How 'boxer' Ruskin Bond got disqualified

Life wasn't all books for seasoned author Ruskin Bond during his youth as he donned several hats like being a football goalkeeper, a hockey player, an athlete, a debater as well as a boxer. He, however, hated boxing. During boxing bouts at his boarding school Bishop Cotton's, where all games were compulsory, he often fouled on his opponent to get himself disqualified. He was also in the school choir, but was told not to sing, because he had a terrible singing voice.

These anecdotes figure in the book "Uncles, Aunts and Elephants: Tales from Your Favourite Storyteller", a selection of writings from one of India's best-loved authors. "After the age of 15, I was at my best as a football goalkeeper, hockey player, athlete. I was also acting in school plays and taking part in debates. I wasn't much of a boxer - a sport I disliked - but I had learnt to use my head to good effect, and managed to get myself disqualified by butting the other fellow in the head or midriff," he recalls in a chapter titled "Reading Was My Religion".

"As all games were compulsory, I had to overcome my fear of water and learn to swim a little. Mr Jones (his teacher) taught me to do the breast stroke, saying it was more suited to my temperament than the splash and dash stuff," he writes. The only thing that he couldn't do was sing, and although he loved listening to great singers, from Enrico Caruso to Beniamino Gigli, he couldn't sing a note. "Our music teacher, Mrs Knight, put me in the school choir because, she said, I looked like a choir boy, all pink and shining in a cassock and surplice, but she forbade me from actually singing. I was to open my mouth with the others, but on no account was I to allow any sound to issue from it," he says.