For years, I cherished a desire to meet the well-known author of our generation, " Ruskin Bond".
Growing up in Dehra, in the eighties, was a black and white movie in a dreamland, where one could bicycle the by lanes of the famous retirement town. Dehra is for Dehradun, Ruskin Bond always writes Dehradun as Dehra, so I decided to copy him we were careless, disorganised and not at all focused, exactly what we don't want our children to be. I guess, this is what age does to you. It was that age where we would wait for months for leechis and mangoes to ripe in the orchards so that they can be stolen. It was the age where one would bicycle everywhere, including day-long picnics in summers, something which is totally alien to kids today.
The world was smaller. Before the advent of cable TV, Computers, mobiles, remote controls, smartphones, made to save time but miserably failing, we had all the time in the world.
Reading and sharing books was very common and so was going to the library. It was natural for someone like me to get attracted to writings of Ruskin Bond who most of the time wrote about Dehra.
The first time I read him was in my class IX English textbook. The story was 'Night Train at Deoli'. I liked it a lot, probably, because of simple narrative and the backdrop of Dehra in the story. I used to believe that Deoli is Doiwala. I would have travelled numerous times in Mussoorie express and every time, the story ran across my mind. The simple romantic story is about and adolescent boy meeting a girl at Deoli, a station before Dehra while travelling in Mussoorie Express, which was and is a famous train between Delhi and Dehra.
The story led me to , later, read " The Room on the Roof", the book he wrote when he was just 17 years of age. This was his first literary venture and he won the John Wellyn Rhys Memorial Prize in 1957. The book was not only a hit but also received positive reviews. Ruskin Bond, for the uninitiated, is an Indian author of British descent. He lives with his adopted family in Landour, Mussoorie. His father was with Royal Air Force. At age of ten, Ruskin went to live at his grandmother's house in Dehradun after his father's death. He spent his early childhood in Jamnagar (Gujrat) and Shimla.
After his high school education he went to his aunt's house in the UK and stayed there for two years and started writing, It was there he wrote his first novel "The Room on the Roof". Soon he moved to India and after freelancing for few years from Delhi and Dehradun, he shifted to Mussoorie in 1963. He lived there since then and continues to regale, people who read him, with his writing. I love the way he explains his Indian Identity, "Race did not make me one, religion did not make me one. But history did. And in the long run, its history that counts"
Bond's writings, most of the times, had the background of Mussoorie & Dehra and when he was not in there he was in other small towns searching big stories. His love for nature, life and a simple, upfront language made me his fan for a lifetime.
I don't remember a time when I came across his writing in any form and I could suppress the urge to read it.
After growing up in Dehra, time also saw me spending my youth there including a number of trips to Mussoorie.
'Youth is wasted on the young' and so was mine. My numerous trips to Mussoorie were spent on burning rubber. I knew that Ruskin Bond comes to Cambridge Books Dept, a famous book shop in Mussoorie, once a week but I could never manage to meet him. Life later took me away from Dehra but the umbilical chord could never be cut and even now I jump on the first opportunity to go to Dehra and also try to throw in a trip to Mussoorie.
There was this one more opportunity on Feb 17 with a marriage in the family and. I decided to attend it on an impulse. We took a cab from Bathinda to Dehra, cutting across Punjab, Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand. Its always heartening to see the developing, changing face of India. Our arrival in Dehra on Friday evening after a long drive of ten hours was a surprise for everyone, back home.
As you grow older you start finding more joy in things which you found mundane in younger days, attending family functions like marriages being one.
Next day, 18 Feb was a Saturday and we were free in the morning as the Marriage was in the evening. I and Upasna had time on our hands to kill. To surprise her, I had made discreet inquiries over the phone in the morning. I skipped a beat when I was confirmed that Mr Bond will be coming to Cambridge Books Depot from 3:30 to 5:30 PM. There was this secret desire to meet him in flesh & bones. Every time when Iwould visit Dehra, Mussoorie, see him on TV or read a piece in the newspaper ; I would ask myself whether I will ever get to meet him? The person whose writing had brought 'so much joy to my life when there was no sorrow'.
After doing our customary rounds to Dehra, which included few errands, when my wife was thinking of heading back home to catch on some rest, I made her 'an offer which she could not refuse', it's from the 'Godfather', for the unlucky ones who haven't read it. I asked her "Mussoorie Chale". "Shall we go to Mussoorie"? I saw the surprise in her eyes as I told the driver to go to Mussoorie without waiting for an answer.
Since it is just an hour's drive we reached in time and straightway headed for the Cambridge Book Depot on the Mall road where there was already a small queue. I was already excited, seeing a dream of mine unfolding in front of me.
The adrenaline which kicks in and short circuits cortex in the brain in any intense situation had kicked in, I was sweating in Feb in Mussoorie and my pulse rate had quickened. I calmed myself down, took a few deep breaths. I took two books to get it signed from him. One for Nihal, my son who turns fifteen this May, and one for myself.
For years, I had thought of this day when I will get to meet the other 'Bond' I was very fond of both famous Bonds, the first one being 007 from M16, in my childhood and am till date. I had even thought of what I will request him to write; it was "Rockstar and Popstar, the father and son duo who love my books". Rocky, Nihal's nickname, used to call me Popstar when I sometimes used to call him Rockstar, in jest. I had even gifted few of Ruskin Bond's books to Nihal, whether he could actually read them remains a suspect. By the time my turn came to meet him; I put on a smile and thrust my hand forward. I did not want to miss shaking hands with him for anything. He was every bit I had imagined but much more mortal, one among us. A phenomenon, I experienced earlier too after meeting a Hollywood biggie; 'Matt Damon'. You build a larger than life images of celebrity in your mind and when you meet then you realise they are just one among us.
I introduced myself, my wife, and thanked him for his writing. On very rare occasion I am eager to say what I do for a living and this was one of them. On telling him that my wife's father owned a bookshop in Dehra, he inquired which shop. To our surprise, he knew her father quite well. There was a long queue behind us. I quickly requested him to sign the books. The adrenaline had settled and I was thinking. I requested him to write for 'Nihal, " Your father grew up reading my books" and he wrote " Dear Nihal (Rocky), Your father grew on my books". I immediately liked what he wrote and I guess that’s what makes him what he is.
The meeting got over in no time. I was exalted and needed a break to be in the moment. We stopped at Chic Chocolate; a famous coffee shop on the mall road and reflected on finally meeting the other 'Bond' who brought so much joy in my life along with lives of so many of my generation and others too. His apt words, 'Your father grew on my books' still resound in my ears.
WRITTEN :March 17
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