book review of night train at the deoli
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e all would like to meet or see someone worth remembering later in life. And normally this urge is very high when we travel on a train. The Night Train at Deoli is one such story where a young boy of around eighteen meets a poor and beautiful girl on a lonely platform.
The story has a few nameless characters. The narrator (boy) remembers a few journeys he made in past. He is traveling back to Dehradun from Delhi, and thirty miles before Dehradun arrives a single-platform station, Deoli. The train arrives at that station around five in the morning when there is no sufficient sunlight to make out the things. The station is rather a lonely sort of place. A few dimly lit bulbs, stationmaster's cabin, and a tea stall. But much to his amazement, he finds, at that odd hour of the day, a girl with pale skin, dark eyes. Her clothes are not that new or fashionable. From her outlook, she looks poor. She is selling baskets. When the narrator notices her keenly, unpretentiously she also looks at him. And at that moment both share an affectionate bonding through eyes. The narrator goes to the tea stall, the girl follows him and asks him whether he wants to buy a basket. The boy being asked, falls in love at the first sight, though no need of that basket but still he buys one for extending the meeting with her, and not to disappoint her.
Soon the stationmaster blows the whistle and they part away. The boy sitting at the window side keeps gazing at her, she too smiles at him and stands there till the train recedes out of the station.
Next time the narrator travels on the same train, he arrives at Deoli station at the same time i.e. five in the morning. This time the girl recognises him instantly and he waves her back from the door of the coach while the train is chugging out of the station.
The boy met her twice in the story, but every time he wanted to go against the time and society and wished to have that girl with him. Third time upon arriving at the station at the same time, he finds no girl there. He looks here and there for her but to no avail. He enquires about the girl to the tea-stall man but he had no information about her whereabouts. The narrator thinks of leaving the train and wishes to search for the girl in the surrounding jungles or in a nearby village but gives up the idea. The train moves on and so does he.
He makes wild guesses about her disappearance. She must have been got into a marriage or she died due to illness or devoured alive by a tiger from the jungle.
Disappearance of the girl with no valid reason is a common thread in Ruskin Bond books and stories, this way he develops a sense of mystery in his work. Or was she a ghost girl like Binya.
NOVEMBER 3, 2013
Author: Ruskin Bond
Publisher: Penguin Books
Year: 1988
ISBN: 9780140116151
Rating: 
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Filled with 30 simple short stories, Ruskin Bond’s The Night Train at Deoli and Other Stories is a compilation of some of his best work. The tales are a slice of life and an ode to the place & times Ruskin Bond grew up in.
“The longings after something lost. Perhaps that is dominant theme in my stories. It is a longing that has been experienced by all of us at various times in our lives unless one has become desensitized by power and money.”
With lines like these, Ruskin Bondwill capture your heart and soothe your soul right from ‘Introduction’.
Filled with 30 simple short stories, Ruskin Bond’s The Night Train at Deoli and Other Stories is a compilation of some of his best work. The tales are a slice of life and an ode to the place & times Ruskin Bond grew up in. Primarily set in Mussorie, Dehradun and Shimla, where Bond has spend a good part of his life ( he still lives in Mussorie), his love for the hills, nature and the people living there clearly reflects in his writing.
Heavy with subtle longing for golden years gone by, which were unadulterated with toxicity, Bond paints a beautiful picture in the mind of the readers through this book. By his own admission, you would find influences from his own experiences, as well as those of the people he met on his life’s journey, in the stories. Which is why, the book is an amalgamation of fiction and autobiography, just like most of his other books.
The central theme of all the stories in Night Train at Deoli and Other Stories is ‘Love’ in some shape, size or form. To name a few, he touches upon love for one’s hometown & the yearning for childhood in ‘When You Can’t Climb The Tree Anymore’, ‘My Father’s Trees In Dehra’, and ‘The Coral Tree.’ We get a glimpse at Bond’s love for writing and the struggle that followed in, ‘Bus Stop, Pipalnagar.’ He explored the instant connection and love at times we feel for some strangers you meet on long journeys in, ‘The Woman on Platform’, ‘The Night Train at Deoli’, and ‘The Eyes have it.’ Not to forget, his tribute to sweet-bitter pain of unrequited love in, ‘Love is a sad song’, ‘A Love Long Ago’ will surely strike a chord.
The book is like a warm hug that unclenches your fists, calms your pulsating nerves, relaxes your back and gives you a dash of momentary peace in stressful times. It will remind you, just like it did me, of all the places, things and people that hover in some corner of our subconscious, without even realizing it. More importantly, it will make you realize, that stories are all around us. All we need to do is sit and observe. It will compel you to take pen and paper (or laptop, notepad, whatever) and start creating your very own set of stories.