Bonding with the Bond

The Cambridge Book Store on the Mall Road usually attracts a serpentine queue on Saturday afternoons. It’s an opportunity to meet with the Bond. Not the Ian Fleming created but the Bond who is responsible for significant contribution to Literature In English.

I was in Mussourie directing The Sound Of Music with the students from Mussourie Public School, sometime last year. That’s when I got a chance to meet the author, signing for the many who flocked to the book store hoping to get a glimpse of the magician of words.

The Sahitya Akademi Award winner was particularly impressed to know that my friends Aaron, Anushka and I were working with the students from

Mussourie on a classic that has mesmerized cinema connoisseurs, for ages. His interest in children being well-read and exposed to Literature was obvious. Mr. Ruskin Bond lamented on the fact that children are so engrossed in their tabs and gadgets that he fears that in days to come, they might lose their interest in the physical book.

That was before the invasion of COVID.

We are blessed to have an author like Ruskin Bond with us, who continues to pen his thoughts. When we get the opportunity to travel, again, one good reason to have Mussourie in the bucket list, will be to bond with the Bond , on a Saturday afternoon.