If there is one thing among
a lot, I wish to do in my life before I die, is to go into the Cambridge Book
store of Mussoorie on a cold Sunday Evening, and meet Ruskin Bond. I would
probably be overwhelmed by seeing him personally, would fumble up words like I usually
do most of the time and tell him “Thank you for all the memorable stories you
have told over the years, you are my childhood Hero”.
Lone Fox Dancing is an
autobiography of one of the most celebrated, popular, influential and treasured writer in India, Owen Ruskin Bond. For the better part of more than six
decades, Mr. Bond has earned his livelihood through writing. For years, he has played
a significant role in many childhoods through his writing, be it telling a
simple poem, making us laugh through funny anecdotes involving himself or
people around him, occasionally spooking us through the horror stories he told,
spelling magic around the minds of his readers through the visuals of
Himalayas, coming out of his comfort zone and writing erotica in his own
distinctive style and giving us an example of his versatility in terms of the
subjects he wrote about, but most
importantly, he has kept us engaged, engulfed and emotionally invested in the
fascinating world of the stories he told, the characters extracted from his
vast range of imagination and real life incidents, the painting of hills that
he presented in front of our eyes, the visuals of gigantic Himalayan mountains
that peeped through his words, the chaotic atmosphere of Indian Railways that
formed the background of many of his stories, the colorful flowers that he
classified so elegantly, the wide array of trees he differentiated with such
ease, the love for food that he described with such passion. But, what’s the
story behind the man who has told us so many stories. What prompted a young man
to become fascinated with hills, what was the driving force behind the love for
reading, what was the inspiration behind the first poem that he wrote, who was
the first author that he read……
Lone Fox Dancing captures
the ultra-extraordinary journey behind an extraordinary life. The extraordinary
life of Ruskin Bond
The book chronicles four
phases of his life: Childhood, School Years, Life in England, and finally
returning to India and establishing himself as a writer.
“We get used to happiness very quickly, more so when we are children”
He opens up about his
childhood, and yet again, with easily relatable moments (courtesy of all those stories
he had told through the years) and simple writing tells us about the kind of
immensely close relationship he shared with his father, Alexander Bond. Ruskin
starts from the early days in Jamnagar where his Ayah would pamper him, and
made him eat paan, which little Ruskin would love wholeheartedly. He also
narrates us the inspiration behind his first poem. The childhood trauma to
enemas, the isolated time in the boarding school, the fascination with food.
The narrative is simple and elegant, and presented with a perfect balance of
highs and lows of his childhood. The earliest
attempt on his part towards any form of literature was a direct result of his
love towards his Ayah at Jamnagar, the second most important person in Ruskin's
life, first obviously being his father. She becomes his inspiration of sorts of
his guiltless first attempt at writing poems, he does well, and simply compares
her to a papaya. The night held no terror for him, it gradually became his
friend, and gave him the much-wanted space he needed but didn't get during the
day time. Starlight, Moonlight, early dawn, all became precious moments of
loveliness for him. The timelessness like atmosphere of the palace, the sensations
of the big garden, the spiral shaped stairs all became a part of the Ruskin’s
adventures in Jamnagar.
The most delightful
relationship we read about in the book from Ruskin’s life is between him and
his father, coincidentally he was named “Ruskin” after the Victorian essayist,
John Ruskin, because apparently, Ruskin’s father appreciated aesthetic, imaginative
and contemplative life. It appeared to be an omen, what the little Ruskin was
going to do in his life. Mr. Bond’s not so stable relationship with his mother,
the melancholic state of his mind after his father passed away, discovering
friendships, and love. He clearly does not try to sugar coat the kind of cold
relationship he shared with his mother and recalls the difficult lonely time he
had to face in the absence of his father. What we read is not actually about
Ruskin Bond, the author, but rather Ruskin Bond, a child who is lost in his own
dreams.
