Adolescence, Bond variety

GAUTAMAN BHASKARAN

The name of Ruskin Bond has become synonymous with children's books in English in India and had remained in splendid isolation until recently when writing for children as a vocation has gained some importance. This sensitive storyteller from the hills has been able to set a standard for quality books for children which can be read with pleasure by the adult as well.

In the course of a writing career spanning 35 years, Ruskin Bond has written about 100 short stories and more than 30 books for children. His first book "The Room on the Roof" written when he was only 17 won him the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. This and "Vagrants in the Valley" are essentially autobiographical in tone and relate a series of incidents in the hero, Rusty's life, as he takes tentative steps into manhood. The setting is India throwing off its colonial shackles and the dilemma faced by the Anglo Indian community in Independent India is highlighted in the narrative scheme. Bond, being a writer sure of his characteristic idiom, could express himself perfectly in that curious hybrid Indian English. He effortlessly catches the spirit of the two cultures and shows the reader that the end product of such a fusion between east and west could be a thing of beauty and sensitivity.

In "The Room on the Roof," Rusty a 16-year-old Anglo-Indian boy, finds the diminishing Anglo Indian society in India rather stifling. His guardian, Mr. Harrison, a tyrant who rules Rusty with an iron hand, is insufferable. The vanishing community of Anglo Indians facing a predicament in the land of their birth realise that their "money could buy them their comforts; servants, good food, whisky almost anything - except the dignity they cherished most." Rusty's loneliness as he was perhaps the only young person among the decaying elders, his longing for freedom from his guardian and the forbidden pleasures of the Indian bazaar, his friendship with Indian boys like Somi, Ranbir and Kishen are all touched upon with sensitive strokes. Finally the day comes when Rusty realises that he is a man and no longer a mere boy; and with that he feels a surge of power and he hits back at his guardian when Mr. Harrison tries to punish him for indulging in Holi revelries. Like all adolescents, he rebels and finds support from his peer group who, for all their differences are united by a strong bond of friendship. His adolescent crush on Mrs. Meena Kapoor and his sense of desolation when he hears about her death are touched upon with tenderness and subtlety. Rusty finds relief and escape from his confined world through dreams of "sudden and perfect companionship, romance and heroics."

"The Room on The Roof" was written in 1951 by Rusin Bond when he was trying to recall the people and places he had loved in India while he is in "exile" in England. Suffering the trauma of displacement, Bond found very little in common with the British and longed to return to the India he had known and loved. Through this first novel we are told Bond found the answer finally for the question about his identity. Am I Indian or British?" With the completion of this book, Bond returned to India to make his home in the Himalayas and began his career as a writer. This book can be considered as a pioneering adolescent novel. We have Indian critics lamenting on suitable books for young adult readers even today; but when this book was published in 1956 by Andre Deutsch, the jacket of the book described it as "an adult novel written by a teenager." The teenager stepping into the adult world needs to be gradually eased into adulthood and this is what Bond tries to convey in the novel.

It has been said that a great part of adolescence consists of "magnified awareness of the singularity of one's own situation". We get to sample this in "Vagrants in the Valley" which is really a sequel to "The Room on the Roof". Here Rusty and his friend Kishen, the two adolescent runaways, wander in the valley which eventually becomes a home for them. What is touching is the concern the youth feel for each other while sharing their adventures. Ticketless travel of the young vagrants, a face to face encounter with a wild tiger, consistent optimism about their future and finally their practical wisdom are all the ingredients which go to make up this unusual book. Reality dawns on them after all as Rusty admits candidly "You can't be a vagrant for ever. You are getting nowhere, so you've got to stop somewhere." Rusty's final decision to sail for England is based on youthful optimism about what the future holds. At the same time, Rusty remembers with nostalgia his friends and the various little acts of kindness he experiences from adults in his wanderings. Meeting his father's friend Mr. Pettigrew, he longs to learn all the little details about his father. An unforeseen piece of good fortune in the shape of a windfall changes Rusty's lifestyle and novel ends with the traditional ray of hope. Among his Father's collection of books, Mr. Pettigrew identifies an early edition of "Alice" which is valuable. Rusty is off to England in search of more adventures and there we leave him - a boy on the threshold of manhood coming to terms with his peculiar set of circumstances.

Both these novellas are spiced with the scent and sounds of a forgotten era in the history of India. As Ruskin Bond takes us down memory lane we linger here and there to savour the scenes of the past with the author, all the while experiencing deep lasting pleasure as we try to understand the bitter sweet pangs of the adolescent years.

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