Ruskin Bond's World: Thematic Influences of Nature, Children, and Love in His Major Works

by Gulnaz Fatma

Overview

Ruskin Bond has won the hearts of millions of readers with his countless charming short stories and introspective novels. From biographical tales about acting as a grandfather to children, to tales of unrequited love, the cross-cultural dimensions of Indian society, and the power and beauty of nature, Bond's more than forty novels and short story collections have made him an internationally acclaimed author.
In Ruskin Bond's World, Indian scholar Gulnaz Fatma, Ph.D. sheds light on one of her country's greatest and most beloved storytellers, tracing the influences in his stories from a childhood in colonial India through his time spent in Britain and his life today among India's hills and mountains. She explores the biographical as well as the imaginary elements of his fiction and explores in detail the themes of nature, children, love, and animals in his novels and short stories. Throughout these pages is revealed Bond's love for humanity in all its variety, from honorable rogues to proud beggars, heartbroken lovers, and wise old men and women.

"Gulnaz has successfully traced major themes in Bond's prolific work under the lenses of her careful examination, proving he is the product of his environment...a sincere study of Ruskin Bond."
--Stephen Gill, Ph.D., author and poet laureate of Ansted University

"I welcome this long overdue study of one of India's literary shining lights. Ruskin Bond's World opens the door to a deeper understanding of one author's imagination and deepest wisdom."
--Tyler R. Tichelaar, Ph.D. and award-winning author of The Gothic Wanderer

Literary Criticism: Asian - Indic www.ModernHistoryPress.com

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781615991990
Publisher:	Modern History Press
Publication date:	11/09/2013
Series:	World Voices
Pages:	84
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.20(d)

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Shaping Influences on Ruskin Bond's Life

Ruskin Bond, renowned master short story writer, was born on May 19, 1934 at Kasauli (Himachal Pradesh) India. He is the eldest child of the late Aubrey Alexander Bond, who was a British officer in the Royal Air Force in India. His sister, named Edith Allen, was born in Dehra in 1936. She was a victim of childhood polio, which left her with disabilities requiring special care and attention. Edith lived with her grandmother, but Bond grew up with his father in Jamnagar (Gujarat), Dehradun and Shimla.

Ruskin Bond had his primary education in the boarding school in Mussoorie. In his autobiography, Scenes from a Writer's Life, Bond refers frequently to fond memories of his father. He describes in detail the days he spent with his father at Jamnagar, Dehradun, and Shimlad. His father's job required several relocations, so Bond and his father visited new places and surroundings. This provided him ample experiences relating to different countries, cultures, geography, and political history, and it also developed his general awareness of things. Bond also got an opportunity to attend the classes his father arranged for Indian princes and princesses because Aubrey Bond was appointed in the princely state of Jamnagar as tutor guardian to the royal children. Ruskin Bond stayed in Jamnagar for five years, where he came closer to Indian culture than any other British child in India. He grew up in the company of little princes and princesses and was also friendly with his Indian cook, ayah (nursemaid), and gardener, and he did not mind differences of caste or social status. Ruskin Bond collected a lot of information during his stay at Jamnagar. After a span of forty years, he wrote a story "The Room of Many Colors" about one of the rooms in the palace, which was on top and full of small windows.

During this time, Ruskin Bond lived in a Tennis Bungalow surrounded by forests, with many species of trees, flowers, and bushes, where his father introduced him to the trees as the best friends of human beings. He always remembered this, and today, he still prefers nature to people whenever he feels gloomy. He also cultivated an interest in cinema and enjoyed going to see the movies along with his father. They saw movies like Bitter Sweet (1933), an operetta by Noel Coward, and Tarzan of the Apes. Bond always remembered the happy days at Jamnagar because it was the best time he spent with his father whom he loved very much.

