Delhi is Not Far: The Best of Ruskin Bond, 1994

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Roald Dahl and Ruskin Bond have common ground in India. The British novelist, born in Wales to Norwegian parents, and the Indian author, born in Himachal Pradesh to British parents, are two very popular writers of children’s literature. Their books are prominently displayed in Indian bookstores and continue to sell in good numbers.

Bond, 80, is more Indian than many Indians and this reflects in his vast body of work consisting of many novels, short stories, essays, and songs and love poems. He writes about life in the hill stations close to the Himalayas in North India. The award-winning author has been singularly responsible for the growth of children’s literature. Bond was born in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh, in 1934, and now lives with his adopted family in Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, at the foothills of the mountain range. He has never left his adopted country.

© Prashant C. Trikannad

In many ways Ruskin Bond reminds me of that other celebrated Indian writer, the late R.K. Narayan, who wrote about the charming life in a small fictional town called Malgudi in South India. While Bond’s and Narayan’s stories essentially grew out of their experiences in the north and south, respectively, their writing styles run parallel in terms of simplicity and lucidity of prose.

As with Roald Dahl, both young and old read Ruskin Bond and R.K. Narayan. They are the ambassadors of Indian literature.

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I don’t think I have written about Ruskin Bond earlier. An opportunity arose when I recently bought his collection, Delhi is Not Far: The Best of Ruskin Bond, 1994, from the annual charity sale at Home for the Aged run by Little Sisters of the Poor, founded by Jeanne Jugan in 1839, in France. The old-age home is located behind my house and I have picked up many good books from their yearly fair, as much for a charitable cause as for my own.

Delhi is Not Far is a 428-page anthology of four decades of Ruskin Bond’s writing, particularly the best of his prose and poetry and essays and short stories. India Today has described his writing thus: “Bond’s sentences are moist with dew and the mountain air, with charm, nostalgia and underplayed humour… (he is) our resident Wordsworth in prose.”

While I read his stories a long time ago, this is the first time I’d be reading them in an anthology and I’m looking forward to it, especially his five tales of the macabre. I didn’t know Ruskin Bond wrote those too. He begins his introduction with these lines: And here I am again, in my little room overlooking the winding road to Tehri, writing another introduction. No one has ever offered to write an Introduction for any of my books, and so, perforce, I must do my own.”