by Ruskin Bond
Being alone is vital for any creative writer. I do not mean that you must live the life of a recluse. People who do not know me are frequently under the impression that I live in lonely splendour on a mountain top, whereas in reality, I share a small flat with a family of twelve—and I’m the twelfth man, occasionally bringing out refreshments for the players!
I love my extended family, every single individual in it, but as a writer I must sometimes get a little time to be alone with my own thoughts, reflect a little, talk to myself, laugh about all the blunders I have committed in the past, and ponder over the future. This is contemplation, not meditation. I am not very good at meditation, as it involves remaining in a passive state for some time. I would rather be out walking, observing the natural world, or sitting under a tree contemplating my novel or navel! I suppose the latter is a form of meditation.
When I casually told a journalist that I planned to write a book consisting of my meditations, he reported that I was writing a book on meditation per se, which gave it a different connotation. I shall go along with the simple dictionary meaning of the verb meditate—to plan mentally, to exercise the mind in contemplation.
So I was doing it all along!
I am not, by nature, a gregarious person. Although I love people, and have often made friends with complete strangers, I am also a lover of solitude. Naturally, one thinks better when one is alone. But I prefer walking alone to walking with others. That ladybird on the wild rose would escape my attention if I was engaged in a lively conversation with a companion. Not that the ladybird is going to change my life. But by acknowledging its presence, stopping to admire its beauty, I have paid obeisance to the natural scheme of things of which I am only a small part.
It is upon a person’s power of holding fast to such undimmed beauty that his or her inner hopefulness depends. As we journey through the world, we must inevitably encounter meanness and selfishness. As we fight for our survival, the higher visions and ideals often fade. It is then that we need ladybirds! Contemplating that tiny creature, or the flower on which it rests, gives one the hope—better, the certainty—that there is more to life than interest rates, dividends, market forces and infinite technology.
As a writer, I have known hope and despair, success and failure; some recognition but also long periods of neglect and critical dismissal. But I have had no regrets. I have enjoyed the writer’s life to the full, and one reason for this is that living in India has given me certain freedoms which I would not have enjoyed elsewhere. Friendship when needed. Solitude when desired. Even, at times, love and passion. It has tolerated me for what I am—a bit of a dropout, unconventional, idiosyncratic. I have been left alone to do my own thing. In India, people do not censure you unless you start making a nuisance of yourself. Society has its norms and its orthodoxies, and provided you do not flaunt all the rules, society will allow you to go your own way. I am free to become a naked ascetic and roam the streets with a begging bowl; I am also free to live in a palatial farmhouse if I have the wherewithal. For twenty-five years, I have lived in this small, sunny second-floor room looking out on the mountains, and no one has bothered me, unless you count the neighbour’s dog who prevents the postman and courier boys from coming up the steps.
I may write for myself, but as I also write to get published, it must follow that I write for others too. Only a handful of readers might enjoy my writing, but they are my soulmates, my alter egos, and they keep me going through those lean times and discouraging moments.
Even though I depend upon my writing for a livelihood, it is still, for me, the most delightful thing in the world.
I did not set out to make a fortune from writing; I knew I was not that kind of writer. But it was the thing I did best, and I persevered with the exercise of my gift, cultivating the more discriminating editors, publishers and readers, never really expecting huge rewards but accepting whatever came my way. Happiness is a matter of temperament rather than circumstance, and I have always considered myself fortunate in having escaped the tedium of a nine-to-five job or some other form of drudgery.
Of course, there comes a time when almost every author asks himself what his effort and output really amounts to. We expect our work to influence people, to affect a great many readers, when in fact, its impact is infinitesimal. Those who work on a large scale must feel discouraged by the world’s indifference. That is why I am happy to give a little innocent pleasure to a handful of readers. This is a reward worth having.
As a writer, I have difficulty in doing justice to momentous events, the wars of nations, the politics of power; I am more at ease with the dew of the morning, the sensuous delights of the day, the silent blessings of the night, the joys and sorrows of children, the strivings of ordinary folk and, of course, the ridiculous situations in which we sometimes find ourselves.
