Heeding The Cry, 'Au thor, Author'

THE mist has obscured the steep lanes of Landour, but finding our destination is not diffi­cult.

- Syed Saad Ahmed

Every bystander knows Ivy Cottage. As we climb the fabled 22 red steps to this literary pil­grimage spot of sorts, a lone guinea pig heralds our arrival with gleeful wheeks. We are ushered into a room where the walls seem to be made of books.

It feels inappropriate to have roused one of India’s most pop­ular authors from a nap, but Ruskin Bond is exceedingly gra­cious. “By nature, I am lazy,” he confesses. That is an astonishing admission for a man who has written over 130 books in seven decades and ferve­ntly hiked the Himalayas. At 85, his strolls have ceased, but his pen is as facile. “Earlier, I used to walk a lot and that would inspire ideas. But even now, I don’t have problems finding things to write about. The older you get, the more experiences you have. Besides, I remember many things I had forgotten.” He has crystallised some of these recol­ lections in his newest memoir— Coming Round the Mountain, that recounts his school days in Shimla against the backdrop of Partition.

Bond has been chronicling his life for decades—his diary transmuted into his first novel, The Room on the Roof, published when he was 17. He maintains two notebooks—one for observations and another by his bedside to record dreams. He sha­ res one he had last night: “I went to bed with an earache and dreamt that I visited a doctor for some issue with my eyes. He put me on a stretcher and immediately started operating, after which he asked me if I was feeling better. I re­ plied, ‘But doctor, the problem is in my ear, not eyes’.”