The Lamp Is Lit

by Ruskin Bond

  And there are many brave and good Indian writers, who work in their own language—be it Bengali or Oriya or Telugu or Marathi or fifteen to twenty others—and plough their lonely furrow without benefit of agent or media blitz or Booker prize. Some of them may despair. But even so, they work on in despair. Their rewards may be small, their readers few, but it is enough to keep them from turning off the light. For they know that the pen, in honest and gifted hands, is mightier than the grave.

  * * *

  And these are my parting words to you, dear Reader: May you have the wisdom to be simple, and the humour to be happy.

  Raindrop

  This leaf, so complete in itself,

  Is only part of the tree.

  And this tree, so complete in itself,

  Is only part of the forest.

  And the forest runs down from the hill to the sea,

  And the sea, so complete in itself,

  Rests like a raindrop

  In the hand of God.

  Introduction

  * Both stories are to be found in Delhi Is Not Far: The Best of Ruskin Bond (Penguin India, 1994)

  On the Highway

  * The novella is included in my book Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra.

  Grandfather’s Earthquake

  * This, of course, was a long time before the state of Meghalya, of which Shillong is now the capital, was created.

  ** This later became The Statesman

  Life with Uncle Ken

  * In the early 1940s Dehra had only one or two taxis. Today, there are over 500 plying in the town.

  In Search of John Lang

  * I have included one of his stories in The Penguin Book of Indian Ghost Stories.

  Acknowledgements

  My thanks to:

  Ravi Singh, of Penguin India, for his editorial help; the editors of The Statesman (New Delhi and Calcutta), Deccan Herald (Bangalore), Hindu (Chennai), The Hindustan Times (New Delhi), Economic Times (Calcutta), Gentleman (Mumbai), Femina (Mumbai), and the Chirstian Science Monitor (Boston), for first publishing some of this material.

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  First published by Penguin Books India 1998

  Copyright © Ruskin Bond 1998

  The sketch of Ruskin Bond reproduced on the title page is by Chandra B. Rasali

  The sketch of a wild pea in flower reproduced on the interleaving pages is by Ruskin Bond

  All rights reserved

  ISBN: 978-01-4027-804-0

  This digital edition published in 2013.

  e-ISBN: 978-81-8475-456-8

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