This beautiful hill station that has been home to renowned author Ruskin Bond for the past 55 years is preparing to celebrate the 84th birthday of its most beloved resident on May 19.
The Cambridge Book Depot on the Mall Road that hosts Bond every Saturday afternoon is making special arrangements for the celebrations that will begin at the bookshop at around 3.30 p.m. Many tourists are awaiting the moment of their meeting the author on the special occasion. “There are many of his fans who are specially travelling to Mussoorie from various parts of the country for the celebrations,” said Sunil Arora of Cambridge Book Depot while speaking to The Pioneer.
Bond’s new book Ranji and the Music Maker will be launched by the author himself on his birthday. A limited hard bound edition has been specially brought out to mark the celebrations. Arora says that it would be an event that would pull in a huge crowd to the hill station.
It seems that Bond is growing younger with every passing year. I say this because there is a growing freshness in each new work of his and when one hears him talk, he always shares new ideas and thoughts.
Bond’s name has become synonymous with Mussoorie and Dehradun, with hills and with stories of simple people, told tongue-in –cheek and with an all –embracing warmth and candour. Ruskin Bond is no longer just a writer. He means many things to many people. An icon of excellence for some, an inspiration for others, a symbol of simplicity and good humour for many and a weaver of exquisite tales for a lot of his admirers and fans.
Talking to The Pioneer, Ruskin Bond said on the eve of his birthday, “So, I am one year older another year gone by. I am extremely grateful to God that he gave me a long writing life. I have been writing for sixty seven years and making a living out of it! I really feel blessed as I have lived the life I wanted to”
Recalling the time when he decided to make Mussoorie his home, he said that he always has loved mountains. “Once the mountains are in your blood there is no escape. I have also loved the Doon valley with all my heart. Had I not decided to make Mussoorie my home many decades ago, I may have been a different person today.”
Asked how he has managed to be so prolific in his writing, he said that he always feels that there is so much more that he wished to pen down. “And then there are people who come and ask me, “Mr Bond, are you still writingIJ” If birds can ever stop singing only then can writers stop writing. I cannot understand why people ask such questions. Writers never retire. I never run out of ideas for my writing. If I run out of people I write about ghosts! As soon as I complete one book, I am impatient to start on my next.”
The author is always full of surprises for his readers. His great love for this hill town where his parents had first met each other shines in his eyes and throughout his work. Mussoorie and the Doon valley could not have found a more intense and sincere voice to describe their natural splendour. The “Bond of the Mountains” as he is often called, has an eternal bond with the mountains. Born in Kasauli in 1934, Ruskin joined his father at Jamnagar when he was a year old. Ruskin spent many a holiday at the Doon valley residence of his maternal grandfather William Dudley Clerke who was one of the early pioneers who helped bring the railways to Dehra Dun.
The first school which Ruskin attended was the Convent of Jesus and Mary at Hampton Court in Mussoorie where he was placed in the boarding. He was not happy in the school and soon left it to go to Delhi and live with his father Aubrey Bond in temporary wartime hutments as his father had joined the RAF. Ruskin lost his father when he was just ten. He then went to Bishop Cotton School in Shimla. He passed out of school in 1951 and began submitting stories to magazines. Not many Ruskin readers know that the author’s first story was published in The Illustrated Weekly of India in 1951 when he was just 17. It was called “My Calling”, a light humorous piece on one of his masters.
Ruskin Bond has a gentle charm. It has kept him going even as he wanders around the hill side identifying wildflowers for children or just listening patiently to the local baker’s complaint of poor yeast and as the years have gone by he has become a living legend, an institution.
Having long ago, effortlessly, crossed his ‘century’ of published titles, Ruskin Bond has maintained his integrity as a writer and has worked towards his goals with single-minded devotion. Perhaps his greatest achievement is that he has persevered in his dream of becoming a full-time writer. And he writes for those ‘gentle readers’ who are interested in the beauty of nature and the dignity in the lives of ordinary people rather than in stormy events. His stories achieve a universal quality that transcends the regional locale and endorses the human endeavor to survive against odds and to preserve what is beautiful and meaningful.
So, here’s wishing Bond Sa’ab a very happy birthday. And many more to come!