We cannot prevent sorrow and pain and tragedy. And yet when we look around us, we find that the majority of people are actually enjoying life! There are so many lovely things to see, there is so much to do, so much fun to be had, and so many charming and interesting people to meet… How can my pen ever run dry?
Author’s Note
Almost all my early stories, novellas and essays made their first appearance in different periodicals and anthologies, both Indian and international. I have kept a record of most them, and the details are as follows:
‘The Thief’s Story’, The Illustrated Weekly of India; The Room on the Roof, first published in the UK by André Deutsch and serialized in India by The Illustrated Weekly of India; ‘The Photograph’, The Illustrated Weekly of India; ‘A Face in the Dark’, The Illustrated Weekly of India; ‘The Tunnel’, The Road to the Bazaar, Rupa Publications India; ‘The Kitemaker’, Short Story International; ‘Most Beautiful’, Short Story International; ‘Wilson’s Bridge’, The Statesman; ‘The Superior Man’, Tales and Legends of India, Rupa Publications India; ‘The Hare in the Moon’, Tales and Legends of India, Rupa Publications India; ‘Toria and the Daughter of the Sun’, Tales and Legends of India, Rupa Publications India; ‘Colonel Gardner and the Princess of Cambay’, The Illustrated Weekly of India; ‘The Lady of Sardhana’, The Illustrated Weekly of India; ‘A Hill Station’s Vintage Murders’, Strange Men, Strange Places, Rupa Publications India; ‘A Village in Garhwal’, Blackwood’s Magazine; ‘Once Upon a Mountain Time’, The Christian Science Monitor; ‘Voting at Barlowganj’, Blackwood’s Magazine; ‘Sounds I Like to Hear’, The Christian Science Monitor; ‘Bhabiji’s House’ first appeared as ‘Punjabi Day’ in Blackwood’s Magazine; ‘Break of the Monsoon’, The Christian Science Monitor; ‘To See a Tiger’, The Lady Magazine; ‘In Grandfather’s Garden’, The Lady Magazine; ‘Man and Leopard’, Blackwood’s Magazine; ‘Landour Bazaar’, Blackwood’s Magazine; ‘Ganga Descends’, Beautiful Garhwal: Heaven in Himalayas, Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam; ‘Great Trees of Garhwal’, The Christian Science Monitor; ‘Birdsong in the Hills’, The Christian Science Monitor; ‘Children of India’, The Lady Magazine; ‘Friends of My Youth’, The India I Love, Rupa Publications India; ‘Some Hill Station Ghosts’, Roads to Mussoorie, Rupa Publications India; ‘Party Time in Mussoorie’, Roads to Mussoorie, Rupa Publications India; ‘The Walkers’ Club’, adapted for this book from an essay in Landour Days: A Writer’s Journal, Penguin Books India; ‘Love Thy Critic’, adapted for this book from an essay in Landour Days: A Writer’s Journal, Penguin Books India; ‘Those Simple Things’, The Statesman; ‘A Good Philosophy’, Deccan Herald; ‘Life at My Own Pace’, The Heritage, Chennai; ‘Upon an Old Wall Dreaming’, Deccan Herald; ‘Nina’, The Lady Magazine; ‘The Road to Badrinath’, Beautiful Garhwal: Heaven in Himalayas, Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam; ‘The Good Earth’, The Christian Science Monitor; ‘A Night Walk Home’, The Statesman; ‘The Beetle Who Blundered In’ first appeared as ‘Guests Who Come in from the Forest’, Cricket Magazine; ‘Some Plants Become Friends’, Deccan Herald; ‘Rainy Day in June’, Deccan Herald; ‘The Old Gramophone’, The Best of Ruskin Bond, Penguin B
ooks India; ‘Who Kissed Me in the Dark?’, Funny Side Up, Rupa Publications India; ‘Joyfully I Write’, The India I Love, Rupa Publications India.
Also in Aleph
SHADOW PLAY
SHASHI DESHPANDE
A masterful meditation on kinship, marriage, ambition and the changing face of urban India.
THE KING’S HARVEST
CHETAN RAJ SHRESTA
Two powerful novellas set in Sikkim.
EM AND THE BIG HOOM
JERRY PINTO
A poignant and often darkly funny portrait of a marriage, and an unforgettable study of mental illness.
