Monday, Feb 21, 2005
Like A Welcome Cup Of Chai
- Anjana BasuAnjana Basu taught English Literature, briefly, in Calcutta University. She writes poetry, stories, features in the local newspapers and in Harmony and Travel Plus. She has had a book of short stories published by Orient Longman, India. The BBC had broadcast one of her short stories and her poems have featured in an anthology brought out by Penguin India. In America she has been published in The Wolfhead Quarterly, Gowanus, The Blue Moon Review, and Recursive Angel, to name a few. Harper Collins India brought out her novel Curses In Ivory last year.
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Book and Author Name:A Bond With Ruskin by Ganesh Saili
Publisher: Roli Books
Price: Rs. 395
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Ruskin Bond is one of India’s best known literary figures. His life is documented for children in his Rusty stories, where he talks about his adventures in the Dehra Valley and his relationship with his grandmother. The hills, the valleys, the slinking leopards in the night and snow are familiar Ruskin Bond territory for every reader. Most people know he had a grandmother and that his grandfather kept strange pets like hyenas and even a panther. The fact that he ran away to England to start a writing career when he was 15, is also known, along with the fact that he came back again two years overcome by homesickness for his beloved hills, before the book was published and obviously before receiving the John Llewellyn Rhys award and the acclaim that came with it.
What the book does is reintroduce Ruskin Bond to us with the simplicity and directness that characterise the man and writer. Bond grew up in the marvellous old palaces where his father worked, before finally coming to Mussoorie, where his life yo-yoed between his parents’ marital ups and downs.
His father, Aubrey, who was a teacher, named his son after the Victorian author, John Ruskin, perhaps in the secret hope that his boy would grow up to be "aesthetically inclined." Aubrey Bond also passed on his love of the hills to his son. Writing came early to Bond – he used it as an escape for sorrow, as a chance to grieve for lost loves. As he used the beauty of Mussoorie as a chance to escape from the bustle of the world. Mussoorie brought him the seclusion he needed to write and it is there that Bond has remained, with brief flights into town life when financial problems or book launches beckoned.
Each chapter begins with quotes, from Bond’s world view, like the thoughtful, "I think I have been able to pass through life without being any man’s slave or tyrant." Photographs document Bond’s life, from rare sepia childhood ones to the present day. The book is rich in reproduced letters, documents, a few samples of his prose, some funny pieces of verse and an epilogue in his own hand.
Ganesh Saili’s Bond With Ruskin has the added charm of being written by one of Ruskin Bond’s closest friends. He and Bond have co-authored several books. The two have been friends for over thirty years and it is this part of the book that vividly brings out Bond’s essence through very personal anecdotes. Filled with a wealth of detail, the book offers enjoyable insights into the life of a well-loved writer.
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