Bond was taught his first lessons from his father, who inspired him to read the classics of children's literature, and he also enjoyed reading comics. His favorite book was Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, which made him aware of the absurd aspects of life. Young Bond loved to wander about in the palace grounds and uninhabited places, which had the same attraction for him. It was also a difficult time for him because Bond's parents were not getting along. Edith's disabilities were also a cause of disturbance and aloofness for them. The most terrific and sad experience for Bond was when he was sent to a convent school at the hill station of Mussoorie because his father had to go to Delhi in 1941 during World War II. Bond wrote about this in "Life with My Father":

The War wasn't going too well for England in 1941, and it wasn't going too well for me either, for I found myself interned in a convent school in the hill station of Mussoorie.

Ruskin Bond was sent to Hampton Court School at Mussoorie at the tender age of seven, where he spent an unhappy year, although he enjoyed receiving postcards of the "Gran Pop Series" from his father. While he never felt a sense of belonging to the school, it was not a source of unhappiness. His mother quite unexpectedly withdrew him from school and put him on the night train to Delhi without any discussion. His father received him at the Delhi railway station where he came to know about the separation of his parents. Bond was left in the custody of his father while Edith had to live with their paternal grandmother, Glorina Bond, in Calcutta. His brother William, who was born in Dehra in 1942, was taken by his mother.

He learned that his mother was resolved to marry a Punjabi businessman, Harbans Lal Hari, who owned a used car showroom and an auto repair shop in Dehra. Mr. Hari had deserted his wife for Mrs. Bond. But these two years were a golden period of Ruskin Bond's life when he stayed with his father, although he also shared the pain of his father who was forced to give up his mother. His father's heart was totally broken and his son was the only source of comfort for him. Bond's father gave him attention and companionship, and this was the time when Bond enjoyed all his father's belongings such as his collections of stamps and gramophone records.

After these glorious years in New Delhi, Bond's father convinced him that he needed formal schooling and the company of children of his own age. His father decided to go to Shimla to visit Bishop Cotton School. Bond also went to Shimla with his father. Shimla was far away from Calcutta, so it was difficult for Bond's father to come there regularly, but he promised to write letters to his son quite frequently, giving news about Calcutta, Grandmother, and Edith, and his stamp and record collections. Finally, Bond agreed to study at Bishop Cotton School. It was a school for boys and he found it much better than the Convent School of Mussoorie. His father made him read Rudyard Kipling's The Phantom Rickshaw and other works by great writers of the day. Mr. Bond was a great admirer of English literature and wanted his son to become a writer. Bond was named after the Victorian essayist John Ruskin by his father, as his mother later stated. During these two years, he did not see his mother, who was enjoying her relationship with Mr. Hari, Bond's future stepfather.

Ruskin Bond and his father regularly corresponded. He used to receive his father's letters once a week. When his father was transferred to Calcutta in 1947, he let his son know that he would transfer to a school in England soon after independence. Their future was bleak in India, but he was trying to find the hidden writer in his son through the letters. Mr. Bond always inspired his son to write diaries, memoirs, and journals to develop his writing style.

In his last letter, he wrote about his son's writing in these words:

I wanted to write before about your writing Ruskin, but forgot. Sometimes I get letters from you written in very small handwriting, as if you wanted to squeeze a lot of news into one sheet of letter paper. It is not good for you or for your eyes, to get into the habit of writing small: I know your handwriting is good and that you came 1st in class for handwriting, but try and form a larger style of writing and do not worry if you can't get all your news into one sheet of paper — but stick to big letters.

Ruskin Bond could not forget this letter; he always kept it with him because very soon he got the news of his father's death due to malaria. This was a big shock to him. No one helped Bond to attend his father's funeral, which made it difficult for him to reconcile with his loss:

There being no tangible evidence of my father's death, it was, for me, not a death but vanishing ... and subconsciously expected him to turn up and deliver me from an unpleasant situation.

Bond's father was not a rich man. His most valuable possession had been his extensive stamp collection, which he started selling gradually for he intended to move to England to advance his son's education there. However, after his death, the stamp collection was nowhere to be found and Bond was left with no inheritance. Being idealistic, he did not care for money, "My father taught me to write, that was inheritance enough."

