The much-loved author, Ruskin Bond, whose autobiography was released at Taj Mansingh, says staying away from noise helps him get the right perspective. By Team Viva
For generations of Indians who read English literature, Ruskin Bond is an inescapable truth. And for all the high profile circuit and aura that writers come with today, Bond keeps away from the spotlight and does what he can best —tell good stories that stand the test of time.
Several years and many books down the line, Bond has now documented his life in his latest book, an autobiography, lone Fox Dancing, published by Speaking Tiger, which was released at The Taj Mahal Hotel, New Delhi. This follows close on the heels of looking for the Rainbow: My Years with Daddy, another memoir, published by Penguin Random House.
Bond said that although he has written over a hundred books, it is the only time in his life that he had planned to have a grand book launch with a cocktail party, courtesy his publishers. Impressing upon the impact of his simple life on his writings, Bond said that if he was caught up in the glitz and glamour, travelled to too many literary festivals, he would actually have no time to do any writing. But then, he said, he is a simple person who sees beauty in small things.
He admits in the book’s prologue, “Almost everything I have written has been drawn from my own experiences, and in that sense, fragments of my autobiography are scattered everywhere in my novels, stories, essays and poems. But there is more imagination than truth in them.” He goes on to add that an autobiography must stay closer to the truth. “Even though memory is unreliable and certain things must be disguised or omitted in order to avoid hurting people or embarrassing them unduly. So, this book is about how things happened to me – more or less. It is the story of a small man, and his friends and experiences in small places,” he writes.
There is a reason why Bond became as prolific a writer that he is. “You can go and live in the middle of the wilderness and still find trouble. I have also been a fairly tolerant and easy-going person. I don’t often get into controversies and trouble but I think I would not have written as much as I have or enjoyed writing as much as I have if I got involved in too many other things,” he added.
Anecdotes from his life pepper the book. Bond said, “One of my favourite school teachers used to say, ‘Stay calm and mind your own business’ and I have been minding my own business ever since. That has kept me going. The good thing about not being in too much of the public eye is that you can perhaps have a more balanced view of life and issues when you are writing because you are not prejudiced, you are not taking sides and you are not personally associated with the issues that you are writing about.”
Responding to a question on the increasing tendency of some authors to pick issues and create controversies out of them, Bond agreed that most writers have very big egos. The ego of writers, Bond said, is not so obvious as they can sometimes conceal it and give the impression that they are not egotists when they actually are.
The author stayed away from award-waapsee brigade in 2015. He said the award (Sahitya Akademi) meant a lot to him because it came at a time when he was not doing very well financially. “I thought what was it going to achieve if I returned my award and what did it achieve in any caseIJ Writers and journalists sometimes get hauled up as a part of risks that come with the profession. I got into trouble in the late 1970s for one of my erotic stories and there was an obscenity trial against me for two years in Mumbai. But I never made a fuss about it. The publisher fought the case and in the end I got an honourable acquittal. That was the end of it but I never made a big thing out of it,” he quipped.
The author lamented the fact that not all non-fiction books are literary today. Even non-fiction and memoirs, he said, should have a literary standard and content.
“It’s partly the fault of publishers because they tend to think from the commercial point of view. They want to publish memoirs and autobiographies of celebrities and celebrities are not always good writers and so sometimes they would get somebody else to do the writing. Thus the personal element sort of leaks out of the pages and so does the literary element,” he noted.
While expressing his happiness at the booming Indian publishing industry and much more writing going into print, Bond advised that it was extremely important for every book to be well-written.
The much-loved author said he was lucky to have a father who gave him nearly all his spare time, brought him books, took him for walks, shared his interests with him and held his hand in the dark. “Not many fathers are capable of tenderness towards their children. They are usually too busy ‘earning a living for the family’ — or that’s the excuse,” he writes in his memoir looking for the Rainbow: My Years with Daddy, the other book that he released recently.
This is Bond’s first-ever memoir for children, “As I sit here, soaking up the mellow spring sunshine, the distant past looms up before me, and I remember things that I thought I had forgotten. Most of all I remember my father - ‘Daddy’, as I always called him,” the 83-year-old Bond writes in the book, published by Penguin Random House.
His parents had separated, and for two years Bond lived with his father. “Then I lost him. But they were two wonderful years. My father was serving in the Royal Air Force, and was living on his own in an Air Force hutment in New Delhi, working in the Codes and Cyphers section at Air Headquarters. I was particularly close to my father, and I insisted on going to live with him rather than to a new and unknown home.” These and more anecdotes form a part of the two books.