The summer vacation of 2017 was a pilgrimage for me. It was a pilgrimage to Ivy Cottage, the home of Ruskin Bond in Landour, Mussoorie. I am a big fan of Ruskin Bond. Reading is my favourite hobby. My parents always tell me that the more a person reads, the broader the mind gets.
I read books by Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl, Kate DiCamillo, Katherine Applegate, Sudha Murty, Geronimo Stilton, Mitra Phukan, Lakshminath Bezboroa, and many more. I like all of them but Rusty – the boy from the hills, is my favourite writer. His books make me imagine big. I first read The Eyes of the Eagle when I was very young. I read The Blue Umbrella and thought of Leela, the Garhwali village girl. I also wish I had a funny, eccentric uncle like Rusty who had Crazy Times with Uncle Ken.
When we reached Mussoorie, it was raining heavily. The Cambridge book shop owner, Mr. Arora informed us that Ruskin Bond was not going to meet visitors that Saturday as he was not well. I was very, very sad. Mr. Arora saw me weeping and called up Bond. I cannot tell you how happy I was when he invited me over to his cottage.
Once we were there, we were greeted by Ruskin Bond himself. He was in his pyjamas, wearing a red sweater and a colourful housecoat. I could not believe my eyes. My hero was in front of me. I touched his feet.
We sat down in his living room, which was full of books. Even the staircase to his terrace was filled with books. He asked me if I could ever tidy up his books. I said “Yes,” and he smiled at me. He asked me the meaning of my nickname, Leima, and also asked me if I liked school. I replied that I did because I get to meet my friends there. He never liked going to school, he confessed. I knew that already, for he had written about it in Rusty Runs Away.
He then took me to his little writing room with yellow walls. From his ‘famous’ window he showed me the witches’ valleys of Uttarakhand, and when I told him that I did not see any witch that day, he laughed hard. This window has been written about in many of his stories. The yellow room also has a small table with his typewriter, and shelves filled with writing papers, his famous square spectacles and a bed. He is such a simple man. I thought he would be different because he is a great author, but not at all. He is just like my parents – cool and lovable.
He was growing a creeper in a pot beside his bed. He joked and said that the creeper would now grow all over his face. I hoped not, as I was dying to read Rusty and the Magic Mountain. He was writing this book when I had visited him.
He said that the birds sitting at his window, the hills, coral trees, squirrels, lilies and the rains inspire him to write his stories. In his story When the Trees Walked, he wrote about how his grandparents had taught him the importance of trees and flowers. I requested him to come to Assam and write stories about our hills and paddy fields. He told us that as a child he had visited Shillong, but now he is afraid that he may get ‘lost’ like the time he was ‘lost’ in England. We laughed again. I told him that Mussoorie is cooler than Shillong. After spending almost an hour there, we bade goodbye to Rusty.
The time I spent with Ruskin Bond is like a Garland of Memories, and I will treasure this experience for life.
