'This is a journal in a way': Ruskin Bond opens up about his new book, favourite reads, and more

Ruskin Bond

Ruskin Bond turns 91 today, and the indefatigable writer that he is, has released yet another gem - Life's Magic Moments - for his fans. From his residence in Landour, Mussoorie, the prolific author spoke over the phone with mid-day about his latest offering, his myriad influences, his favourite reads, his love of nature and the beloved town he has called home since 1963.

MID-DAY: What are you reading these days?
RUSKIN BOND: I've been reading an anthology of garden stories (edited by Diana Secker Tesdell). These are stories set in gardens. I like reading old favourites too. I've been reading the diaries of Samuel Pepys and a book about the real Robinson Crusoe. I enjoy detective stories and crime fiction as well, especially of Patricia Highsmith and Dorothy B Hughes. Most of the good crime writers were women.

Ruskin Bond at his residence in Landour, Mussoorie. File pic

MD: You write about the everyday wonders around you - books, flowers, pickles on your dining table, your family, your cat Mimi. Did you always have the idea of putting these together as a book?
RB: This is a journal in a way. In fact, some of the short essays in the book are extracts or meditations from my journal. All my life I've kept a diary or a journal, and a lot of the material from it has often gone into my stories. It's a very useful thing for a writer to keep a journal, especially someone like me, who writes a lot out of his own life, the people he knows, or the experiences he's had.
Over the years, most of my writing has been fiction. But I think this sort of writing [contemplation from a journal] suits a person who is in his nineties and is looking back on life. It's a bit of homespun philosophy and thoughts on the past, the present, and possibly the future.

MD: You also mention that you still have some of the animist in you. How do you keep that spirit alive?
RB: I do relate to the natural world a lot. I love growing things, although I don't have a big garden space. Wherever I can, I like to grow things: flowers and plants. The further I can go outside the town, the more I enjoy the world around me.

An illustration of the author in his former abode, Maplewood Cottage; (right) An illustrated portrait of Ruskin Bond. Illustrations courtesy/Kajal Bhojawala; Excerpted with permission from Penguin Random House India

MD: Apart from the memory of reading Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights at the age of 14, do you recall other authors whose writing shaped your imagination when you were growing up?
RB: I was a bookworm as a boy. At school, we had a good library. When they saw I was fond of books, they put me in charge of it. So, I had the keys to the library for two-three years. Whenever I wanted to escape early morning PT or extra homework, I'd slip off to the library, lock myself in, and read.
I read everything there, from the plays of GB Shaw to the successive writers of that period, like Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene. I read the classics too; the complete works of Charles Dickens and the Brontës. It led to my wanting to become a writer. I'm a reader first, and writer second. If I have a good book to read, I'd quietly put aside my own work and finish the book that I'm reading.

MD: And which book or story was your favourite to write?
RB: I started writing in the 1950s. I think some of the short stories I wrote then, when I was 19 or 20, were my best. We used to travel by train. A lot of my stories were set in railway stations or platforms. I'd see beautiful girls, and I'd fall in love with them and never see them again. A very romantic period, you can say.
I still enjoy looking at those stories.

As I grew older, I started writing about children and nature. It's very hard to pin down a real favourite, but maybe The Night Train at Deoli. Very often though the story I like best is the one I'm writing. It's good to be enjoying the one you're working on.

I still have some of the animist in me - Ruskin Bond; Every day is Earth Day - Ruskin Bond; The author's pet cat, Mimi

MD: Small towns often feature in your narratives. You point at their delights and what they sometimes hide. Do you have a memory of a town that inspired you to write a work of fiction?
RB: Oh yes. In fact, I'm currently working on a short non-fiction book. It's about all the small towns [of India] I used to visit as a boy and a young man. There will be stories about these towns and the people who lived there that I might have met. Over the years, villages have grown into towns; small towns into big towns; big towns have become cities; cities have become megacities. I like writing about these places because most of them have changed a lot. I try to capture the atmosphere of what they were like once and the people in them. It's the people who really make up the place.

Available At all leading bookstores and e-stores
Cost Rs 399

Also check out
Ruskin Bond's Walk with Me: A Nature Journal (Red Panda)