In this delightful collection; Ruskin Bond introduces us to the Dehradun he knows intimately and loves unreservedly—the town that he had spent many years of his childhood and youth in. A town which; when he knew it; was one of pony-drawn tongas and rickshaws; a town fond of gossip but tolerant of human foibles; a town of lush lichi trees; charming winter gardens and cool streams; a small town; a sleepy town; a town called ‘Dehra’.

With classic stories and poems like ‘Masterji’; ‘Growing up with Trees’and ‘A Song for Lost Friends’ and previously unpublished treasures like ‘Silver Screen’; ‘Dilaram Bazaar’ and ‘Lily of the Valley’; this anthology is replete with journal entries; extracts from the author’s memoirs and; of course; poetry; non-fiction and stories set in or inspired by Dehra.

Evocative; wistful and witty as only Ruskin Bond can be; A Town Called Dehra is a celebration of a dearly-loved town as well as an elegy for a way of life gone extinct.

Ranji’s team finds an unexpected opponent a nosy crocodile when they play a cricket match against the village boys. Annoyed at the swarms of boys crowding the riverbank and the alarming cricket balls plopping around his place of rest, Nakoo the crocodile decides to take his revenge.

It was death at first sight . . .
Miss Ripley-Bean was sitting on a bench beneath the deodars, having a quiet moment to herself, when suddenly two shadows, larger than life, appeared on the outside wall; they were struggling with each other. Only afterwards, when a dead body was discovered, did Miss Ripley-Bean realize she had witnessed a murder – and that the murderer had seen her . . .
In this marvellous collection of brand-new stories set in the Mussoorie of a bygone era, Ruskin Bond recounts the deliciously sinister cases of a murdered priest, an adulterous couple, a man who is born evil, and the body in the box bed; not to forget the strange happenings involving the arsenic in the post, the strychnine in the cognac, a mysterious black dog, and the Daryaganj strangler.
As the elderly Miss Ripley-Bean, her Tibetan terrier Fluff, her good friend Mr Lobo, the hotel pianist, and Nandu, the owner of the Royal, mull over the curious murders, the reader will be enthralled and delighted – until the murderer is finally revealed.

Bisnu finds how dangerous and lonely life can be for a boy who has to leave his home to earn money for his family. As he sets to work on the limestone quarries with the choking dust enveloping the beautiful mountain air, he longs for home more than ever.

What do you do when there’s an earthquake?’ asks Rakesh. Everyone in the Burman household has their own ideas, but when the tremors begin and things start to quake and crumble, they are all taken by surprise. Amidst the destruction, Rakesh’s family stays strong. But will they survive the onslaught of yet another earthquake?

This collection brings together the best of Ruskin Bond’s cameos, all beautifully imagined and crafted, inspired by people who have left a lasting impression on him. In addition, there are a host of characters culled from Bond’s numerous short stories. Taken together, they constitute a magnificent evocation of the small-town India by one of the country’s best storytellers.

Mani’s Granny is seventy and can barely see through her old, scratched glasses. With only a hundred and fifty rupees in their pockets and a thirst for adventure, Mani and Granny set off to buy a new pair. On the way, they get drenched in the rain, run into mules and encounter a terrible landslide. Will Granny ever be able to reach the town and get herself a new pair of glasses?

‘Writing for me is the simplest and greatest pleasure in the world.’

How to be a Writer is peppered with nuggets of practical advice for every person who is aspiring to write and be published, all told in Ruskin Bond’s characteristic understated, tongue-in-cheek, humorous style.So, what is it that a person requires the most to become a writer? A love of books, of language, of life, an observant eye and a good memory along with enthusiasm, optimism and persistence.This book is an exclusive glimpse into the writing credo of Ruskin Bond, an author who has had an incredibly successful writing career spanning over seventy years.

It’s a letter with advice … it’s Ruskin Bond’s definition of Life!

Be whatever you want to be…

Give it your heart and soul, and you will have made something of your life, my friend. You are all my sons and daughters when it comes to telling you —

HOW TO LIVE YOUR LIFE.

