Ruskin Bond

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Ruskin Bond

Ruskin Bond at a book release function inBangalore (June 6, 2012)

Born

19 May 1934 (age 82)

Kasauli, Punjab States Agency,
British India

Occupation

Writer

Nationality

Indian

Period

1951 present

Ruskin Bond (born 19 May 1934) is an Indian author of British descent. He lives with his adopted family
in Landour, in Mussoorie, India. The Indian Council for Child Education has recognized his role in the growth of
children's literature in India. He got the Sahitya Academy Award in 1992 for Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra, for
his published work in English. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1999 and Padma Bhushan in 2014.[1]
Contents
[hide]

1Life and career

2Literary style

3Filmography

4Awards

5Bibliography
o

5.1Collections / Anthologies

5.2Novels

5.3Children's fiction

5.4Essays

6References

7External links

Life and career[edit]

Ruskin Bond was born on 19 May 1934[2][3] in a military hospital, to Edith Clarke and Aubrey Bond, in
Kasauli, Punjab States Agency, British India. His siblings were Ellen and William. Ruskin's father was with
theRoyal Air Force from 1939 till 1944. When Bond was seven years old, his mother separated from his father
and married a Punjabi Hindu, Hari. Ellen lived in Ludhiana until she died in 2014.
Bond spent his early childhood in Jamnagar (Gujarat) and Shimla. At the age of ten, Ruskin went to live at his
grandmother's house in Dehradun after his father's death that year from jaundice. Ruskin was raised by his
mother and stepfather. He did his schooling from Bishop Cotton School in Shimla, from where he graduated in
1950 after winning several writing competitions in the school including the Irwin Divinity Prize and the Hailey
Literature Prize. He wrote one of his first short stories, "Untouchable", at the age of sixteen in 1951.
Following his high school education he went to his aunt's house in Channel Islands in the U.K. in 1951 for
better prospects and stayed there for two years. In London, he started writing his first novel, The Room on the
Roof, the semi-autobiographical story of the orphaned Anglo-Indian boy named Rusty; he did various jobs for a
living. It won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, (1957) awarded to a British Commonwealth writer under 30. He
moved to London and worked in a photo studio while searching for a publisher. After getting it published, Bond
used the advance money to pay the sea passage to Bombay and settle in Dehradun.[4]

He worked for a few years freelancing from Delhi and Dehradun.[5] He sustained himself financially by writing
short stories and poems for newspapers and magazines. On his youth, he said, "Sometimes I got lucky and
some [work] got selected and I earned a few hundred rupees. Since I was in my 20s and didnt have any
responsibilities I was just happy to be doing what I loved doing best." [4] In 1963, he went to live
inMussoorie because besides liking the place, it was close to the editors and publishers in Delhi. He edited a
magazine for four years. In the 1980s, Penguin setup in India and approached him for writing a few books. He
had written Vagrants in the Valley in 1956, as a sequel to The Room on the Roof. These two novels were
published in one volume by Penguin India in 1993. The following year a collection of his non-fiction
writings, The Best Of Ruskin Bond was published by Penguin India. His interest in supernatural fiction led him
to write popular titles such as Ghost Stories from the Raj, A Season of Ghosts, and A Face in the Dark and
other Hauntings. Since then he has written over five hundred short stories, essays and novels, including The
Blue Umbrella, Funny Side Up, A Flight of Pigeons and more than 50 books for children. He has also published
two volumes of autobiography. Scenes from a Writer's Life describes his formative years growing up in AngloIndia; The Lamp is Lit is a collection of essays and episodes from his journal.
Since 1963 he has lived as a freelance writer in Mussoorie, a town in the Himalayan foothills
in Uttarakhand and lives with his adoptive family in Landour, Mussoorie's Ivy Cottage, which has been his
house since 1980.[6] About what he likes the most about his life, he said, "That I have been able to write for so
long. I started at the age of 17 or 18 and I am still writing. If I were not a professional writer who was getting
published I would still write."[7] In his essay, "On being an Indian", he explains his Indian identity, "Race did not
make me one. Religion did not make me one. But history did. And in the long run, it's history that counts." [2]