Starts another phase in Ruskin’s
life, when he goes to Bishop Cotton school in Shimla, he explores a different
side of himself, not the kind of rebel which he tried to pull off in his last
school, where he along with a friend tried to run away from the school, and not
being able to cross the line of freedom and end up getting caught. As a writer,
he would later on use this incident as a metaphor to symbolize seeking freedom and
control over one’s own destiny by crossing the lines of oppression. He left a long-lasting
impression on his school friends, acknowledging the coolness of the fact that
his father worked in the Royal Air Force helped him gain more popularity in the
school, a time where World War II was far away from ending, He made his own
little world around the aura of the school with his friends. How Ruskin uttered
the wonderful line “And when all wars are
done, a butterfly will still be beautiful” lying in a tunnel with his
friend Azhar.
The marital problems
between his parents had gradually started affecting him in some way or another,
his father’s loneliness brought a sudden change on the shy Ruskin. The time
spent with his father, which he considers to be the happiest days of his
childhood because he was not told to live his life in a certain way, he was
free bird, he could read all day, listen to music, watch movies, play with his
colony friends, get fascinated by his father’s stamp collection. At a certain
point when Ruskin is having the best time of his life with his father at Delhi,
he mentions that "New Delhi was a
safer place in the 1940's than it is in the 21st Century". Few years
later, Ruskin’s father passed way due to several attacks of malaria, the last letter
which Ruskin's father wrote to him is sure to bring a tear rolling down the
cheeks as we read it, primarily because we, as reader by the first part ends
have realized the significance of Ruskin's father in his life, and when you
read how heartbroken Ruskin is, post the sudden demise of his father, one
cannot imagine how a ten-year kid be expected to remain calm. Flight Lieutenant
Aubrey Alexander Bond had left an indelible vacuum in the life of Ruskin Bond. It
was difficult for Ruskin to reconcile with the loss, and he wrote “There being no tangible evidence of my
father’s death, it was, for me, not a death, but vanishing, and I subconsciously
expected him to turn as he often did, when I most needed him and deliver me from
an unpleasant situation” Years later, Ruskin would confront his feelings
from that period in his short story “The Funeral” where he would write about
the insensitive nature of adults of not allowing an orphan protagonist to
attend his father’s funeral.
“If one is present when a loved one dies, one is convinced of the
finality of the thing and finds it easier to adapt to the changed
circumstances. You never really get over the loss of a beloved. You learn to
live despite it.”
He entered another
interesting phase in his life soon afterwards, where he would now be a part of a family that
appeared to be lost in their own lives, but Ruskin found something that would change
his life forever; Books and How an odd friendship with Miss Kellner resulted in
Ruskin's introduction to fascinating literature. Reading became his religion,
and as he himself mentioned a couple of times that it was books helped him discover
his soul. There are sweet little tales of Ruskin's first crush, first sip of
rum which lead to his first kiss on the lips under an intoxicated state. The
string of happiness which little Ruskin felt after the presence of snow in
Dehradun. You could sense a flashback of all those novels which you have read,
authored by him connecting all the dots about the beautiful scenery he would
put forward about the hills.
Destiny had other plans
for “Bond Sahid ka bachcha”, no one
back then had any clue that their Baba would go on to become one of the most
influential writers in the country.
Destiny took another
major turn when Ruskin went to Jersey and then to London to try and achieve his
ambition of being a writer, talks of unrequited love, repeatedly telling himself
that the west part of the world would give him more opportunities, but as a
reader one can feel the restlessness that was building up inside Ruskin, his
love for the valleys, and mountains could not be suppressed for a longer time, “All I really wanted was my little room back
again” he wrote.
He soon returned to
India, and we meet more colorful characters that appeared at that point of time
in his life, and most of them would go on to become actual characters in his
stories, around the summer of 1963, Ruskin Bond finally settled down in the
hills. The last part of the book felt like a revision of all the novels written
by him that I have been reading so far, and gradually felt that this is the
story behind this man.