— Ruskin Bond

A book packed with all the good advice anyone, any age, would love and benefit from because it is sound wisdom distilled from the wonderful life and times of the inimitable Ruskin Bond, unmistakably one of India’s most popular authors.

Each piece of valuable advice is worth its weight in gold!

An enchanting collection of stories from the heartland of India

Ruskin Bond’s simple characters, living amidst the lush forests of the Himalayan foothills, are remarkable for their quiet heroism, courage and grace, and age-old values of honesty and fidelity. Residents of nondescript villages and towns, they lead lives that are touched by natural beauty as well as suffering—the loss of a loved parent, unfulfilled dreams, natural calamities, ghostly visitations, a respected teacher turned crooked, strangers who make a nuisance of themselves—which only reinforces their abiding faith in God, family and neighbour. Told in Bond’s distinctive style, these stories are a magnificent evocation of an India that may be fast disappearing.

Fourteen engaging stories from one of India’s master story-tellers Semi-autobiographical in nature, these stories span the period from the author’s childhood to the present. We are introduced, in a series of beautifully imagined and crafted cameos, to the author’s family, friends, and various other people who left a lasting impression on him. In other stories we revisit Bond’s beloved Garhwal hills and the small towns and villages that he has returned to time and again in his fiction. Together with his well-known novella, A Flight of Pigeons (which was made into the film Junoon), which also appears in this collection, these stories once again bring Ruskin Bond’s India vividly to life.

Rain in the Mountains brings together some of Ruskin Bond’s most beautiful works from his years spent in the foothills of the Himalayas in the town of Mussoorie. Through vivid images and lucid writing, Bond evokes the everyday sights and sounds, and captures the essence of mountain life. The musings on his natural habitat, in both prose and poetry, offer a view of that simple and affable world. Some of his writings featured in the book are ‘Once Upon a Mountain Time’, ‘Sounds I Like to Hear’, ‘How Far Is the River’ and ‘After the Monsoon’.

Rain in the Mountains will transport the reader into the quiet world of the mountains, lit with an eternal charm.

This leaf, so complete in itself,
Is only part of a tree.
And this tree, so complete in itself,
Is only part of the mountain.
And the mountain runs down to the sea.
And the sea, so complete in itself,
Rests like a raindrop
On the hand of God.

Ruskin Bond’s Book of Verse brings together the poetry of one of India’s best-loved writers. This charming collector’s edition is a treasury of poems on love and nature, travel, humour and childhood and will be a lasting source of delight to readers.

In his early twenties now, Rusty finally leaves Dehra and books a passage to England, dreaming of writing and selling his novel abroad. First in Jersey, and then in in London, he works as a clerk by day and writes in the evenings. Eventually, the novel is finished and Rusty even finds a publisher. But this, he discovers, does not mean that his book will see the light of day soon. But London has many adventures in store for Rusty. Strolling down Baker Street, he runs into Sherlock Holmes, is accosted by Rudyard Kipling and has an escapade in the Chinese quarter! After three years abroad, however, Rusty realizes that he wants to make India his permanent home. Returning to Dehra, he renews some acquaintances and makes a few new ones, and settles into his role as full-time author. Full of interesting stories and memorable characters, Rusty Goes to London will delight all of Ruskin Bond’s fans.

The making of a writer Ruskin Bond’s first full-fledged autobiographical book covers his formative years,’ till the age of twenty-one. The world of Anglo-India, with all its conflicting pulls, comes alive as he tells his story. His earliest memoirs are bitter-sweet, and relate to Jamnager where he lives till he is six. The happy hours spent in exploring the Ram Vilas Palace grounds and playing with his younger sister Ellen and the palace children are overshadowed by the acrimonious relation between his parents. Their estrangement while he is still a child leaves him with a life-long sense of insecurity. His unhappiness is exacerbated by the untimely death of his father ” his emotional anchor when the author is just ten. Forced to stay with his mother and his stepfather, both of whom are absorbed in their own worlds, he tries to fend off his loneliness through books and the company of a few friends. Left for the most part to himself, the gentle dreamer realizes very early as ‘a pimply adolescent’ his calling as a writer. His first book, The Room on the Roof, materializes in England, the land of his forefathers, where he is sent to make a career for himself. Despite the unexpected success of his novel, which wins a major British literary prize, the author’s yearning for India is too powerful to let him remain abroad for long. He returns and begins a writing career which has spanned four decades, and earned him a place in the pantheon of great Indian writers.

