Page 124 - DENG104_ELECTIVE_ENGLISH_I

Unit 12: A Flight of Pigeons by Ruskin Bond

Funny Side Up, A Flight of Pigeons and more than 30 books for children. He has also published Notes
two volumes of autobiography. Scenes from a Writer’s Life describes his formative years growing
up in Anglo-India; The Lamp is Lit is a collection of essays and episodes from his journal.
Bond said that while his autobiographical work, Rain in the Mountains, was about his years
spent in Mussoorie, Scenes from a Writer’s Life described his first 21 years. Scenes from a
Writer’s Life focuses on Bond’s trip to England, his struggle to find a publisher for his first
book The Room on the Roof and his yearning to come back to India, particularly to Doon. “It
also tells a lot about my parents,” said Bond. “The book ends with the publication of my first
novel and my decision to make writing my livelihood,” Bond said, adding, “basically it describes
how I became a writer”.

His novel, The Flight of Pigeons, has been adapted into the Merchant Ivory film Junoon. The
Room on the Roof has been adapted into a BBC-produced TV series. Several stories have been
incorporated in the school curriculum in India, including “The Night Train at Deoli”, “Time
Stops at Shamli”, and Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra. In 2007, the Bollywood director Vishal
Bharadwaj made a film based on his popular novel for children, The Blue Umbrella. The
movie won the National Award for Best Children’s film.

12.2 Brief Introduction to ‘A Flight of Pigeons’

“In retelling the tale for today’s reader I attempted to bring out the common humanity of most
of the people involved—for in times of conflict and inter-religious or racial hatred, there are
always a few (just a few) who are prepared to come to the aid of those unable to defend
themselves.”
“It was Pascal who wrote: ‘Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do
it from religious conviction.’ Fortunately for civilization, there are exceptions.”

As promised, the main theme in the book is how the defenseless members of an English family
is protected by Hindu and Muslim families and later Sikh soldiers from the Indian rebels as
they move from one house to another, one village to another till they reach their English relatives.
Some passages of the book make humorous reading and also give an insight to the people of
that time, especially their creativity uninfluenced by western education and Bollywood:
“Having heard about his whereabouts, the second wife had a petition writer draw up a letter
for her, which she asked me to read to her, as I knew Urdu. It went something like this—‘O
thou who hast vanished like mustard oil which, when absorbed by the skin, leaves only its
odor behind; thou with the rotund form dancing before my eyes which were wont to stare at
me vacantly; wilt thou still snap thy fingers at me when this letter is evidence of my unceasing
thoughts of thee? Why did you call me your lado, your loved one, when you had no love for
me? And why have you left me to the taunts of that stick of a woman whom you in your
perversity used to call a precious stone, your Ratna? Who has proved untrue, you or I? Why
have you sported thus with my feelings? Drown yourself in a handful of water, or return and
make my hated rival an ornament for your neck, or wear her effigy nine times around your
arm as a charm against my longings for you.’
A vivid account of the battle of Bichpuri goes like this:
‘And who was it who got the worst of the fight?’
‘Why, the Kafirs, of course, Chachi. We made a clean sweep of them,’
‘There was not one man left, Chachi, so do you know what they did? They sent their women
out to fight us!’

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