Banter with the Bond

Talking to Ruskin Bond is akin to speaking to your favourite uncle. He punctuates every sentence with a ‘hmmm’, almost as if he’s speaking to a child. Which is exactly how I feel, as I speak to him over the phone, him sitting all the way at his home in Landour, Mussourie. The author’s got a sore throat and informs me that he won’t be able to talk too much. Me? I’m just happy to have got the chance to speak to him at all.

At 83, the prolific author has released another book, Journey Down The Years. It’s a collection of short stories, some of which he came across while going through his drawers, while a few are new. In the author’s note, he mentions how he’s always enjoyed writing, except when he’s been given a deadline. “It’s best to write with no pressure, otherwise it becomes a task. It’s like doing school work, and nobody enjoys doing that,” he chuckles. He also doesn’t use his typewriter anymore to write his stories. “I’m more comfortable writing by hand. Initially, I would do the first draft by hand and type out the second. Now, I just send my publishers the hand-written draft and they are kind enough to send me the printed one with the changes. That way, I get more time to write,” he adds.

REVISITING THEMES 

In one of his earlier short stories from the book A Town Called Dehra, Ruskin writes, ‘The past is always with us, for it feeds the present’. And so, we often find the author revisiting his favourite themes – relationships, friendships, railway platforms, the mountains. “As one gets older, one keeps going back to the past, so you find yourself touching upon the same themes or topics,” he agrees.  

As a writer, Ruskin says he often touches upon the themes of separation, childhood and friendships. “I write a lot about relationships. I feel that even though you can have different friends or lovers over the years, the sentiments remain the same and the feelings that are expressed are often similar. So you feel a certain sense of deja vu when you read these stories,” he adds.  

SHARING STORIES

Over the years, one has read so many stories of his, that it’s difficult to not speak about some of them. I tell him that The Night Train at Deoli is my favourite one of his and I’m chuffed with his reply, “That’s my favourite too!” he smiles, “I wrote that story when I was 22 years old. That was my romantic period. When I wrote it, I didn’t realise that people would be reading it even 60 years later.”  

For many years now, he has been dropping in at the Cambridge Book Depot at Mall Road in Mussoorie every Saturday to meet readers. “I’m happy to meet readers there as I can’t meet them at home all the time,” he says. And do they talk about their favourite Bond stories or books? “Oh yes, all the time,” he shares, “In fact, often somebody would come up to me and say, ‘Mr Bond, we have never read a book of yours, but now we will try.’ After that, they either become readers, or they never end up reading a book in their life!”