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Unit 8: A Flight of Pigeons by Ruskin Bond-Detailed Study
Gowher Ahmad Naik, Lovely Professional University

Unit 8: A Flight of Pigeons by Notes

Ruskin Bond–Detailed Study

CONTENTS
Objectives

Introduction
8.1 A Flight of Pigeons
8.2 The Plot

8.3 The Main Characters
8.4 Analysis
8.5 Summary

8.6 Keywords
8.7 Review Questions
8.8 Further Readings

Objectives

After reading this unit, you will be able to:
• Introduce a well-known Indian writer in English-Ruskin Bond;
• Discuss the Flight of Pigeons.

Introduction

Ruskin Bond is a well known Indian writer in English. He has written more than hundred
short stories, six novels, three collections of verse and over thirty books for children. Bond has
written two autobiographies. The first, Scenes from a Writer’s Life, covers the first twenty-one
years of his life and the second book, The Lamp is Lit, narrates when Bond returned to India
after a two-year stay in England. Ruskin Bond received Sahitya Academy Award for his book
Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra, 1992, and was honoured with the title Padam Shree in 1999,
for his lifetime contribution to Indian literature in English. He has been writing for the last
fifty years in different genres of literature.
Ruskin Bond was born on May 19, 1934, at Kasauli H.P. He is the eldest son of late Aubrey
Alexander. His sister named Ellen was a little handicapped child. Ellen lived with her grandmother
but Ruskin Bond grew up with his father in Jamnagar (Gujarat), Dehradoon and Shimla. He
had his primary education in the boarding school of Mussoorie and Shimla. His father had to
go from one place to another due to his job and Ruskin Bond also accompanied him. When
Ruskin Bond was eight years old his mother Agnet Clark left him under the guardianship of
his father. Bond’s relationship with his mother, Agnet Clark, seems to have been very distant.
He mentions her as young, pretty, and fun loving, but unfortunately, she did not provide the
stability and affection of a mother that the young Bond needed. He claims that his mother
frequently left home when he was small, leaving him with a lasting sense of insecurity, from

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