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Notes awarded the Padma Shri in 1999 for contributions to children’s literature. He now lives with
his adopted family in Landour near Mussoorie.

Life and career

Ruskin Bond was born in a military hospital in Kasauli to Edith Clerke and Aubrey Bond. His
siblings were Ellen and William. Ruskin’s father was with the Royal Air Force. When Bond
was four years old, his mother was separated from his father and married a Punjabi-Hindu,
Mr. Hari, who himself had been married once. Bond spent his early childhood in Jamnagar
and Shimla. At the age of ten Ruskin went to live at his grandmother’s house in Dehradun
after his father’s sudden death in 1944 from malaria. Ruskin was raised by his mother, who
remarried an Indian businessman. He completed his schooling at Bishop Cotton School in
Shimla, from where he graduated in 1952 after having been successful in winning several
writing competitions in the school like Irwin Divinity Prize, Hailey Lietrature Prize. Ruskin’s
love for books and writing came early to him since his father had surrounded him with books
and encouraged him to write little descriptions of nature and he took his son on hikes in the
hills.

After his high school education he spent four years in England. In London he started writing
his first novel, The Room on the Roof, the semi-autobiographical story of the orphaned Anglo-
Indian boy Rusty. It won the 1957 John Llewellyn Rhys prize, awarded to a British Commonwealth
writer under 30. Bond used the advance money from the book to pay the sea passage to
Bombay. He worked for some years as a journalist in Delhi and Dehradun. Since 1963 he has
lived as a freelance writer in Mussoorie, a town in the Himalayan foothills. He wrote Vagrants
in the Valley, as a sequel to The Room on the Roof. These two novels were published in one
volume by Penguin India in 1993. The following year a collection of his non-fiction writings,
The Best Of Ruskin Bond was published by Penguin India. His interest in the paranormal led
him to write popular titles such as Ghost Stories from the Raj, A Season of Ghosts, A Face in the
Dark and Other Hauntings.

The Indian Council for Child Education recognised his pioneering role in the growth of children’s
literature in India, and awarded him the Sahitya Academi Award in 1992 for Our Trees Still
Grow in Dehra. He received the Padma Shri in 1999.
Media-shy, he currently lives in Landour, Mussoorie’s Ivy Cottage, which has been his home
since 1964.

Filmography
Based on Bond’s historical novella A Flight of Pigeons (about an episode during the Indian
Rebellion of 1857), the Hindi film Junoon was produced in 1978 by Shashi Kapoor and directed
by Shyam Benegal). Ruskin Bond made his maiden big screen appearance with a cameo in
Vishal Bhardwaj’s film it based on his short story Susanna’s Seven Husbands. Bond appears as
a Bishop in the movie with Priyanka Chopra playing the title role. Bond had earlier collaborated
with him in the The Blue Umbrella which was also based on his story.

Literary style
Most of his works are influenced by life in the hill stations at the foothills of the Himalayas,
where he spent his childhood. His first novel, The Room On the Roof, was written when he
was 17 and published when he was 21. It was partly based on his experiences at Dehra Dun,
in his small rented room on the roof, and his friends. Since then he has written over three
hundred short stories, essays and novels, including Vagrants in The Valley, The Blue Umbrella,

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