Literary style[edit]
Most of his works are influenced by life in the hill stations at the foothills of the Himalayas, where he spent his
childhood. His first novel, The Room On the Roof, was written when he was 17 and published when he was 21.
It was partly based on his experiences at Dehradun, in his small rented room on the roof, and his friends. His
earlier works were written without being meant for any particular readership. [7] His first children's book, "The
Angry River" in the 1970s (second being The Blue Umbrella), had its writing toned down on a publisher's
request for a children's story.[7] On writing for children, he said, "I had a pretty lonely childhood and it helps me
to understand a child better." [8] Bond's work reflects his Anglo-Indian experiences and the changing political,
social and cultural aspects of India, having been through colonial, postcolonial and post-independence phases
of India.[2]
Bond said that while his autobiographical work, Rain in the Mountains, was about his years spent in
Mussoorie, Scenes from a Writer's Life described his first 21 years. Scenes from a Writer's Life focuses on
Bond's trip to England, his struggle to find a publisher for his first book The Room on the Roof and his yearning
to come back to India, particularly to Doon. "It also tells a lot about my parents", said Bond. "The book ends
with the publication of my first novel and my decision to make writing my livelihood", Bond said, adding:
"Basically, it describes how I became a writer".[citation needed]
Being a writer for over 50 years, Bond experimented with different genres; early works include fiction, short
stories, novella with some being autobiographical. Later, he tried out non-fiction, romance[4] and books for
children. He said his favourite genres are essays and short stories.[7] He considers himself a "visual writer"
because for short stories, he first imagines it like a film and then notes it down. For an essay or travelogue,
such planning is not needed for him. He feels the unexpected there makes it more exciting. [7] Bond likes Just
William by Richmal Crompton, Billy Bunter by Charles Hamilton and classics such as Alice in Wonderlandand
works by Charles Dickens and Mark Twain.[7]

Filmography[edit]
The 1978 Bollywood film Junoon is based on Bond's historical novella A Flight of Pigeons (about an episode
during the Indian Rebellion of 1857). It was produced by Shashi Kapoor and directed by Shyam Benegal. The
Rusty stories have been adapted into a DoorDarshan TV series "Ek Tha Rusty". Several stories have been
incorporated in the school curriculum in India, including "The Night Train at Deoli", "Time Stops at Shamli"
and Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra. In 2007, the Bollywood director Vishal Bhardwaj made a film based on his
popular novel for children, The Blue Umbrella. The movie won the National Award for Best Children's film.
Ruskin Bond made his maiden big screen appearance with a cameo in Vishal Bhardwaj's film 7 Khoon Maaf,
based on his short story Susanna's Seven Husbands. Bond appears as a Bishop in the movie withPriyanka

Chopra playing the title role.[9] Bond had earlier collaborated with him in the The Blue Umbrella which was also
based on one of his works.

Awards[edit]

John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 1957

Sahitya academic Award in 1992

Padma Shri in 1999

Padma Bhushan in 2014

Bibliography[edit]
This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Collections / Anthologies[edit]

Garland of Memories

frogs in the fountain

Ghost Stories from the Raj

Funny Side Up

Rain in the Mountains: Notes from the Himalayas

Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra

Dust on the Mountains

The Eyes are not Here

A Season of Ghosts

Tigers Forever

A Town Called Dehra

At school with Ruskin Bond

An Island of Trees

The Night Train at Deoli and Other stories

A Face in the Dark and Other Hauntings

Potpourri

The Adventures of Rusty

Crazy times with Uncle Ken

The Death Of Trees

Tales and Legends from India

Time stops at Shamli

A Tiger In The House

Four Feathers

School Days

The Tiger In The tunnel

The Hidden Pool

Mr. Oliver's diary

The Parrot Who Wouldn't Talk

The Ruskin Bond Children's Omnibus

Rusty - The Boy from Hills

The Monkey Trouble

Ruskin Bond's Book of Nature

Tigers For Dinner: Tall Tales By Jim Corbett's Khansama

The Rupa Book of Haunted Houses

The Very Best of Ruskin Bond -- The Writer on the Hill

The Rupa Book of Eerie Stories

The Penguin Book of Indian Ghost Stories

The Penguin Book of Indian Railway Stories

Face in the Dark and Other Haunting Stories (Collection of

Bond's ghost stories)

