Ruskin Bond at Ninety

I stood face to face with Ruskin Bond. He had his characteristic genial smile on his face. My face must have revealed a helpless inhibition which held me back from going to him and the simultaneous desire to go to him and say a Hi at least. I would have loved to have a conversation with him, however brief.

That was in 2003. I had taken a student of mine from school for an award ceremony organised by ITC at the ITC Hotel in Mumbai. My student was one of the 15 prize-winners of a short story competition conducted by ITC and their newly launched brand of student-oriented products named Classmate. The awards were being presented by Ruskin Bond who would also release the story anthology.

My student who won the award was a fan of Ruskin Bond. But he did not seem the least interested in meeting his favourite writer personally and getting an autograph. He was with the other prize-winners who were all imprinting autographs on one another’s white T-shirts presented to them by ITC and which they were wearing then. They had been together nearly two days during which span of time they seemed to have become very intimate with each other. Ruskin Bond was watching the young students with visible amusement. I was watching him with some longing in my heart.

Bond was 69 years old then. I was 43. His face bore the tranquillity of a mature sexagenarian. Mine must have revealed the trepidations of an adolescent who failed to grow up. I averted my gaze when Bond took notice of me. He must have wondered why I was staring at him. Soon the organisers of the programme arrived on the scene and the dinner started.

Today, as a sexagenarian, I do feel a regret as I recall this incident. Why did I remember it now? I’m reading Bond’s book, The Golden Years: The Many Joys of Living a Good Long Life (HarperCollins India, 2023). A very simple book written when Bond was 89 years old. He is a nonagenarian now. And still writing. 

Right in the first chapter of the book, Bond wonders why writers should retire at all. Age gives people more maturity if not more wisdom. Moreover, “there is a certain joy in writing,” Bond says, “in putting words down on paper and creating a story or a poem or a novel or even a memoir; and if no one else enjoys what you have composed, never mind, you have done it for yourself and your own pleasure.”

I liked that. Because I have decided to go on writing as long as I can. It doesn’t matter how many read what I write. As of now, I have a good readership and I’m thrilled about that. Here’s a screenshot of the latest stats of this blog. [A pat on my own back] 

Screenshot at 9.30 pm on 2 July 2024

Bond goes on to say that the human brain is at its most fertile in our later years because years of experience nurtures such fertility. He cites examples of eminent writers who were highly active in their old age. “Well into her eighties Agatha Christie was inventing crimes for her detective Hercule Poirot… P G Wodehouse, when ninety, was still regaling us with the exploits of Bertie Wooster and his butler Jeeves…” Bond also mentions Bernard Shaw, Somerset Maugham, R K Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand and Khushwant Singh. Nayantara Sehgal is still writing at ninety-six, he concludes the list. Sehgal is now 97 and still writing, I guess.

We grew up in a troubled world, Bond says, and we are still living in a troubled world. It will always be so because humans are troublesome by nature. If you have survived your sixties, it means you know how to live with all those troubles. Why not tell the world how you managed all that? I think that’s a good argument.

I’m not very sure whether I have really learnt how to survive all those troubles. I am still a debilitated individual, 64 years old, highly inhibited, incapable of standing face to face with any adult, let alone Ruskin Bond. I stake no claim to any sort of wisdom. If I have survived beyond sixty, it’s a mystery, not because of any skill of mine for sure. But I may go on like this because I usually deal with youngsters who haven’t acquired the malice of the adults yet.