Hello all you beautiful people! Have you come across people who live life to the fullest? I mean literally to the fullest! Well you get such a feeling after travelling with Ruskin Bond. Wait are you asking if I knew this octogenarian. Nah just his amazing words. Nothing can pump down the josh that ebbs within you after putting down Ruskin's book. It is like sneaking out of the house with your Granddad and going on this extraordinary adventure. You come back drenched in nature energetic, healthy (chugging hot Jalebis still fits the bill), happy and even mischievous than before! His simple, short scripted works can bring about such depth and serenity just like the Himalayan foothills that are a part of him.
"Your story may not have a happy beginning, but that doesn't make you who you are. It is the rest of your story, who you choose to be" was not meant just for Po the Panda (Sorry the Dragon Warrior!) but it is the entirety of the persona that is Ruskin. Bond escaped the rough terrains of his boyhood surrounded himself with the works of T. E. Lawrence, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë and Rudyard Kipling in the respite of the library.
He was awarded John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial prize at the age of twenty-one for his first novel “The Room on the Roof”, a book with a strong autobiographical element as it’s based on his actual experiences living in a small rented room on the roof in Dehradun. One can feel the stuffiness of the attic woof! The book’s immense success gave him an impetus to write its sequel Vagrants in the Valley.
Subsequently, he returned to India and worked as a journalist in Delhi and Dehradun for a few years. Later, he relocated to a town in the Himalayan foothills, Mussoorie, where he pursued freelance writing since 1963. His essays and articles were published in numerous magazines, such as The Pioneer, The Leader, The Tribune and The Telegraph. Till now he has written over three hundred short stories, essays and novels and over thirty children’s books. Additionally, he penned two autobiographical volumes; Scenes from a Writer’s Life and The Lamp is Lit; Leaves from a Journal. The first one details his formative years in India and the second one is based on journal entries, essay collection and episodes about his years making it as a freelance writer.
This celebrated children’s’ writer went on to become the recipient of some of the highest civilian honors like the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1992, the Padma Shri in 1999 and the Padma Bhushan in 2014.
Known for his wit and humor, Bond is one such jolly good human who wears his heart on the sleeve yet is magnanimous enough to pass on his wisdom to aspiring writers with utmost humility. Bond’s Poem “All is life” can strike a chord in any soul without the slightest melodrama. Even now if I read his lines “Until Death comes, all is life”, I can sense him winking through his spectacles with a lollipop in his mouth ready to burst out with a limerick. That is Ruskinism folks and it is pure magic. The next time you feel a strong need for a spiritual retreat, try Ruskinism. It is the philosophies of a "Bond" of the real World in the most fun way possible.
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