” and tells the tales of some individuals who lived in the Dehradun of the 1940s and 1950s.
“Two or three of the stories are about the pre-independence times in Doon,” says Bond whose stories are inspired from his childhood memories of the Doon valley when he used to stay here with his maternal grandparents on Old Survey Road.
“The Europeans were leaving the valley while some stayed behind. This is one of the themes in this volume,” he said.
It is for the first time that he has penned stories which will give the reader an insight into the Dehra of the 1940s. As an eleven year old, he stayed with his mother and maternal grandparents who owned a house in the valley. It was during these days that he came across many people who were leading ordinary lives and captured his interest.
“I was part of their lives in some way or the other. These people were either neighbours or known to my grandparents. And some were those whom I met during my visits to the bazaar,” the author said. “Each of the stories is based on one of these quirky characters I encountered. In some stories, characters from the other stories also make an appearance…,” he explained.
Bond said that his presence as a “boy narrator” who was observing the rather unusual lives of these people was the anchoring force of the book. “These people will come to the reader as seen from a boy’s eyes”.
“One of the characters is an Anglo-Indian leprosy patient who lives an isolated existence. Some of the characters are Indians, some Anglo-Indians and some Europeans who lived in Doon in the 1940s and 1950s,” Bond said.
Revealing an interesting chapter of Dehra’s history, he said that not many people now remember that there used to be a big hotel by the name of “Greenes” on Rajpur Road, just behind Kwality’s. “Today, there is a cinema hall there. This hotel had a billiards room and a cosy bar where college dropouts, people out of work and others whom society had declared as failures use to gather in the evenings. My mother was managing this hotel for a short while and it was during those days that I came across some very interesting people and stories that have stayed in my mind all my life,” Bond said.
“My encounters with them taught me a lot about life”. He said that through the stories about these folks, he had described how leisurely and relaxed life was in the valley in those days. “Every house had an orchard and just about 45,000 people lived in Dehra. There was just one taxi and a few tongas. I used to go with my grandmother to her bank, Allahabad Bank, near Clock Tower. We went on a tonga. The only thing that has stayed the same is that the four clocks of the clock tower show a different time form each other .That never changes, I hope”.
