SALVE | LITERARY IMPULSE | SHABDAAWEG REVIEW
Ruskin Bond: A Gardener of Nature
Guest Editorial- Literary Impulse
“Just living is not enough, one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower.”
“Happiness radiates like the fragrance from a flower and draws all good things towards you.”
If you grew up reading Ruskin Bond and his work, you must know that the master storyteller completed his 86 years on this planet recently. He is a diehard romantic always in love with his animated characters whether they are humans, birds, beasts, flowers or trees.
His tales are weaved around hills and people living there. His magical writing brings alive flora, fauna, lush green fields, crystal clear brooks, haunting forests and all whatever nature offers to senses. His nature writings are imbued with much sought after peace and real joys. His solitude is interspersed with various creatures visiting his habitation as he stays in Mussoorie town in the lap of Garhwal mountains situated in northern India. This is the place where this British-Indian writer found his true home.
To quote him:
“I have lived life at my own gentle pace, and if as a result I have failed to get to the top of the mountain (or of anything else), it doesn’t matter, the long walk has brought its own sweet rewards; buttercups and butterflies along the way.”
During his school years he won several writing competitions, including the Hailey Literature Prize and the Irwin Divinity Prize. He was just 17 when he wrote his first novel, “The Room on the Roof”, a semi-autobiographical story of the orphaned Anglo-Indian boy named Rusty; he made his living doing odd jobs. It won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, (1957) awarded to a British Commonwealth writer under 30.
He worked as a journalist in Delhi and Dehradun for a few years. Later, he relocated to a town in the Himalayan foothills, Mussoorie, where he pursued freelance writing since 1963.
He has written over three hundred short stories, essays and novels and over thirty children’s books. His most notable works till date are “Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra”, “A Flight of Pigeons”, “The Blue Umbrella”.
He was awarded the Sahitya Academy Award in 1992 for “Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra”, his novel in English. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1999 and the Padma Bhushan in 2014.
He also has a passion for reading books, a habit inculcated in him by his father. His writing, all of it: poetry, prose, short stories and novellas (he doesn’t enjoy writing full-fledged novels) is charismatic laced with a divine love for mother nature. Bond’s characters are painted from the tones and shades of real world, He fictionalizes the people, places and of course, animals he has spent time with.
Through the many landscapes he recreates the mosaic of lively images that the reader keeps on visualising for refreshed feelings of pure joy
— the dusty, idyllic scenery of Pipalnagar; a serene yet dream-drenched town of Dehradun, populated with tongas and huge trees; the deserted railway station at non-descript Shamli; lovely garden of mrs Maple; occasional ghosts in the forest narrator comes across while returning home at dusk, vivid description of mountain’s tree-line.
His novellas “Susanna’s seven husbands” and “A Flight of Pigeons” are given cinematic adaptation by bollywood directors, Vishal Bharadwaj and Shyam Benegal. He writes for children and adults alike. Both prose and poetry in his books celebrate nature with all the purity that it holds. Mountains reverberate with magic of wilderness. Vibrancy of simple folk inhabiting his stories, power of dreams, ghostly visitations dominate his lucid writing. Of late he has penned titles giving a message for achieving fulfilment in life through the virtues followed.
An excerpt from “The little book of comfort”
“So I went out into the night, walked up the hill, discovered new things about the night and myself, and came home refreshed. For just as the night has the moon and the stars, so the darkness of the soul can be lit up by small fireflies – such as these calm and comforting thoughts that I have jotted down for you….”
He is a gardener always tending the fragile and ephemeral for replenishing the treasure of joy and fulfilling life experiences. His books are salve to soul in this difficult time when solitude is the only companion.
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Thanks to ShabdAaweg and Literary Impulse for an initiative like “SALVE”. Stay safe among sprouting words.
Era
Era Garg June 2021
For this week, we have the following beautiful pieces for everyone to read, and enjoy:
Poetry: An Eternal Flame Burns In You by Saurabh
Sonnet: This Old Dead Pine by William J Spirdione
Poetry: Broken by Unni Nambiar
Poetry: Remembering a Friend Today by John Gobins
Poetry: I Do Realise by Sylvia Wohlfarth
Medium Editors/Readers: Priyanka Srivastava, Literary Impulse (Shabd Aaweg), Elisabeth Khan, Somsubhra Banerjee
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