Ruskin Bond, born in 1934 in Kasauli, India, is a celebrated author known for his deep connection to the Himalayas and a prolific writing career spanning over 35 years with over a hundred works, including novels, short stories, and children's books. His notable works include 'The Room on the Roof' and 'Rain in the Mountains', and his writing often reflects his experiences and surroundings in the Dehradun valley. Despite a brief education in England, Bond considers India as his true home, expressing a tranquil yet introspective nature away from media attention.

2. Better perceived as the Indian 'William
Wordsworth', Ruskin Bond was born in
Kasauli in the then Punjab Province in the
year 1934. Born to a first generation British
migrant, Bond spent most of his childhood
in amidst Himalayas. He was brought up
at different places that included Jamnagar,
Dehradun and Shimla. As customary in
that period he went to England for his
primary studies. Although Bond was
studying in England, his mind rested in
India.

3. He had forged an intimate relationship
with the Himalayas and longed for it. He is
very quite by nature and stays away from
the attention of the media in a small hill
station in India and when asked once how
he feel about living in India he said that it
was stressful in practical sense as
compared to England but at the end of the
day India is home to him. To know more
about Bond, continue reading this
insightful biography on him.

4. Bond was born to Edith Clerke and Aubrey
Bond. Edith Clerke was working with the Royal
Air Force that time. At the age of 4, Bond’s
mother Aubrey Bond remarried a Punjabi-
Hindu called Hari and bond wen to live with
his new father, spending his childhood in
Jamnagar and Shimla. From the age often, for a
few years, Bond went to live with his
grandmother in Dehradun, after the sudden
death of his father due to malaria. He did most
of his schooling from the Bishop Cotton School,
Shimla. During this time, he won many
accolades in writing like the Irwin Divinity
Prize and the Hailey Literature Prize.

5. In the course of a writing career spanning
thirty five years, he has written over a hundred
short stories, essays, novels and more than
thirty books for children. Three collections of
short stories, The Night Train at Deoli, Time
Stops at Shamli and Our Trees Still Grow in
Dehra have been published by Penguin India.
He has also edited two anthologies, The
Penguin Book of Indian Ghost Stories and The
Penguin Book of Indian Railway Stories. Bonds
writing is greatly influenced by the hills, and
the valley of Dehra Dun, where he spent his
childhood.

6. RuskinBond'sfirst novel, The Room on the Roof, written
when he was seventeen, won the John Llewellyn Rhys
Memorial Prize in 1957. Vagrants in the Valley was also
written in his teens and picks up from where The Room
leaves off. These two novellas were published in one
volume in 1993. His non-fiction writing, Rain in the
Mountains was also much acclaimed. Since then he has
written several novellas (including Vagrants in the Valley,
A Flight of Pigeons and Delhi Is Not Far), essays, poems
and children's books.
RuskinBond has also written over 500 short stories and
articles that have appeared in a number of magazines
and anthologies. His novel, The Flight of Pigeons was
adapted into a movie, Junoon.