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Elective English–II

Notes which he suffered throughout his life. Both security and affection of a mother were provided
by his father, but the untimely death of his father made him spend a lonely childhood. The
first twenty years of Ruskin Bond’s life were significant regarding the development of his
personality and writing skill.

His optimistic attitude toward life, made him attractive. Although he suffered much throughout
his life yet he never gave up hope and tried to fulfill the dreams and ambitions of his father,
because his father wanted to develop his personality as a writer.
His father writes in his letter to Ruskin Bond:
“I wanted to write before about your writing, Ruskin, but forget… you have written in very small hand
writing, as if you wanted to squeeze a lot of news into one sheet of letter-paper. It’s not good for you
and for your eyes… I know your hand writing is good and that you come first in class for hand writing,
but try and form a longer style of writing.” Bond has always been interested in books of all types.
Some of his favourite authors include Charles Dickens, Emily Bronte, TE Lawrence, Rudyard
Kipling, and Tagore. His love of books was inspired by his father. His father loved him very
much and wanted to make him a creative writer. He also loved his father and missed him very
much after his death. He did not want to leave India but to make his career and improve his
creative talent he decided to go to England. When Bond arrived at his Aunt Emily’s home in
Jersey, he had only three or four pounds left from his travel money. Since he did not want to
be a burden on his relatives, he looked for a job in St. Hailer and got his first job in Jersey.
Jersey is a small island, which is fourteen miles away from the French coast. He worked there
as a junior clerk.
It was easy to find a job in those days, and he held three jobs at various times, including
assistant to the Thomas Cook travel agent in Jersey and wages clerk in the Public Health
Department, where he earned easily for his living. He also took the Jersey Civil Service examination
and was placed fourth in order of merit. The holiday resort atmosphere of Jersey did not suit
his temperament. In Jersey; Bond was terribly homesick for India.
He worked in a travel agency, but he did not take much interest in these odd jobs, and started
writing, at the age of seventeen he wrote his first successful novel “The Room on the Roof”,
the novel got immense popularity and he was awarded a prestigious “John Llewellyn Rhys
memorial Prize. It was the highest award for a young writer in Britain at that time. Although
Ruskin Bond was basically from England and his forefathers were British, yet he always
missed India and the friends at Dehra. His autobiography, Scenes from a Writer’s Life, reveals
his longing for the atmosphere of India:
“...even though my forefathers were British, Britain was not really my place. I did not belong to the
bright lights of Piccadilly and Leicester Square; or, for that matter, to the apple orchards of Kent or
the strawberry fields of Berkshire. I belonged, very firmly, to peepal trees and mango groves; to sleepy
little towns all over India; to hot sunshine, muddy canals, the pungent smell of marigolds; the hills of
home; spicy odours, wet earth after summer rain, neem pods bursting; laughing brown faces; and the
intimacy of human contact”.
He decided to return to India because he could not keep himself away from India any more.
After returning from England he preferred to live in a small town Dehradoon, away from the
hustle bustle of a city life. The town helped him to revive the memories of a dear father and
also a forced relationship with his mother and step father. This heavenly landscape helped
him to get rid of this gloom. Ruskin Bond developed his habit of walking along the slopes
with hands in his pockets. His early romance with Dehradoon is revealed in hundred of his
stories, essays, poems and sketches. He recollected pre- Independent Dehradoon in the following
words:

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