My Years Keep Adding to the Treasure of My Memories: Ruskin Bond
“I still write off & on in my diary & would like to use those details in books I will be writing,” says Ruskin Bond.
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I recently attended the release of noted author Ruskin Bond’s latest book Words from the Hills in the Doon Valley, where I head him say that he could never think of stopping writing. When I congratulated him on the occasion and said – “So many books from you this year!” – he smiled and said that he would just keep on writing.
“I consider myself very lucky that I am a writer and that there is no age of retirement for writers,” Bond often says when people come up with questions like – “Are you still writing, Mr Bond?” He certainly does not like being asked this.
No question of a writer’s block for this prolific and wonderful author who has charmed readers with his books and his personality over the decades. His first book The Room on the Roof celebrated its diamond jubilee last year. 61 years ago, he’d penned the book – based on his journal entries which were written over a period of three or four years.
This latest work of his is designed like a diary and has a lot of empty spaces which readers – especially youngsters – can fill by writing their own thoughts about life and the world, just as Bond has done in some spaces in the diary. The book is full of colour and gems of wisdom as it has been illustrated by Ahlawat Gunjan (who has also designed the cover) working in harmony with the author and giving apt projections to his thoughts through his paintings.
As we sat chatting and Mr Bond sifted through his memories on that evening in the Doon Valley, he suddenly remembered that the famous magician, Gogia Pasha – who was very popular between the 1940s and the 1960s – was his landlord when he stayed with his family on Raipur Road in Dehra Dun in 1945-46. “I could hear him practise his tricks while chanting Gilli, Gilli, Gilli!” he smiled.
Having watched the Valley transform since his childhood years, his memories of it are special and beautiful.
The book introduces us to a bunch of Bond’s favourite things – his rubber plant in his room at the Ivy Cottage in Landour, his love for trees and butterflies, for birds and flowers, for the eternal mountains and the sky full of stars, his observation of the signs of the changing seasons in the hills, his favourite old chair that has taken the shape of his body and whose shape he has taken, the ladybird who walks across his papers on his desk.... All of these find place in this pretty book which has fewer words and more pictures.
However, each word comes from the very depth of Bond’s heart and is precious to him as well as his readers.
“These are words of love and joy and have emanated from my abode in the hills,” says Bond as he urges the schoolgirls attending the function to use the blank spaces to express their thoughts or write some poems. “This is your book,” he tells them, “and the words and decorations are simply there to persuade you to use it.”
As he always does, Bond has put his heart into this journal that conveys in the least words possible the philosophy of simplicity he has lived by all his life – his closeness to nature, his passion for the mountains, his simple routine and his beloved desk and chair – as also the room with a window that he has always wanted to be in, right from the time when he was a youngster.
“I have always observed the world from the window of my room. A room with a window is a must for being a writer!” he finishes telling the roomful of eager listeners, with a beaming smile.
(Dr Jaskiran Chopra is a senior journalist and author based in Dehra Dun. She also teaches university students.)
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