Ruskin Bond hand-picks 25 stories for readers on 87th birthday
(Sourced from PTI)
Popular author Ruskin Bond turned 87 on Wednesday and Penguin India has brought out a keepsake edition of his hand-picked stories to mark the occasion. All-time Favourites for Children has stories of misadventures, travails with eccentric relatives, evocative stories of nature, tales of birds and beasts, and heart-warming friendship stories, written in signature Bond style, says Sohini Mitra, publisher of Penguin Random House.
The 25 stories in the collection include Rusty's adventures; grandfather's stories; spooky tales along with a diverse set of new stories like Goldfish Don't Bark and Friends from the Forest. Bond says many of his favorite stories are in this collection.
"I have added a few new ones, written in recent months. I hope you will enjoy them. And while you are busy leafing through this book, dear reader, I will take off to the bazaar in search of a hot, fresh samosa," he writes in the Introduction. He says he has been telling stories all his life, and that is a story in itself.
"Someone once asked me where I get the ideas for my stories. Well, if you like people and find them interesting, you won't run out of stories," Bond said. "If you like... the world around you, you won't run out of ideas. Stories and ideas for them are swirling around you if you keep your eyes and ears open," he says.
Every year on his birthday till 2019, Bond used to spend time in the evening at his favorite bookstore, Cambridge in Mussoorie, with hundreds of children and adults and cut a cake. Because of COVID-19 restrictions, there was no public function last year and there is none this time too.
Bond was born in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh, and grew up in Jamnagar, Dehradun, Delhi, and Shimla. As a young man, he spent four years in the Channel Islands and London. He returned to India in 1955. He now lives in Landour with his adopted family.
His first novel The Room on the Roof, written when he was 17, received the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize in 1957. Over 500 short stories and articles by Bond have appeared in magazines and anthologies. He received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1993, the Padma Shri in 1999, and the Padma Bhushan in 2014.