Years later, Ruskin Bond bravely confronted his feeling at the loss of his father by writing "The Funeral." In this short story, he exposes the insensitivity of the adult for deciding what is good for the orphan protagonist when his father dies. His father's death made him feel lonely, and he found nobody immediately to take care of him. He was given more shocking news by Mr. Priestley, the school headmaster, that at the closing of school he had to go to live with his mother. Mr. Priestley collected all the letters of Bond's father in order to keep them safe and to return them at the closing of the school, but unfortunately, when Bond asked for these letters, Mr. Priestley denied that he had them.

At the closing of his school, Bond returned to Dehradun alone and somehow managed to go to his stepfather's house on his own. After that, life became more complicated for him. Mr. Hari, his stepfather, was never cruel or unkind to him, and he did not mind his presence as Bond wrote in his memoir in "Mother and Stepfather." Bond had a unique temperament since childhood. He had his own whims and fancies; he was always an introvert and loved solitude as he wrote in his autobiography:

From the start I insisted on having a room of my own, something I was always to insist on, even if it meant sleeping in a tin shed in the garden. My first room wasn't a tin shed; it was a nice room with a view of the litchi trees and the road and a large open plot on the other side of the road.

Ruskin Bond had difficulty adjusting himself to life in his new house, so he started to read books as his father had already introduced him to a world of reading. He read all the books he came across because books gave him an escape from reality and they always provided good companionship throughout his life as he mentioned in his autobiography:

I began to read whatever books came my way. As very few did, I could not be choosy. But whatever they were — cheap thriller or Victorian classic or even erotica (there was some of that around) — it provided me with an escape from the reality of my situation. And it was during those first winter holidays in Dehra that I became a bookworm and, ultimately, a book lover and writer in embryo.

Besides books, Bond also found two good friends at that time, one Mrs. Kellner who was a tenant in his grandmother's house, and another, Dukhi, who was forty years old and a gardener. Bond regularly visited Mrs. Kellner because she always offered him cakes and meringues, and Dukhi gave him knowledge of different flowers and names of trees, etc. Bond did not enjoy the friendship of children of his own age. He preferred to talk to older people who shared their experiences with him.

Although Mr. Hari and his mother tried to arouse a love of hunting in Bond by taking him on their shikar (hunting for sport) trip, Bond remained absorbed in his world of fiction. While at shikar, he found a library in a little farmhouse which he mentioned in his autobiography:

And while the great hunters were dashing off into the jungle with their guns (and frequently coming back empty-handed), I discovered several authors who were to give me considerable pleasure then and the years to come: M.R. James (Ghost Stories of An Antiquary), P.G. Wodehouse (Love among the Chickens was my introduction to PGW), and A.A. Milne (with The Red House Mystery). I was always to prefer Milne's adult stories and plays to his children's stories.

Books became Bond's best companions. He made them his best friends who always served him. His love of books kept him away from worldly things and inspired him to be a writer. Nature and books accompanied him everywhere. He found food for thought in flowers, trees, rain, and snowfall, which also gave him pleasure and delight. Ruskin Bond could not forget the first snowfall in Dehradun after his return from school. He enjoyed it very much, for he was trying to come out of the shackles of fate that had deprivedhim of the smile he used to have when his father was alive. Now nature seemed to replace bitterness and provide a glimpse of natural beauty.

Snowfall soft and smooth, the greenery of mountains, and the tall shady trees of Dehradun gave Bond a new hope for life. He learned a lot from nature, and as a result, he became an admirer and lover of nature even in his childhood because nature treated him as a mother. His love of nature made him self-sufficient. He was different from friends and relatives even at that age, for he preferred nature and his books to anything else.

Ruskin Bond's dream of having his own room was fulfilled when Mr. Hari became bankrupt and started to live with his first wife, and his mother had to take up a job in Green's Hotel as the manager. Then she allowed Bond to live in a small room at the back of the hotel. It was away from the humdrum of life. There he wrote many articles, journals, and diaries, which became the basis for the plots of many of his stories.

