Question

ruskin bond stories with summary

Answer 1

The Room on the Roof is the first book from the legendary writer, Ruskin Bond. He was barely 17 when he penned down this book.

This a story of an orphaned boy, Rusty, from the Anglo-Indian descent, living in a European colony in Dehradun with his guardian Mr. Harrison, who wants him to stay away from Indians and groom him as a pure Englishman. However, in this process Harrison’s stringent behaviour perturbs Rusty’s flourishing teenage years. On the evening of Holi when Rusty returns home dirtily smeared in colours, the guardian begins beating him brutally, and then Rusty unable to control his pent-up frustration pays him back by assaulting his guardian violently.

A group of young local Indian boys helps him with small needs and he befriends all of them. While seeing many things about India such as customs, bazaars and diversity, he feels good about being in India. To sustain of his own, from the group, Somi arranges Rusty for a job in Mr. Kapoor’s house to teach English lessons to their son, Kishen. In return, he gets free food and a room on the roof to live in that. Mr. Kapoor is a big-time drunkard and around twenty years older than his beautiful wife, Meena. There Rusty falls in love with Kishen’s mother Mrs. Meena Kapoor. However, when Meena dies Rusty becomes sad and alone and Kishen goes to Hardwar only to become a thief.

The Room on the Roof highlights is a semi-biographical book based on Ruskin Bond’s life. Though another aspect of this book is that it shows how the unbridled urge to meet subtle teenage madness can lead to vagrancy and love to explore things on its own. It is a simple book with tragedies and sadness filled in the life of a very young boy. The writer’s style of citing things and changes in a day to day life makes this a compelling read. It also won John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 1957 in British.