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Lone Fox Dancing: My Autobiography
Ruskin Bond
New Delhi: Speaking Tiger, 2017
Ruskin Bond, the reclusive writer living in Dhera Dun, is among India's best loved writers in English. In today's identity conscious age when projection of fractured and imagined historical injustice, is the stuff of post colonial literature, it is refreshing to find a writer whose transparent prose stands testimony to a life well lived and with with absolutely no bitterness real or imagined against the people he has encountered in his life. This itself is a marked change from the vain self congratulatory autobiographies that flood the market. Indian bureaucrats who lived through the terrible UPA years have become autobiographers par excellence in order perhaps to exculpate the sins of omission and commission. Ruskin Bond stands out as one who has reflected on his life, learned fromit and gets ready for the inevitable, he has found peace within him. All this is amply clear from the Lone Fox Dancing
Ruskin Bond was born to English parents in India. His father was an Officer in the Royal Air force stationed in India and Ruskin was deeply attached to him even as he witnessed his parent's marriage fall apart. After the is father when he was barely 10 years old felt a wound that never quite healed as he felt that his father was alive, ever ready to spring to his defence when needed. Later in life on a visit to the then Calcutta Ruskin made it a point to search out the grave. The tumultuous days of Partition were spent in Bishop Cotton School, Shimla.
Ruskin's description of life in Bishop Cotton reminded me for some strange reason of Billy Bunter the anti hero of our youthful days. Caning for minor infractions, rigid rules that defied comprehension and an obsession with physical exercises were the outstanding features of life in General Dyer's school.Perhaps the excellent Library at Bishop Cotton spurred Ruskin on to be a writer. The memory of his holiday with his Mother at Father at Jamnagar as the guest of the Ruler is described in all poignancy as this was the only time the family was together. The vast difference in age between his parents and differences in temprement, his fater being serious and reflective and his mother very sociable and vivacious, tore the marrige apart and his mother went on to marry an Indian whose name we are not told. He is referred as "H" thoughout the book. Interestingly enough, Ruskin went on to be a tenant in the house of his step-father's first wife and got along well with his step sister and half brothers. Ruskin Bond's family part Indian part English would have made a post colonial writer weave a complex web of conceit trachery and racial hatered a la Toni Morrison or Arundatti Roy. But Ruskin is extremly correct in the way he has portrayed his family. About his Step Father he writes thst he treated him well and after his Mother's death looked after Ellen, the invalid sister of Ruskin and the daughter of his mother.
Ruskin Bond went to England a few years after Independence and lived in Jersey and London. He was well employed but somehow India drew him back and Bond settled in Dhera Dub where he found his calling as a wriyter. He loved the hills and all his stories are set in the Dhera Dun Hills. The moutains are full of dark tales and they have found an able chronicler in Ruskin Bond. He has writteen for all the Indiabn English magazines that we used to read as children and young adults: Illustrated Weekly of India, The Caravan, Shanker's Magazine. The money received from these magazines supported him and his extended family. Bond decided early in life to be a writer and made a success of that decision through grit and determination. It was not an easy life and Ruskin Bond, a celbrated writer today has seen days of penury.
Today he lives in a house built at the edge of a valley precariously perched over a ravine. It offers a spectacular view and Ruskin live with rakesh and his Family. I found it interesting that Ruskin Loves animals and the title of the book is from a poem he wrote when he saw a fox in a clearing in the woods near the hills:
I'm like the lone fox dancing
In the morning dew.
I enjoyed the book and I do reccomend this book to all aspiring writers. I too wanted to make my living through writing. But the uncertainity of life drove me to choose a more conventional profession. Yes I admire such determined writers.
Lone Fox Dancing: My Autobiography
Ruskin Bond
New Delhi: Speaking Tiger, 2017
Ruskin Bond, the reclusive writer living in Dhera Dun, is among India's best loved writers in English. In today's identity conscious age when projection of fractured and imagined historical injustice, is the stuff of post colonial literature, it is refreshing to find a writer whose transparent prose stands testimony to a life well lived and with with absolutely no bitterness real or imagined against the people he has encountered in his life. This itself is a marked change from the vain self congratulatory autobiographies that flood the market. Indian bureaucrats who lived through the terrible UPA years have become autobiographers par excellence in order perhaps to exculpate the sins of omission and commission. Ruskin Bond stands out as one who has reflected on his life, learned fromit and gets ready for the inevitable, he has found peace within him. All this is amply clear from the Lone Fox Dancing
Ruskin Bond was born to English parents in India. His father was an Officer in the Royal Air force stationed in India and Ruskin was deeply attached to him even as he witnessed his parent's marriage fall apart. After the is father when he was barely 10 years old felt a wound that never quite healed as he felt that his father was alive, ever ready to spring to his defence when needed. Later in life on a visit to the then Calcutta Ruskin made it a point to search out the grave. The tumultuous days of Partition were spent in Bishop Cotton School, Shimla.
Ruskin's description of life in Bishop Cotton reminded me for some strange reason of Billy Bunter the anti hero of our youthful days. Caning for minor infractions, rigid rules that defied comprehension and an obsession with physical exercises were the outstanding features of life in General Dyer's school.Perhaps the excellent Library at Bishop Cotton spurred Ruskin on to be a writer. The memory of his holiday with his Mother at Father at Jamnagar as the guest of the Ruler is described in all poignancy as this was the only time the family was together. The vast difference in age between his parents and differences in temprement, his fater being serious and reflective and his mother very sociable and vivacious, tore the marrige apart and his mother went on to marry an Indian whose name we are not told. He is referred as "H" thoughout the book. Interestingly enough, Ruskin went on to be a tenant in the house of his step-father's first wife and got along well with his step sister and half brothers. Ruskin Bond's family part Indian part English would have made a post colonial writer weave a complex web of conceit trachery and racial hatered a la Toni Morrison or Arundatti Roy. But Ruskin is extremly correct in the way he has portrayed his family. About his Step Father he writes thst he treated him well and after his Mother's death looked after Ellen, the invalid sister of Ruskin and the daughter of his mother.
Ruskin Bond went to England a few years after Independence and lived in Jersey and London. He was well employed but somehow India drew him back and Bond settled in Dhera Dub where he found his calling as a wriyter. He loved the hills and all his stories are set in the Dhera Dun Hills. The moutains are full of dark tales and they have found an able chronicler in Ruskin Bond. He has writteen for all the Indiabn English magazines that we used to read as children and young adults: Illustrated Weekly of India, The Caravan, Shanker's Magazine. The money received from these magazines supported him and his extended family. Bond decided early in life to be a writer and made a success of that decision through grit and determination. It was not an easy life and Ruskin Bond, a celbrated writer today has seen days of penury.
Today he lives in a house built at the edge of a valley precariously perched over a ravine. It offers a spectacular view and Ruskin live with rakesh and his Family. I found it interesting that Ruskin Loves animals and the title of the book is from a poem he wrote when he saw a fox in a clearing in the woods near the hills:
I'm like the lone fox dancing
In the morning dew.
I enjoyed the book and I do reccomend this book to all aspiring writers. I too wanted to make my living through writing. But the uncertainity of life drove me to choose a more conventional profession. Yes I admire such determined writers.
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