Ruskin bonding-V

Jyaneswar Laishram *

Ruskin Bond, author of many widely sought after books, was at the Landmark store in Forum Mall, Bangalore, on June 6, 2012, to release his new book of poems "Hip Hop Nature Boy and Other Poems" published by Penguin Books India. :: Pix - Wikipedia/Jim Ankan Deka

Sometime ago, maybe a year or two, I wrote a series of four articles about Ruskin Bond on this page of the newspaper, narrating a bit of the work and life of this beloved hill-man storyteller and my bonding with him during our brief meetings in New Delhi.

Every time we met in the capital city he invited me to visit his Landour home, near Mussoorie town, if I wish to have a long chat with him over a mug of beer. Ruskin Bond loves beer. Once I did visit his hometown on the sidelines of a trip to Dehradun, but failed to meet him, because the day I stood at the gateway of his Landour cottage was the day he left for Mumbai for Saat Khoon Maaf, a movie made based on one of his popular short stories— Susanna's Seven Husbands.

Fixing a meeting with Ruskin Bond is as tough as it was in older days, for he is an 'old-fashioned man'—a phrase he often picks up to define his way of life. He actually is old fashioned because he always lives behind the times. He still writes on paper, uses typewriter instead of PC, prefers landline telephone over mobile phone.

His isolation from ultramodern gadgets is the reason why I missed him on my first visit to his Landour home. It was doubtful about our meeting when I made a call on his landline number from my Dehradun hotel, as nobody picked up the phone. Despaired, I took a local mini bus from Landour heading to Mussoorie on a curvy ascending five-km road amid deodar trees.

My most recent tryst with Ruskin Bond was again in New Delhi, when the author from the hill climbed down to plain to celebrate his 83rd birthday, by releasing a book dedicated to his father. The book titled Looking for The Rainbow: My Years with Daddy (from Puffin), as the title suggests, is a memoir of the years he spent with his father in Delhi during his school summer breaks in the early 1940s. Ruskin Bond has written a lot of essays and anecdotes about his father. But this book, he said, is first time written as an exclusive dedication to the man his father was, quite inspiring and wishing every kid today find a father like him.

In this year alone, two new books from this old-fashioned hill-man storyteller have been released—the one dedicated to his father and other an autobiography called Lone Fox Dancing (from Speaking Tiger Books). His autobiography is not a typical kind, which usually turns out to be a chronological sketch of the author's childhood, education, adulthood, friends and achievements.

All these facts about him will not necessarily be retold in form of a book. He has revealed them all in his short stories, novellas and essays in time and again. Either in his fictions or non-fictions, Ruskin Bond often creates characters inspired directly or indirectly by real life people. Real people like his Grandfather, Grandmother, Uncle Ken, Aunt Ruby and his many friends can be found in his stories.

So, in Lone Fox Dancing, Ruskin Bond portrays himself as a man of thirty, who fell in love with young and beautiful Sushila, a girl he met during a visit to Delhi. He had had a handful of lovers and love interests in earlier phases of his life, but never married one. He currently lives with an extended family, which comprises his adopted son, a daughter-in-law, a bunch of grandchildren and some pets.

He frequently writes a lot about his companionship with birds and animals. But when you visit his house, don't expect seeing all these wild things he narrates in his books and articles—monkeys roaming on his veranda, a coil of python hanging from his garden trees. His fictions sometimes seem so real and real stories as fictions.

When it comes to Ruskin Bond telling a love story, I'm very much sure it will never be a 'happily-ever-after' kind. In this, Lone Fox Dancing is no exception! He was heartbroken at the end of the story, for Sushila, his Lolita.

Sushila was sixteen, dark and slender with a pair of expressive eyes, living in a makeshift post-partition refugee locality on an outer edge of Delhi. Somehow, Ruskin Bond made friendship with her, which he wanted to convert into an affair, then marriage. He often invited her to coffees and snacks in Delhi's Connaught Place area, even to movies.

One day, when Ruskin Bond took Sushila and her brother to a movie, hoping he would get the chance to hold her hand. But everything turned out to be a failed mission when the young boy sat between them. After the short stay he left Delhi for the hills. During departure, Sushila cried. At first he thought she must be missing him, but he then realised it was because she couldn't go anywhere herself like him. She gave Ruskin Bond a garland of marigold as a parting gift, which he wore all the way to the hills as if a groom who just came out of a wedding mandap, though nothing had been confirmed with her.

After a gap of two years, it was in the summer of 1964, Sushila came up to the hills with her little brother and Ruskin Bond's Delhi friend Kamal. Whenever he tried to reveal his love to Sushila, there always came up an unfavourable scene with people roaming here and there, whether it was at a picnic, at mountain stream bathing, eating at a local eatery. And Ruskin Bond, waiting for the chance, had sidelined everything as he only thought and dreamed of Sushila all day long and whole night through. He even couldn't concentrate on writing and everybody knew something went wrong with him.

One day, Sushila came to Ruskin Bond, alone, and asked him to take her to the stream. It was the day she bathed him and both lay down on the damp rocks for hours. He kissed her until her shy response turned into passion to cling to him. Breaking free from her embrace, Ruskin Bond told Sushila it was not safe to be in that way in the forest; so they packed up and came down taking the steep hillside pathways. That night, he opened up everything to her saying he had never loved anyone as much as he loved her. She was silent.

After Sushila's departure from the hills, everything seemed empty to Ruskin Bond. He rather waited for months, then years, for her; but nothing got heard nor seen about her. As he couldn't wait any longer in his quite hilly corner, he rushed to Delhi. When he reached his friend Kamal's home, which was situated adjacent to Sushila's, he found something wrong in the air. One of Kamal's brothers met him outside the door and informed him whisperingly to go back to the hills immediately. When asked the reason, the young man said Sushila got married off to a wealthy man in their locality.

Ruskin Bond, 83 today, is still a single - a Lone Fox Dancing. And he believes Sushila must be living somewhere in Delhi as a grandmother, with a lot of grandchildren around. He says it's the grandchildren for whom he writes and they keep him going.