Professional Documents
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Dr. Samina Azhar (Asst. Professor Department of Humanities Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology, Bhopal)
Ruskin Bond the contemporary English writer and one of the most illustrious figures of Indian
English Literature writes in the light of his own experience of life, as his work reflects the
autobiographical element. The Night Train at Deoli and Other Stories is a collection of his stories
collected by David Davidar. The collected stories are kaleidoscopic images of exquisite places. They
are about overwhelming innocence, compassionate love and longing for something, someone, just out
of reach. The bond of human relationships presented in his stories emphasizes Bond’s understanding
of the human mind, character, attitude, and behaviour. The exceptional way in which he transforms
the mundane, dull things in our everyday life to something really striking and interesting captivates
not only the common reader but also the literary world.
Ruskin Bond’s The Night Train at Deoli and Other Stories: An
Dr. Samina Azhar (Asst. Professor Department of Humanities Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology, Bhopal)
Ruskin Bond, an Indian author of British descent is considered to be an icon among Indian
writers. His works have inspired several generations of writers, authors and script writers.
His versatile, original and elegant writing style has placed him among the most successful
Indian short story writers. His first novel The Room on the Roof brought him the John
Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize in 1957. Since then he has written over three hundred short
stories, essays and novellas and more than 30 books for children. He has also published two
volumes of autobiography. Scenes from a Writer's Life, and The Lamp is Lit. In 1992 he
received the Sahitya Akademi award for English writing in India and was awarded the Padma
He had a troubled childhood when he was eight years old his mother separated from his
father and married a Punjabi-Hindu. His father's sudden death compelled him to go to his
grandmother's house in Dehra. His parents' marital troubles and his father's pain and
loneliness had a lasting effect on Ruskin Bond, an effect that has brought profound sensitivity
in his writing.
Literary recognition comes to him in the form of both tremendous critical acclaim and a long
list of fans throughout the world. His simple and original style never perplex his readers as he
is conscious of his literary responsibilities when he says, “Of course, some people want
literature to be difficult and there are writers who like to make their readers toil and sweat.
They hope to be taken more seriously that way. I have always tried to achieve a prose that is
easy and conversational. And those who think this is simple should try it for themselves."
He has often been criticized for his ‘extreme simplicity’ which is for sure the essence of his
writing skills, like Hemingway, he believes in the tip of iceberg concept where the author
practises art of suppression in the garb of simplicity and clarity. .When most of his
counterparts are running after grandiose thus, making it difficult for their readers to digest a
paragraph, Bond’s lucid and clear style enthral his readers. Once he said “People often ask
me why my style is so simple. It is, in fact, deceptively simple, for no two sentences are alike.
The collection The Night Train at Deoli: and other Short Stories comprises thirty stories, it
contains motley themes of innocence, love, courage, beauty of nature, compassion and
supernaturalism. As mentioned in the preface of the collection Bond has written these stories
for “gentle kind of person” correspondingly his main characters are also gentle and humane.
The stories are about people and their social background with which every Indian can
associate, his stories takes the reader into the psyche of his characters. They revolve around
the narrator’s chanced meetings with a stranger leaving a lasting impression on him. The
bond between the narrator and the stranger is such strong that the slightest gesture of
compassion and gentleness of the stranger lingers into the memory of the narrator for a long
time.