The oeuvre of Ruskin
Bond’s writing is such, that after reading his work, he makes you feel guilty
of not living a life under the watchful eyes of mountains, not taking a moment
of solace out of our hectic schedule and appreciating life with all its beauty
and charms. There is so much to know about the legendary writer, but the
autobiography focuses majorly on his childhood, and how the various incidents
shaped the man we know today through his stories. While reading the book, there
are overabundance of memories which strikes my mind about all those stories I
have read while growing up, there is a sense of reality that Mr. Bond presents,
and how he weaves his characters around the nature or how he shapes the nature
to be the center of his stories. It is quite an amusing fascination that Mr. Bond,
right from his childhood developed towards admiring the beauty of nature, and
for me no one loves the nature the way he does through the structure of his
words. Similar to numerous Ruskin Bond’s Novels, there are some common
elements, mountains, trees, People of colorful nature, animals, foods, drinks,
but what is most important is the sincerity and honesty with which Mr. Bond
gives us a glimpse of his personal journey. The man who preferred Silence of
the mountains against the chaos of metro cities continues to thrives his
stories from the simplest of moments in life, perhaps the milieu of Himalayas
gives him a sense of freedom to express himself more freely
“The kindest people are often those who have come through testing
personal tragedies”
Lone Fox Dancing is not a
path-breaking autobiography by any means but it never even tries to go that way, it’s as simple as his other works, the subtle
difference being the personal moments that are painful and yet delivered
through words with honesty, because observing the simplistic of moments in life
has always thrive him to form stories. There are moments of longing for love,
be it from his father, mother, friends, family, and long after that longing is
vanished, there isn’t a bundle of sorrow feelings, rather the joy recalling those moments spent in their presence, perhaps this quality is what makes him grow an
unaltered fondness for the beauty of life.
My rendezvous with Mr.
Bond started when I first read “The Blue Umbrella”, once I completed that
novella, the name Ruskin Bond stayed with me, as I started exploring his works,
the iconic "Room on the Roof", the timeless classic “Time stops at Shamli and
other stories”, the quest of freedom in the “Flight of Pigeons”, the wildness
of “Sussana’s Seven Husbands”, the realization of a man’s sexual nature in an
erotica "The Sensualist" and many more of
his stories, I was transported into the world that Mr. Bond wanted to us see,
the silence of the nights, the internal peace felt in a moment, the beauty of
rain drops, the aesthetics of trees, the charm of a song, the satisfaction of
hearty laugh. The solace I found and still do in reading his works is cannot be judged or even defined precisely.
“As a boy, loneliness, As a man, Solitude. The loneliness was not of my
seeking. The solitude, I sought and found”
I wish that Ruskin Bond had written more about his craft, but this feeling soon vanished after I realize
that his most of his stories are directly a result of certain circumstances
that he faced in his life, the longing of love, the need of comfort at times,
of course there are many stories that completely are a product of his
imagination, but the looking back at his journey, and his fondness for the
valleys, there is a part of me that wants to believe that most of his stories
does have a bit of personal attachment to it.
At around 75 years of
age, Mr. Bond made his debut for the big screen in Vishal Bhardwaj’s “7 Khoon
Maaf” and played a cameo in the film based on his novella, which he himself
adapted into a short story, which was then transformed into a full-fledged
screenplay. Just few seconds of seeing him on the big screen with the character
that he created so beautifully was really a treat for his fans.
Once I finished reading
the book, I could not help myself but picture a scene in my imagination where
Ruskin Bond is talking an evening walk around the trees, simply enjoying the
calmness of the valley, and just next to him, we see the little Ruskin from his
Jamnagar days emerge out of nowhere, he throws the most innocent of smiles at
him and makes him hold his tiny fingers.
“Well, life worked out
pretty well” He exclaims to Ruskin
The 83 years old Ruskin
looks at him, nods in approval
“Up for a dance, Lone Fox?” he asks.
"Always" he replies.
“I am like a shopkeeper hoarding bags full of grains, only I hoard
words. There are still people who buy words, and I hope I can keep bringing a
little sunshine and pleasure into their lives till the end of my days”
