Ruskin Bond turns ninety today — a grand storyteller, one of the grandest of the twentieth century. His stories make one laugh and cry. They touch our hearts with compassion and amusement. He writes of people who he encounters in the hills where he stays — common people, people who you meet everyday on the road. He relates tales of making omelettes without eggs and makes us laugh at him and with him. It is rare to find this quality in a writer, or even in a common human. His fabulous stories around Mr Olivier and his parrot, his essays, poems, novels … one made into a film (A Flight of Pigeons) — though I dare say I enjoyed the book more than the film — all give a respite from the mundaneness and stresses of daily existence. They have the same effect as a holiday resort, except you do not need to spend as much. His writing transcends all time and boundaries of all kinds with his love for humanity seeping out of books.
We celebrate him with a poetic tribute from a fan and two pieces of his writing that we found in our treasury! Happy Birthday Ruskin Bond!
The Room on the Roof: Kisholoy Roy pays a tribute to Ruskin Bond’s writing. Click here to read.
Ruskin Bond, excerpted from Between Heaven and Earth: Writings on the Indian Hills, edited by Ruskin Bond and Bulbul Sharma. Click hereto read.
An excerpt from Friends in Wild Places: Birds, Beasts and Other Companions by Ruskin Bond. Click here to read.
Borderless 