The perils and pleasures that attends growing up. In ‘A Handful of Nuts’, the first of the novellas in this book, the reader is treated to vintage Bond—a gloriously funny and unexpectedly tender story of being young and adventurous in small town India. The central character would like to establish himself as a writer but he is constantly diverted from his task by assorted escapades, romances, friends and other distractions.
Containing some of Bond’s finest writing it is a classic coming of age story, told in a fresh and compelling way. ‘The Sensualist’, the second novella, is altogether more sombre but deals with a similar theme—the trials and tribulations of a young man are coming of age. Gripping, erotic, even brutal, it explores the demons that its protagonist must grapple with before he is able to come to terms with himself.

So here I am, delving into the past like Monsieur Poirot, not to solve a mystery, but to try to understand some of the events that have helped define the sort of person I have become. Some of it, naturally, is in the genes; but much of it is in the environment, in the circumstances in which we grow up, in the people who come into our lives, even in the air we breathe.

Had I grown up in London or Timbuktu, I would have been a different sort of person, I’m sure. My parents (and those before them) made me. But India made me too. The soil, the air, the wind, the rain, the trees, the grass, the proximity of people-all these things made me . . .

Different things at different times helped to make the individual that is me, just as different things at different times helped to make you, just as they went into making your brothers and sisters, who are very different from you.

‘Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself,’ said Walt Whitman.

Each chapter of this memoir is a remembrance of times past, an attempt to resurrect a person or a period or an episode, a reflection on the unpredictability of life. Some paths lead nowhere; others lead to a spring of pure water. Take any path and hope for the best. At least it will lead you out of the shadows.

This volume brings together the best of Ruskin Bond’s prose and poetry. For over four decades, by way of innumerable novels, essays, short stories and poems, the author has mapped out and peopled a unique literary landscape. This anthology has selections from all of his major books and includes the classic novella Delhi Is Not Far.

Rakesh plants a cherry seedling in his garden and watches it grow. As seasons go by, the small tree survives heavy monsoon showers, a hungry goat that eats most of the leaves and a grass cutter who splits it into two with one sweep. At last, on his ninth birthday, Rakesh is rewarded with a miraculous sight-the first pink blossoms of his precious cherry tree!

Ruskin Bond is eighty-nine years old: long past sixty, the age at which one becomes a senior citizen; also the age around which it is said one should think of retiring from active life. As the years go by, his contentment with living the life he has chosen–keeping to himself, with his family and his books, in Landour–has only grown stronger. He takes great joy in the world outside his window: the changing shades of nature, interesting people, good food, nice walks. Inside his room there are thoughts and memories, and the journal and letters he writes every day.

All of it makes for a wonderful life–and that is what this book is about. In his trademark warm, witty, whimsical style and his marvellously simple prose, Ruskin tells us how to enjoy the advancing years some of us are blessed with, and how to make the most of the amazing gift called life.

Autobiographical sketches and stories from India’s best-loved writer in English. For over four decades now, by way of innumerable short stories, essays, poems and novels, Ruskin Bond has championed simplicity and quietude in life and in art. This collection of essays and episodes from his journals is, in his own words, “a celebration of my survival as a freelance’. The author’s early forays into the literary magazines of the 1950s and ’60s are described in the first part of the book, along with some examples of his work at the time. The sections that follow contain extracts from an unpublished travel journal he kept during the ’60s, episodes from the highways on which he was a frequent traveller, and vignettes of life in Mussoorie, past and present. With understated humour and compassion, Ruskin Bond records the charming eccentricities of friends and acquaintances (a former princess cheerfully obsessed with death and disaster); the silent miracles of nature (“New moon in a purple sky’); life’s little joys (the smell of onions frying) and its fleeting regrets. Nostalgic and heart-warming, full of wisdom and charm, The Lamp is Lit provides a fascinating glimpse into the life of “our very own resident Wordsworth in prose.

