You are travelling from dehra dun to delhi by train and happened to find yourself sitting next to famous author ruskin bond . write a diary entry on what you felt on meeting an author you admired and what you did.
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Explanation:
Here I Stay, Until I Have Written My Last Word”: Ruskin Bond
Monday, 10 December 2018 | JASKIRAN CHOPRA | Mussoorie
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Fifty five years ago, as a young man of 29 years, Ruskin Bond came and settled down in this hill station. Today, five and a half decades later , this celebrated author is the soul of this hill town who has been his muse as well as the subject of his vast body of writing. He is “Bond of the Mountains” whose love for these hills is now legendary as is his beautiful writing. He has been giving a lot of happiness to generations of readers down the years and immortalised Mussoorie and the Doon valley through his work. As he looks back at all these years, ever since he thought of becoming a writer as a teenager, a host of memories flood his mind and we can read about them in his memoir The Beauty of All My Days which was launched recently.
Talking to The Pioneer, in an exclusive interview, about this memoir and all his wonderful years in Doon and Mussoorie, Ruskin Bond said , “Destiny brought me to this hilltop and here I have spent my best days and done my best work. And here I stay, until I have written my last word.”
People have this impression about you having led a lonely and isolated life. How far are they right?
They are far from being right in thinking like this. It was a perception some people had .However, through my writings , I have explained the difference between solitude and loneliness.I have sought solitude but I never sought loneliness. One can be lonely in a crowd and not be lonely in a cottage in the hills. My solitude has enhanced creativity. But I have seldom felt lonely. My writing books, my walks, my books, friends visiting me, my love for watching films and my family of children , grandchildren and great grand children have all ensured that I do not be lonely.
When you look back at life, do you have any regrets?
I have had a happy and fulfilling life and have given enjoyment to readers, young and old. I’m a person with only a few regrets. I have had the freedom to write whatever I wanted to. I never worked under any constraints.What more could one ask for ?
What would you like to say about your memoir The Beauty of All My Days?
Each chapter of this memoir is a remembrance of times past, an attempt to resurrect a person or a period or an episode. There is no chronology to this memoir. As and when they come to my heart and I record them. The older one grows, the more memories one has to narrate. This treasure keeps growing. The memoir has episodes and incidents from all phases of my life. I have written a lot regarding my memories.
In this book, you have written about Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Any memories of him you would like to share?
As I mentioned in this memoir, I lived through the Nehru years as a boy and as a struggling young witer. People are surprised when I say that I saw (and heard) Nehru in his prime. In 1959, I attended a talk he gave to a small audience in the Publications Division auditorium just off Janpath. Like any professional writer, he spoke about his royalties, about literary influences, about the pleasures of writing. Nehru understood the literary mind. In his jail diaries, he writes about the pleasures of reading poets such as Wordsworth and Walter de la Mare.
What brought you to Mussoorie to settle down?
I was looking for my own space as a writer ever since I was a teenager. What brought me here was my quest for an enchanted cottage. I was looking for a world long gone. And I was looking for myself .When I came here in the summer of 1963, there were just half a dozen private vehicles in the town and two or three taxis. Most visitors came up the hill by bus. And now, Landour is a much sought after destination of tourists and sometimes I have to get away from here and lose myself in a large city!
You have always written about your constant quest to have a room of your own.
Yes. Ever since I was a boy, I was possessive about my own space where I could write, dream and just be with myself. It certainly helped me to have always had a room of my own...a private corner, with a desk for one’s papers, a bed or settee on which to dream, and a window to enable one to look upon the world from time to time.