Friends in Small Places - Ruskin Bond's Unfogettable People

A Crow For All The Seasons

Hip Hop Nature Boy and Other Poems[10][11]

A Book of Simple Living

Love Among the Bookshelves

The Eyes of an Eagle

Hanuman to the Rescue

Kite Maker

Henry-The chameleon

Novels[edit]

With Love From Hills

The Room on the Roof

Vagrants in the Valley

Scenes from a Writer's Life

Rusty Runs Away

A Flight of Pigeons

Landour Days A writers Journal

The Sensualist

The Road To The Bazaar

The Panther's Moon

Once Upon A Monsoon Time

The India I love

The Kashmiri Storyteller'

Delhi is Not Far

Animal Stories

Funny side up

Angry River

Roads To Mussoorie

Strangers in the Night

All Roads Lead To Ganga

Tales of Fosterganj

Maharani

Secrets

Leopard on the Mountain

Grandfather's Private Zoo

The Blue Umbrella

Children's fiction[edit]

Bond, Ruskin (1980). The cherry tree. London: Hamish Hamilton.

Essays[edit]

Bond, Ruskin (January 12, 2015). "By the roadside fire : a youth full of
Bronte, Stevenson, the diarists and warmed by
Dickens". Outlook 55 (1): 7071. Retrieved 2016-01-06.

References[edit]
1.

Jump up^ "Padma Awards" (PDF). Ministry of Home Affairs, Government

of India. 2015. Retrieved July 21, 2015.

2.

^ Jump up to:a b c Meena G.. Khorana; Greenwood (January 2009). The

Life and Works of Ruskin Bond. IAP. p. 110. ISBN 978-1-60752-075-7.

3.

Jump up^ "At 81, Ruskin Bond's tryst with his tireless pen
continues". www.hindustantimes.com/. Retrieved 2015-10-22.

4.

^ Jump up to:a b c "The name is Bond, Ruskin

Bond". www.hindustantimes.com/. Retrieved 2015-10-21.

5.

Jump up^ Sinha, Arpita (18 May 2010). "The name is Bond, Ruskin
Bond". Retrieved 3 March 2011.

6.

Jump up^ Bond, Ruskin (24 November 2012). Walk the Talk with Ruskin
Bond. Interview with Shekhar Gupta. NDTV. Delhi. Retrieved 18
July 2013.

7.

^ Jump up to:a b c d e f "A Landour day with Ruskin Bond". The Hindu
Business Line. Retrieved 2015-10-20.

8.

Jump up^ "My writings reflect my lonely childhood: Ruskin Bond Firstpost". Firstpost. Retrieved 2015-10-22.

9.

Jump up^ "Ruskin Bond to do a cameo in 'Saat Khoon..'". The Times Of

India. Archived from the original on 28 January 2011.

10. Jump up^ Ruskin Bond celebrates 25th anniversary of Penguin in

Bangalore EF News International
11. Jump up^ Two anniversaries and a book launch Ipaimpress.com International Press Association publication

External links[edit]
Wikiquote has quotations
related to: Ruskin Bond
Wikimedia Commons has
media related to Ruskin
Bond.
Children's literature portal

Ruskin Bond's Profile

Profile and books by Ruskin Bond

Interview with Ruskin Bond by Atula Ahuja

Ruskin Bond in a Video reciting 2 of his Poems

"The skeleton in the cupboard." Short Story Published in the Times of

India

Books written by Ruskin Bond

[show]

Sahitya Akademi Award for En

[show]

Padma Shri awards

WorldCat Identities
VIAF: 85321477
LCCN: n50042076
GND: 120440687

Authority control

SUDOC: 02673723X
BNF: cb118927259 (data)
NDL: 01155621

Categories:

Living people

1934 births

Anglo-Indian people

English-language writers from India

Ghost story writers

Indian male novelists

Indians of British descent

John Llewellyn Rhys Prize winners

Outlook (magazine) people

People from Dehradun

People from Himachal Pradesh

Recipients of the Padma Bhushan

Recipients of the Padma Shri

Recipients of the Sahitya Akademi Award in English

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