Renowned English author Ruskin Bond’s latest work With love from the Hills contains the very essence of his life and work and the very fact that it is not voluminous tells us how he has chosen only the things that have really mattered to him all these years.
Published by Scholastic and attractively presented as a colourfully covered book, it takes us quietly into the highly valuable world of books, nature, hills, love, friendship and simplicity created by Bond and his writings.
The book, released at The Green Book Shop in the Doon valley recently, opens with a short introduction titled “About Myself” written in the characteristic Bond style. This is followed by a “Preface”, by the author through which he shares with readers his innermost thoughts and feelings.
“I am, by and large, a quiet fellow,averse to noisy people and noisy places, happiest when I’m on my own in my small room, with a book or a writing pad in front of me, and the window opening to the mountains and the rising sun”, he says in the preface.
He describes himself as a complete sensualist. “If I were not the complete sensualist, I would not be a writer, for there would be little to write about.” His love for the Doon valley is integral to Bond’s work and he could not have left it out of this significant book .
“Down to Dehra for the day. In the valley, spring is giving way to summer…the scent of mango blossom fills the air. ..wild patches of lanterna and ageratum, a bluish–purple flowering weed that brings colour to hedges and empty plots.”
It is at Yeti restaurant on Rajpur Road in Doon that the writer loves to have his meal of fish and chips thrice a month
His granny’s old house and garden on Old Survey Road in the valley have vanished - taken over by builders. Thinking of it always makes Bond nostalgic and he recalls his days as a boy living with his granny in Doon.
His favourite things and places always find space in his works. His home in Mussoorie, his adopted family, the beauty of the changing seasons, his plants, the birds around his home, his neighbours, the view from his window and his love for the hills–all of these are written about at length in this latest work written in his favourite first person style.
In the first chapter titled “Fifty Years On….” , he tells the reader how simple his life has been. “I am quite happy sitting here at my desk ,or standing at the window, contemplating the world as it stretches away across the deep valley over the distant Shivaliks …..I return to this perch in the mountains with its bird’s eye view of limitless horizons.”
He has not travelled much. And whenever he has, his homecoming has been more warm and happy as it is difficult for him to be away from Mussoorie for long. It has been his home for fifty years .Not for nothing is he called “Bond of the Mountains” or Mussoorie’s Resident author.
This book once again makes it clear how inappropriate it is to label Bond as merely a children’s author. He is a writer for children. But he is far more than that. A philosopher, a poet, a thinker, a dreamer, a writer who touches the most serious issues with a gentleness and simplicity which steals every reader’s heart .
With love from the Hills is a must read for all Bond’s fans. It talks of many life-lessons the author has learnt, the relationships with his family, the struggles of early life and the peace he has achieved.It is an inspiring work. Just what one expects from an author who has lived eighty years and been a writer for almost 65 years out of these.It carries the essence of his life and work in a concentrated form. And it has a lot of love in it .The title rightly says With love from the Hills.