In his autobiography, Ruskin Bond also mentions the playground of Shimla. His association with his school at Shimla after his father's death was a source of happiness and relief for him. He became sober and mature and kept himself away from the company of wayward boys. For a friend, he selected Omar, with whom he played hockey and chose goalkeeping for himself. He writes to the following effect:

Omar as a fullback, I as a goalkeeper, I think a defensive position suited me by nature. In all modesty I have to say that I made a good goalkeeper, both at hockey and football. And fifty years on, I am still keeping goal. Then I did it between goalposts, now I do it off the field — protecting a family, protecting my independence as a writer.

Bond enjoyed playing hockey and football, for he dreamt of achieving excellence in sports. He played intramural games also and wrote a book titled Nine Months about one term of his schooling which was fairly lengthy, but it was lost because one of his teachers, Mr. Fisher, found it and tore it up. This was during the war of independence in India, which influenced all who lived in the country, and this also affected the lives of students in Shimla. India was divided and Pakistan came into existence. Bond again suffered a setback because he lost his good friend Omar, who went to Pakistan as Lahore became part of that country.

After completing his term at school, Bond came to Dehradun for further study. He read Oliver Twist, Wuthering Heights, and Shakespeare's complete works. There was no entertainment available to him because cinemas were closed due to rioting. Bond was fortunate since the Royal Air Force (RAF) was paying for his schooling so he was able to study for a Bachelor of Science. At the time, the science course at Shimla was undergoing drastic change. India was divided and Gandhi was assassinated. In school, he found a new teacher, Mr. Jones, an exarmy Welshman who taught him divinity and gave him the Bible to read. Mr. Jones was also a good reader of books. He presented a copy of the complete works of Charles Dickens to Bond. After reading David Copperfield, Bond decided to become a writer rather than a goalkeeper or a dancer. He was very much influenced by David Copperfield:

I launched into David Copperfield, which I thoroughly enjoyed, identifying myself with young David, his triumphs and tribulations. After reading Copperfield I decided it was a fine thing to be a writer.

While studying, Bond also enjoyed reading. Being a voracious reader of old and new writers gave him a good foundation for writing. The school library provided him with all kinds of books. The dream of his father was turning into reality. Bond was taking part in essay writing competitions and won prizes, which made him more confident and developed his creative talent. Although Bond also enjoyed watching movies and listening to music, books were his main entertainment. There he found both companionship and pleasure and also an escape from reality. It was a world of which he could be deprived by none. He attained popularity at Bishop Cotton School, while students of his age group were more fascinated by movies, which were easier than reading. Reading was Bond's religion, and he derived pleasure out of it. He regarded books as his companions:

Book readers are special people, and they will always turn to books as the ultimate pleasure. Those who do not read are the unfortunate ones. There's nothing wrong with them; but they are missing out on one of life's compensations and rewards. A great book is a friend that never lets you down. You can return to it again and again, and the joy first derived from it will still be there.

Ruskin Bond preferred to walk rather than ride a bicycle or use any other vehicle. He believed that when you walk, you get to know about people and your surroundings. By walking, you can enjoy natural scenes like gardens, trees, ponds, hills, but if you use a vehicle, you miss all the beautiful scenery.

He was quite a shy and reserved fifteen-year-old boy. His parents' unhappy married life and his father's sentiments about it also affected the shy and sensitive Ruskin Bond as is reflected in his works. He blamed his mother for leaving them, even though his father suffered from frequent bouts of malaria. This feeling of anger and melancholy was evident in his stories. When he grew up, he could better understand the problems between his parents and his mother's point of view.

(Continues…)

---

Excerpted from "Ruskin Bond's World"
by .
Copyright © 2013 Gulnaz Fatma, PhD.
Excerpted by permission of Loving Healing Press, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

Introduction,
Chapter One – Shaping Influences on Ruskin Bond's Life,
Chapter Two – The Theme of Children's Stories,
Chapter Three – The Theme of Nature,
Chapter Four – The Theme of Love in the Stories,
Chapter Five – The Theme of Animals and Wildlife,
Appendix: An Interview with Ruskin Bond,
Bibliography,
About the Author,
Index,