His stories revolve around the routine life and relationships, of ordinary people, not only
with each other but also with nature- the connection, between two strangers (A Women at
Platform 8, The Coral Tree, The Eyes Have it,), between grandfather/ grandmother and
grandson or the stories of remembrance (The Photograph, The Kitemaker, When You Can’t
Climb Trees Any More), stories of romantic relationships (The Night Train at Deoli, Love is a
Sad Song, A Love of Long Ago, His Neighbours Wife),the bond between a thief and his
master, (The Thief), man’s affinity to nature (The Window, The Prospect of Flowers, The
Cherry Tree, My Father’s Tree in Dehra, The Leopard ), the mundane life of locals their
relationship with each other and their struggle for survival (The Boy who Broke the Bank, Bus
Stop, Pipalnagar, The Garlands on His Brow, Death of a Familiar, A Case of Inspector Lal,
The Story of Madhu, Panther’s Moon, Sita and the River), a humorous tale of a child’s hatred
(Chachi’s Funeral), a child’s affection for his prostitute aunt (A Guardian Angel), a child’s
abhorrence for his stepfather ( A Job Well Done) and the narrators quizzical meeting with
Rudyard Kipling, The collection also contains two stories of supernatural elements (The
His mesmerizing description of nature particularly of the Himalayas has made critics refer to
him as Indian 'William Wordsworth'. He spent most of his childhood amidst Himalayas
consequently his writings show a strong influence from the social life in the hill stations at
the foothills of the Himalayas. His distinctive writing style makes his readers understand the
landscape and ethos through carefully mastered words. He writes about people and places he
has known hence his characters, and their predicaments, are original. His characters meet
coincidentally, while travelling and when they part after sometime, their short meeting leaves
an indelible mark on their lives and changes them in some indefinable way. The bond that
they establish during that short period gives a new meaning to their lives through his
Bond’s stories display human feelings like affection, care, kindness, insecurities, sorrow, and
hatred. As his art is often referred to as autobiographical, his characters are real and we can
find them in our neighbourhood. He describes the poor middle class men and women who
have their own way of life. He writes about beggars, villagers and even thieves. He studies
their attitude, behaviour as well as association with other fellow being. He points out that
basically every human being whether a thief, sweeper or a beggar has a sense of honour,
experiences on platform 8. All the events are seen from his point of view. Arun a twelve year
boy all alone on his way to boarding school meets a stranger- a mysterious woman. The
lonely child finds in her a caring mother as she treats him like a son and offers him tea and
snacks. She helps him feel comfortable: “She questioned me quietly from time to time, but
preferred listening; she drew me out very well, and I had soon forgotten that we were
strangers. But she didn’t ask me about my family or where I lived, and I did not ask her
where she lived. I accepted her for what she had been to me – a quiet, kind and gentle woman
who gave sweets to a lonely boy on a railway platform”. (14) Arun forgets that he is talking
to a stranger as he talks about his school, his friends, his likes and dislikes.
When she comes to Arun’s rescue and introduces herself to Satish’s mother, “Yes I am
Arun’s mother” (15) her gentle and caring gesture bring relief to Arun. In contrast to her
dignity and tenderness is the vanity and arrogance of Satish’s mother who nags Arun when
she advises that he must be careful of strangers Arun reaction “I like strangers”(17) indicate
the special bond that Arun shares with the strange woman. Arun's calls her 'mother' at the
mother…” Satish’s mother was talking to her but she didn’t appear to be listening; she was
The narrator of The Eyes Have It (also known as The Girl on the Train & The Eyes Are Not
Here) is blind who on his way to Dehradun meets a girl. Once the train leaves the station, he
starts chatting with her and quite daringly tells her that she had an interesting face. She laughs
and replies that it was indeed a welcome deviation from the oft repeated phrase: "You have a
pretty face". The story ends on a shocking note for the narrator when the girl departs and
another passenger enters into the compartment and tells him, “She had beautiful eyes- but
his Aunt Mirium immoral profession, the broken piece of guardian angel that stood at her
gravestone pains the author in spite of her unholy profession he remembers her as “the very
Chachi’s Funeral is a humorous tale of a Child’s innocent hatred for his Chachi, it describes
love–hate relationship between a Sunil and his Chachi. The story presents the genuine and
pure feelings of a child, when he says, “Nothing Chachi .I love you so much. Please don’t us”
(30). A Job Well Done is a comprehensive hate story where a child with the help of his
gardener gets rid of his hateful stepfather. The Boy Who Broke the Bank is about the hustle
bustle of mundane life of small town people. It is a humorous account of how people in small
Bus Stop, Pipalnagar discovers the bond of friendship between two strangers, their affection
