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For the wind is as fresh as it was in our youth,
And the peach and the pear still the sweetest of fruit.
So cast away care and come roaming with me,
And know what it is to be perfectly free.
As we saunter along with Ruskin Bond, one of the most prolific writers of our times, we get a glimpse of his inspiration on the open road, the plains, the hills and the mountains. An endearing view that leaves us mesmerized about the extraordinary sublime beauty of an otherwise pedestrian life. "The world keeps changing, but there is always something, somewhere, that remains the same." Somewhat similar to the magnificent tomb of love, the Taj Mahal. "…it does not change. Therein lies the beauty", a revelation uttered by the gardener's little boy to the author in Agra.
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Coloured with characters like the nature-loving bank manager, the taxi driver who flaunts his “ear-shattering horn”, the impulsive school friend who ran away with him and the hopeful shopkeeper in the remote hills of Garhwal, the narrative wanders effortlessly from one tale to another over the years.
Even more interesting is the charismatic character of the towns, the rivers and the valleys. "Romance lurks in the most unlikely places", as the author discovers through his trails in the small "uninviting" towns of Chhutmalpur and Najibabad. The Rose Rum factory dating back to pre-Mutiny times near the 'dramatic' but unchanging town of Shahjahanpur, nature rejoicing in Meerut monsoon, the ageless charm of the streets of Delhi "even in summer" and the kite-flying ritual that bestows Agra with a festive spirit everyday - the places with all its mundane flavours enamour and enchant the tireless rambler.
Walking down Rishikesh and Hardwar, Ruskin Bond now beholds the revitalizing power of the holy Ganga,"nourished by the eternal snows, it is the one river that can never run dry". The meeting of two great rivers, Mandakini with Alakananda at Rudraprayag etched "as a special moment in time" has a sacred charm for the “vagabond” writer. "I fell in love with the Mandakini at first sight. Or was it the valley that I fell in love with? I am not sure, and it doesn't really matter. The valley is the river."
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Away with the author, the roving reader suddenly finds himself trekking the "haunted" Fairy Hill to the east of Mussoorie as the master storyteller expresses his penchant "for perpetuating the fairy legends of Pari Tibba".
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Throughout the journey, Ruskin Bond recounts stories from history about kings, queens, princes, lovers, hunters, commoners - who have made the places what they are today. So we encounter Prince Bhagirath, the conservationist Jim Corbett, the adventurer Frederick ‘Pahari’ Wilson who introduced ‘Wilson apples’ in the river valley and many interesting people as we move along. The short rhymes from old records interspersed with the narrative make delightful reading during the unplanned travels on the open road.
Somewhere in between we have a fantasy journey” on the Grand Trunk Road, a leisurely ride on the tonga “that is nearing extinction” and an expedition to the frosty origins of the Ganga at over 10,000 feet above sea level in the end. We stumble upon robust, good-hearted Punjabis, the gentle dwellers on the hills and friendly strangers with the “frazzled old writer” who loves their company.
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With the intrinsic quality of Ruskin Bond's best fiction, Tales of the Open Road releases us from our humdrum worlds as we venture with the writer “into the spaces where Time stands still”.
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Ruskin Bond was born in Kasauli in 1934, and grew up in Jamnagar, Dehradun, New Delhi and Simla. As a young man, he spent four years in the Channel Islands and London. He returned to India in 1955, and has never left the country since. His first novel, The Room on the Roof, received the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, awarded to a Commonwealth writer under thirty, for ‘a work of outstanding literary merit’. He has, since, published over thirty-five books, including the novellas A Flight of Pigeons and Delhi Is Not Far, and several collections of short stories. He received a Sahitya Akademi Award in 1993, and the Padma Shri in 1999.
He lives in Landour, Mussoorie, with his extended family.
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Reviewed by Satarupa Ray
Designed by Subhadip Mukherjee
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