Ruskin Bond
- Born:
- May 19, 1934, Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh, India (age 91)
What is Ruskin Bond known for?
Where did Ruskin Bond spend his early years?
What was Ruskin Bond’s first novel?
Which of Ruskin Bond’s works have been adapted into films?
What awards has Ruskin Bond received?
Ruskin Bond (born May 19, 1934, Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh, India) is an Indian author of British descent, known for his extensive body of work in English, which includes The Room on the Roof (1956) and A Flight of Pigeons (1978). Over a career spanning more than six decades, he has written about 500 short stories, articles, essays, and novels. His writing often centers on life in the hills, particularly in the Himalayas, and reflects themes of nature, childhood, love, loss, and everyday life. He has written extensively for children, crafting stories in lucid and simple prose.
Childhood
Bond was born to Aubrey Alexander Bond, who was British, and his wife, Edith Dorothy, who was likely of Anglo-Indian descent. He spent his early years primarily in Jamnagar (in present-day Gujarat), where he attended a school founded by his father, and Dehradun (in present-day Uttarakhand). After his parents separated when he was about eight years old, Ruskin Bond moved to Delhi to live with his father, who was serving in the Royal Air Force. The two spent their days exploring Delhi, collecting stamps, watching films, and enjoying various other activities. After a while, Ruskin Bond was sent to a boarding school in Shimla (in present-day Himachal Pradesh). In 1944 Aubrey Bond died in Calcutta (now Kolkata). Ruskin Bond captured his memories with his father in his book Looking for the Rainbow: My Years with Daddy (2017).
After his father’s death, Bond was raised by his mother and stepfather and other relatives. After graduating from Bishop Cotton School in Shimla, he traveled to the U.K., living in the Channel Islands and London for about four years. However, he longed to be back in India and returned in 1955, settling there.
Literary works
“Nothing is insignificant; nothing is without consequence in the intricate web of life.”
—Ruskin Bond in Funny Side Up (2006)
As acknowledged by the author in his autobiography Scenes from a Writer’s Life: A Memoir (1997), and even by literary editor Diana Athill in a 1964 letter to Bond, much of Bond’s inspiration has come from his own experiences. His first novel, The Room on the Roof (1956), written when he was 17 while in the U.K., won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 1957. It is the story of a lonely orphaned boy called Rusty who deals with the heartbreak of losing his parents, fears his guardian, finds love and friendship only to lose them, but eventually learns to face life independently. Its sequel, Vagrants in the Valley, first published in 1981 as The Young Vagrants, follows Rusty on his journey of self-discovery. Among Bond’s other books are the novels Angry River (1972) and Delhi Is Not Far (1994), short story collections The Night Train at Deoli and Other Stories (1988) and Time Stops at Shamli and Other Stories (1989), and fiction in the form of diary entries titled Mr. Oliver’s Diary (2010). He has also written and edited supernatural stories, such as the collections A Season of Ghosts (1999) and Ghost Stories from the Raj (2002).
Life at My Own Pace (1986), The Lamp Is Lit: Leaves from a Journal (1998), Funny Side Up (2006), and Lone Fox Dancing: My Autobiography (2017) are some examples from Bond’s body of nonfiction, which includes essays, journals, sketches, and autobiographies. Another Day in Landour: Looking Out from My Window (2025) draws from Bond’s daily journals, centering on his musings and observations as he watched the world from the window of his home in the hills of Landour near Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, where he has lived nearly all of his adult life. All these works are often marked by Bond’s characteristic humor and wit.
Adaptations and accolades
A number of Bond’s works have been adapted for television as well as films. The 1979 Bollywood (Hindi-language) film Junoon, directed by Shyam Benegal, is based on Bond’s historical novella A Flight of Pigeons. Indian director Vishal Bharadwaj adapted Bond’s novella The Blue Umbrella (1974) into a film of the same name in 2005. Bharadwaj later created 7 Khoon Maaf (2011; “Seven Murders Forgiven”), based on the short story “Susanna’s Seven Husbands” (2011), with Bond making a cameo in the movie. India’s public service broadcaster Doordarshan aired a few seasons of a television series named Ek Tha Rusty (“There Was Once Rusty”) in the mid-1990s and 2010s featuring stories drawn from Bond’s popular Rusty narratives. The 2019 television series Parchhayee (“Shadow”) brought several of Bond’s ghost stories to the screen.
The author received a number of awards from the Sahitya Akademi, India’s National Academy of Letters. These include the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1992 for his book Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra (1991) and the Bal Sahitya Puraskar in 2012 for his overall contribution to children’s literature. He was also conferred the Sahitya Akademi fellowship, India’s highest literary honor, in 2021. Bond has been honored with two of the Padma Awards, India’s highest civilian honors: the Padma Shri in 1999 and the Padma Bhushan in 2014.
