On Ruskin Bond Books

On Ruskin Bond Books

Much injustice is done to Ruskin Bond books. They are available in so many dilutions - same old stories or essays - in so many books, new covers, more "edited" versions, more publishers...I am just afraid to buy a Ruskin Bond book - old wine in new bottles is a bad idea when there are so many versions already in stock at home.

Why did the publishers not think of creating clear, unique, non-ambiguous titles for his great works, so that people can buy and collect and talk of it? If I am reading Eliot Weinberger, I can clearly say "in "Karmic traces" I found this, in "Elemental Thing" the article on China was one-sided" etc. Not so on Ruskin's essays and stories.

As an example, look at what OUP (Oxford University Press) did for Jim Corbett omnibus - two big volumes, all major books in it by title, well hard bound, superbly illustrated...If your son tumbles one sleepless eve to your bookshelf and reads the classics like this, years after, as a Bibliophile, he may recount with nostalgia and joy to his friends how that night the Maneater of Rudraprayag followed the hunter all the way back home in a rainy night, and how he felt reading that in the seclusion of his home.

I remember the story of Blossom the cow - my intro to James Herriot - because there are clear 5 books - no mix ups, and cross referential and joy to refer someone to a nook and corner of bliss.

How I wish to touch the hardback of Ruskin's books - with illustrations of Buransh trees and an old man walking an axiomatic path, a nonlinear choice option by a timid but fearless man whose joys started and ended with Dehradun and his father's love for him. I can see him in London tube, people reading their papers in Tube and him imagining a bear running off with pumpkin drying atop a house in a remote Himalayan village, or sheeps by Harsil (with mighty Bhagirathi flowing in the background) looking at him mockingly about his choice of poverty. Such a great writer deserves the respect and love at all times!

Hey, but you can ignore me - I am romantic - For years, I did not read Sherlock holmes because I wanted to get a dark tan walnut leathered hard back (a lone pipe etched on leather front) with a bookmark shaped as 221B embedded in its crumbling edifice of pages....and the need to feel the "pinch" of buying this expensive book - 3 moths salary or more - and the joy of never parting with it.