Ruskin Bond stories are like photographs. They give us an image in an instant, almost like a camera flash. With Bond, every story is also an experience. There are two ways in which these experiences have played out; firstly through Bond’s experiences as a child and secondly through his experiences as an adult. The experiences could be from some passing incident in life, though uniquely remembered; or it may be just a vision, a glimpse, an event or a passing relationship.
In The Woman on Platform No. 8 for example, it’s just a woman who suddenly loves him like a child, pampers him and thus remains engraved in the child’s memory. In the coral tree instead, as an adult, the mere experience of climbing a tree makes him think wistfully of his grandfather’s house and he suddenly longs for childhood.
There are two categories into which the Bond stories can be divided. First there are memories and memories. Bond thinks about the past, when he was a child and that he remembers as an adult. These memories and experiences or childhood memories of the past or experiences of the present are such that nothing really happens in them.
The second category is narratives, where something happens. In both cases, Bond is lucid, clear and instantaneous, so that the experiences are transmitted to us in their most original form. Once again, the experiences that he recounts are, on many occasions, universal; like the boys playing cricket in The photographHe remembers when he was a ten-year-old boy.
To return to memories or experiences first; certain features emerge clearly as the author thinks about them. It is the idiosyncrasies of the old that Bond represents when his grandmother looks at a photo of a little girl in The photograph again and stubbornly refuses to reveal the girl’s identity. Nothing happens in the story except for Grandma’s last comment which keeps us guessing that it could be herself. This story belongs to the first category. Many other stories fall into this category. There are some sixty-five weird Bond stories of which a few select stories can be commented on. In the categories of memories, there are especially stories such as Window, The man who was Kipling,A guardian angel, The perspective of flowers, A face in the dark, The cherry tree and so.
In Window Bond remembers a window simply because of the view it had given him; the mocking encounter with Kipling in The man who was Kipling or simply the sadness of life itself as in the guardian angel. In this story, Bond presents the gruesome truth that his Aunt Mirium was a caterer at night, the sadness of her life, and the broken piece of the guardian angel that was her tombstone. This tombstone is remembered and also remains in the memory of the reader. Certain characteristics emerge from such stories; very often there are encounters with little girls, when Bond was also a boy, or encounters with grandmother women or loving mother figures, who might be an aunt or a teacher. In the night train in Deoli it’s just a meeting with a girl and then as the train moves she passes by as a figure. In The perspective of the flowers there’s Miss Mackenzie and just a talk about flowers. a face in the dark It is also the story of a teacher. The girls are in Madhu Prayed Binya passes. In My father’s trees in Dehra, nothing really happens, except that trees are planted, and that they will grow is the enjoyment of it. Something similar is the theme the cherry tree As time goes it is again the memory of a swimming pool in which Bond and his companions played and enjoyed as children. from small beginnings has uniquely nostalgic and moving moments of planting a cherry tree and friendship with Prem Singh. The most striking example of a story that is the memory of experiences is perhaps in The girl from Copenhagen which has an intimate beginning ‘We didn’t make any promises – to write or to meet again. Somehow, our relationships seemed complete and whole…’
Before moving on to the narrative stories, we could review some of the longer short stories, there are especially three stories of this type: panther Moon, Time stands still in Shamli Y dust on the mountain with characteristics similar to those of the stories. In the first, the author’s friend Bisnu kills a panther and the excitement of the villagers is depicted; in the second there is again an experience with the trees and the nostalgia of childhood. dust on the mountain it is an image of the suffocating dust of mines and quarries. Nothing seems to happen in these stories either, except the written experiences. The first story, however, is a narrative that leads us to narratives.
In The thief for example, the author himself is a thief and his feat is narrated. death of a family member is the narration of the murder of his friend Sunil. There is the rather grotesque account of the monkeys in The monkeys who kill to avenge the death of one of their gang. A job well done is the narrator where Dukhi the gardener murders the Mayor and in The fight gives an account of Ranji’s fight with the villagers over the issue of not obeying orders regarding swimming in a pool. The tunnel again it’s just an experience. In go home something happens, Daya Ram finds the missing bag which she had lost or stolen on the train. Some of the Bond stories revolve around tigers, which were his real life experience since he grew up in Dehra Dun. cat eyes, Y tiger glowing fiery tigerThey are stories where the detail of the description of the tigers stands out.
Ruskin Bond was also known for his ghost stories. In the enchanted bicycle the girl ridiculously transforms into a grown man. The other ghost story is whispering in the dark while stories like said it with arsenic they are written in the vein of the detective story.
Whatever it is, after reading the Bond short stories, the reader-author relationship seems to be as quoted before “complete and complete”.