for each other as: “It is good to have friends” (76). In Death of a Familiar the narrator recalls
the memories of his friend Sunil who is killed .The Thief explores a relationship between
twenty year old young man and a fifteen year old thief who befriends the young man to rob
him. Though he runs away with his master’s money but his conscience pricks him, he comes
back and put the money at its place. The thief’s sense of guilt is expressed aptly in the
following sentences, “He was the most trusting person I had ever met. And that was why I
couldn’t make up my mind to rob him” (40). The story elucidates that even the criminals
understand the bond of trust in Bond’s world. A Case for Inspector Lal is about a benevolent
police inspector who doesn’t arrest a young girl though he knows that the girl has murdered a
woman wanted to sexually exploit the girl, “I couldn’t have the girl put away in a remand
home. It would have crushed her spirit” (121). The Story of Madhu contains sympathetic
author’s feelings for a poor girl and he decides to send her to school. She reciprocates the
yearn for their good old days, their association with past make them nostalgic. The despair
and disillusion of growing old and the bond with the past are represented in the stories, where
the characters lament losing out their past. In When You Can’t Climb Trees Any More the
nameless stranger meets a nameless girl, when he visits his father’s house which now
occupied by the girl’s family. “Twenty- five years ago. When I was a boy. And then again,
when I was a young man…until my grandmother died, and then we sold the house and went
away” (239). The girl becomes a source of recalling memories for him with her help he finds
his grandfather’s Iron Cross but without taking it with him he leaves and says “no it wasn’t
The Coral Tree is a story of a young man who is leaving his country and his grandfather’s
bungalow to move to a strange country to earn better livelihood. While waiting for his tonga
he sees a girl, “fresh and clean like the rain and the red earth”, (20) who has come to take
flowers from the coral tree, he gets flower for the girl, just the experience of climbing a tree
makes him nostalgically think about his grandfather's house and he suddenly longs for
childhood. The Photograph portrays eccentricities of the narrator’s old grandmother when
she refuses to reveal the identity of the girl in the photograph. Mehmood, in The Kitemaker,
laments the loss of appreciation for the art of kite making. He yearns for the old times when
he used to make beautiful and special kites. “Now everyone hurried, hurried in a heat of
hope, and delicate things like kites and daydreams were trampled underfoot”. (102)
The kaleidoscopic imagery and of his stories depicts man’s association with nature. The
pictorial description of flora and fauna of the Himalayas has always been Bond’s
extraordinary literary ability. He is successful in capturing the beauty and the ethos of the
Himalayas in a manner that was never tried before. His mesmerizing description of nature
gives the status of picture postcards to his stories. In The Prospect of Flowers there is Miss
Mackenzie and just a talk on flowers. In The Window Bond remembers a window simply
because of the view it had given. In My Father's Trees at Dehra, is a striking example of
Bond’s love for nature and environment as the narrator in the story plants saplings, The
Leopard is another tale of nature’s flora and fauna. Panther’s Moon presents a struggle
Innocent romance of Bond love stories transports his readers to their teen ages. In The Night
Train at Deoli it is just a brief encounter of the narrator with the basket-selling girl but her
smiling face gets etched in his memory forever. There are also stories of mystified and
perplexed love as in His Neighbours Wife. Love is a Sad Son and A Love Long Ago are two,
Ruskin Bond focus of attention is the issues of everyday life. He wrote about every stage of
life, his characters are innocent boys or girls having their own private fears and
apprehensions. A child's simple pleasures like flying a kite, playing cricket, creating harmless
adolescence, and the desire to discover life usher them into maturation, as depicted in his love
stories, for they experience joy and despair associated to love. Stories about their growing up
days depict their bond with their friends and strangers who leave an everlasting impression on
their lives. When they age the changing times threaten their identities compelling them to
call back their youth and innocent childhood in their memories. Bond’s affinity to nature and
human relations establishes him as an author who knows the inside out of his characters. He
applies a psychological approach in portraying his characters. They are those individuals
whom he had met in the hilly areas and got emotionally attached to them. His short stories
His simple and clear style of writing can be read and grasped by anybody. Though he stated
that there is more fiction than reality in his stories but it can’t be ignored that most of his
stories come from his experiences. One can’t overlook the presence of Bond in most of his
stories.
References
Ruskin Bond, The Night Train at Deoli and Other Stories, Penguin Books, 1998.
Amita Aggarwal, The Fictional World of Ruskin Bond, Sarup & Sons, 2005.