For over five decades, Ruskin Bond has written charming tales that have mesmerized readers of all ages. This collection brings together his finest stories for children in one volume. Published previously as a Treasury of Stories for Children, this attractive rejacketed edition includes two new stories ‘The Big Race’ and ‘Remember This Day’. Filled with superb illustrations and a rich cast of characters, The Room of Many Colours, A Treasury of Stories for Children is the definitive book for all Ruskin Bond fans truly a collector’s item.

A CLASSIC COMING-OF-AGE STORY WHICH HAS HELD GENERATIONS OF READERS SPELLBOUND

Rusty, a sixteen-year-old Anglo-Indian boy, is orphaned, and has to live with his English guardian in the claustrophobic European part in Dehra Dun. Unhappy with the strict ways of his guardian, Rusty runs away from home to live with his Indian friends. Plunging for the first time into the dream-bright world of the bazaar, Hindu festivals and other aspects of Indian life, Rusty is enchanted . . . and is lost forever to the prim proprieties of the European community.
This special edition marks the 60th anniversary of this award-winning book, written when the author was just seventeen. Poignant, heart-warming and an absolute classic, this book is forever a joy to read.

An evergreen classic about friendship and growing up, by a master storyteller. This book catches up with our favourite Rusty as he plunges not just into the cold pools of Dehra but into an exciting new life, dipping his toes into adulthood. Winding his way back to the city with Kishen, Rusty discovers that his beloved room is no longer his! Undaunted, however and in his trademark style, he forges new homes and new friendships as he embarks on a journey of self-discovery that spans the beautiful hillsides of India.
By turns thrilling and nostalgic, this heart-warming sequel is Rusty is at his best as he navigates the tightrope between dreams and reality, all the time maintaining a glorious sense of hope. Striking, evocative, witty and wise-this is an ode to youth and all its complexities, amidst the colours, sights and smells of Bond’s India.

Ruskin Bond’s simple characters, living amidst the lush forests of the Himalayan foothills, are remarkable for their quiet heroism, courage and grace, and age-old values of honesty and fidelity. Residents of nondescript villages and towns, they lead lives that are touched by natural beauty as well as suffering—the loss of a loved parent, unfulfilled dreams, natural calamities, ghostly visitations, a respected teacher turned crooked, strangers who make a nuisance of themselves—which only reinforces their abiding faith in God, family and neighbour. Told in Bond’s distinctive style, these stories are a magnificent evocation of an India that may be fast disappearing.

Everything that you’ve always loved about Ruskin Bond is back
His mesmerizing descriptions of nature and his wonderful way with words—this is Ruskin Bond at his finest.Read on as Rusty tells the story of his grandfather’s relationship with the trees around him, who’s convinced that they love him back with as much tenderness as he loves them.

A tale of sweet revenge
Ruskin is keen to teach his scatterbrained uncle a lesson. After all, he put him on the wrong train! Armed with gifts from his new friend, the stationmaster-yummy rasgullas and a pair of beautiful white mice-Ruskin devises the perfect payback.
Peppered with endearing characters and brought to life by delightful artwork, this is one of Bond’s most unforgettable tales.

Who . . . whoo . . . whooo, cried the wind as it swept down from the Himalayan snows.’

The wild wind pushes open windows, chokes chimneys and blows away clothes as it huffs and puffs over the village by Haunted Hill, where Usha, Suresh and Binya live. It’s even more mighty the day Usha is on her way back from the bazaar. A deep rumble echoes down the slope and a sudden flash of lightning lights up the valley as fat drops come raining down.
In search of shelter, Usha rushes into the ruins on Haunted Hill, grim and creepy against the dark sky. Inside, the tin roof groans, strange shadows are thrown against the walls and little Usha shivers with fear. For she isn’t alone.
A gritty, hair-raising story about friendship, courage and survival, this stunning edition will introduce another lot of young readers to the magic of Ruskin Bond’s craft.