Lone Fox Dancing-Ruskin Bond
***1/2/***** Autobiography
Lone Fox Dancing:
My Autobiography
Ruskin Bond
Today Ruskin Bond amply qualifies for the epithet of ‘Grand old man of
English writing by an Indian’. He has been writing for more than six decades
now. I remember reading his books as a child about four decades back. In those
days his books were not found in every bookshop. One was just aware of an author
named Ruskin Bond who had deep connections with Dehradun, wrote in English, some of whose books could be found in a library. Arrival of foreign publishers
like Penguin in India gave a terrific fillip to Ruskin Bond’s popularity in
1990s. Innumerable permutation and combination of his old stories, novellas and
essays flooded the bookshelves of shops selling English books. He deserves all
this renewed attention of publishers and booklovers.
Ruskin Bond’s prose has always been transparent. It gives one a
feeling that it truthfully reflects author’s experience. Having read a fair
number of his books you seem to know his life story quite completely. Now in
his eighties, Ruskin Bond has written his Autobiography. As I read it a thought
kept recurring in my mind that I have known these facts about Ruskin Bond all
along.
Ruskin Bond wrote about the common life of lay people and the luxurious
beauty of nature that was available for all to behold. It was his simple and
sparklingly clear prose and honest narration that imbued the humdrum sorrows
and joys of common people with enchanting beauty. A similar, placidly soothing
narration characterises his autobiography. He evokes a luring picture of pre-independence
India as he writes about his childhood years in the princely state of Jamnagar,
in the laidback Dehra tucked in the green Himalayan foothills, in Lutyens’s
Delhi of mid 1940s and his school years in Shimla. His emotions are controlled,
whether he writes about fears of a boy of eight as he sees his parents drifting
apart, his extreme loneliness in England where he spent close to four years in
his late teens trying desperately to learn to be a writer, his sorrows borne of
failed, though sincere love, long years he spent in penury as he struggled to
gain foothold in the world of English writing in India of mid-twentieth
century, his occasional and modest successes and the eventual stability in life
that he gained only in the sixth decade of life. Book is studded with short but
captivating sketches of innumerable characters that come alive in his lucid
prose; his rustic and affectionate Ayah in Jamnagar, his quirky teachers at
Shimla, some kind and some indifferent to boys, his friends at Shimla and Dehra
with whom he shared a warm, fulfilling relations, his fun-loving stepfather
recklessly pursuing pleasure in Shikar, parties and movies, his old Anglo-Indian
landlady, leading a lonely but not dreary life in Mussoorie. It’s an unending
list. In the background of all these stories is nature; the hills of Shimla and
Mussoorie, Jungles of Dehra, Mustard fields on the outskirts of Delhi, changing
weathers and chirping birds. An urbane humour pervades the book. His love for
his father whom he lost in his early teens is portrayed with a warm poignancy
and subdued sorrow.
Book celebrates the run of the mill life that is the lot of most
people. Ruskin Bond’s simple and fluent prose, disarming candour, capability to
discern and appreciate warmth in myriad forms of human relations and his
unbridled love of nature lends a charm to the book that raises it above
commonplace.
Jun 2017
This book was one of the warmest book to read,his writings are really simple and honest ,you can connect very easily with some of the parts of the book,though i haven't read much of Ruskin Bond's fictional work,this one i had found was really touching and gives a sense of longing
ReplyDeleteSimple, in all its beauty, is the word to describe Ruskin.
ReplyDelete