Title :
The India I Love
Author :
Ruskin Bond
Publisher
: Rupa
ISBN : 81-291-0397-4
Ruskin
Bond mesmerizes his readers yet again through his straight from the heart
collection of prose and poems. This is his way of expressing his feelings for
his beloved adopted country with all her animate and inanimate beings, their
uniqueness, their character and how all these combine to create a unique
flavour of Indian-ness.
In some
chapters, he reminisces about his earlier days, the time when he decided to
make India and specifically her hills his home and leave West for good. In his words,
"The link with Britain was tenuous, based on heredity rather than
upbringing. It was more in the mind. It
was a literary England that I had been drawn to, not a physical England.
"
He talks
about the mountains and hills, rivers and its tributaries, various people and
their idiosyncrasies.
He
sprinkles the chapters with some nuggets of wisdom that he has processed over
the years by observing people and his surroundings keenly.
"A
well-balanced person : someone with a chip on both shoulders
Experience
: The knowledge that enables you to recognise a mistake when you make it the
second time
Sympathy
: What one woman offers another in exchange for details
Worry :
The interest paid on trouble before it becomes due"
His
adroitness to write about himself with utmost sincerity and transparency
becomes apparent time and again by the ease with which he packs self-mockery in
his writings. His honesty and humility reach out to the readers unadulterated
as he cloaks his feelings in simple yet effective language. A slice of his humility and critical analysis
of himself get reflected in these lines -
"I
am not the most inventive of writers, and fantastical plots are beyond me. My
forte is observation, recollection and reflection. "
Ruskin
Bond's writings are so true to the soil of this country in its original form,
it clearly displays his sensitivity in observing, experiencing, absorbing,
imbibing and processing the Indian-ness in his system and what comes out
through his pen is the essence of his relationship with the country and with
everything belonging to it.
The peace
and serenity in his writings transport the readers to a blissful state of
living the life in its entirety with every single moment registering its
presence and with every single thing getting observed, acknowledged and
appreciated in the same way as Ruskin Bond does on his solitary walks.
"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."
Whenever
I get a chance to conduct interviews with the authors, I often ask them for
their suggestions to the aspiring/budding authors. But without having directly
asked Ruskin Bond, I got the answer from him in this book -
"If
you, dear reader, have any ambitions to be a writer, you must first rid
yourself of any notion that perfect peace and quiet is the first requirement.
There is no such thing as perfect peace and quiet except perhaps in a monastery
or a cave in the mountains. And what would you write about, living in a cave?
One should be able to write in a train, a bus, a bullock-cart, in good weather
or bad, on a park bench or in the middle of a noisy classroom.
While I
was editing this review, I noticed that I have used so many of his quotes
directly here. This clearly shows that no words are worthy enough to carry the
essence of his writings and they are best as they are.
