Charcters of childrens omnibus
Answers
Explanation:
It was a summer long ago, before mobile phones had invaded our lives and the Japanese had invaded children’s television. A summer that was filled with long, sticky days, mango stains and unending hours of cricket and chor police. This was when I pestered my eldest cousin for something ‘interesting’ to read. She opened her grey glass bookcase and pulled out a book with a red spine, with a gentle-looking man reading stories to a bunch of kids on the cover. “Children’s Omnibus by Ruskin Bond?” I asked, cocking an eyebrow. “Read it. You’ll enjoy it,” she assured. And with this promise, I jumped into Ruskin Bond’s world without a second thought.
For someone unfamiliar with the hilly terrains that a majority of his stories are set in, Bond created a new world in my mind. When he wrote about the tall trees, the dusty roads, the smell of dahlias blooming, the cold winds that blew with a whoo whoo whoo, the chills that set in the winter and the cool, fresh water that ran in the streams, he laid the foundation of this picturesque, almost fascinating world in my imagination. The taste of the juicy berries, the sour limes and sweet mangoes, the sights, sounds and smells of the narrow-laned bazaars and the people that lived on the pages of his books added colour to this world of mine.
When it comes to Bond’s characters, they have inherently been simple. Be it Binya, who was awed by a frilly, blue umbrella; Bisnu, who manned up and left home to search for work; H.H., whose parties never ended; or Ranji and Grandfather, who adored cricket and animals respectively; the characters were full of life, wants, needs and hopes, just like you and me. The sense of realism in his writing is such that it even becomes perfectly acceptable for friendly ghosts to shower rose petals on the owners of the house they haunt.
Moreover, Bond’s stories are peppered with adjectives, leaving no doubt in your mind about the age of the character, the feel of the terrain or the season of the year. I can’t recount how many times I have shivered at his description of a cold winter breeze or found myself quenched with thirst at the end of a long, summer walk up the hills. Inherently simple stories tie the characters to one another using a wide set of themes — adventure, discovery, nostalgia, love, horror and sadness, to name a few. And what I love most is the sense of contentment that these stories leave me with.
It was more than 10 years after that summer long ago, that I actually did visit the hills Bond writes about. I was delighted when a friend suggested we visit Mussoorie and hoped against hope that he would be at his bookstore the day of my visit. A bundle of nerves, I remember staying a few feet away from his store and asking my friend to go ahead and check if he was there. And it was on this day, December 1, 2012, that I was lucky to be able to blabber to him about what a big fan I am. He smiled, thanked me, shook my hand and graced my copy of his latest book with his simple words. That evening as we walked along a quiet road in the hills above Mussoorie, I was finally able to experience the world that lived in the pages of his stories — the chilly winter breeze, pink and orange coloured clouds and tall fir trees.
Ruskin Bond turns 80 today. He has earned a variety of titles in his lifetime; be it son, brother, friend, lover, father or grandfather; be it storyteller, poet, editor, author or ‘the man with the golden pen’; be it Sahitya Akademi, Padma Shri or more recently Padma Bhushan awardee. But for me he will always be the gentle-looking man in the red sweater who told me in a soft voice that he was glad that his writing had touched my life.