Another Day in Landour: Looking Out from My Window
By Ruskin Bond
HarperCollins, 220 pages, Rs 399

Landour is a quaint little town in the foothills of the Himalayas. Named by the British after Llanddowror, a village in southwest Wales, it is contiguous with Mussoorie, called ‘the Queen of Hills’. Both are about an hour’s drive from Dehradun, the capital of Uttarakhand. Given its proximity to Delhi and other cities of north India, the troika attracts a large number of tourists, who go there to spend a weekend in the hills. When they take a taxi from Mussoorie to Landour, the driver often flags a staircase next to the road, leading to the door of Ruskin Bond, arguably India’s most beloved author. Now in his 90s, he used to come down every Saturday and meet readers at Cambridge Bookshop on the famed Mall Road. It will not be wrong to say that Bond has been among the tourist attractions of Mussoorie.

Born in 1934, in Kasauli, the Anglo-Indian author has become something like a national treasure. His first novel, ‘The Room on the Roof’, was written when he was 17 (published when he was 22). It was loosely based on the experiences of him and his friends in his small rented room on the roof in Dehradun. Over the decades, he diversified his themes, and wrote for a variety of readers. ‘A Flight of Pigeons’, for example, is a complex story against the backdrop of the 1857 rebellion (filmed by Shyam Benegal as ‘Junoon’). ‘Susanna's Seven Husbands’, a long short story, has wit, fun and several murders too (turned into a film by Vishal Bhardwaj, now a next-door neighbour in Landour).

Bond won the coveted Sahitya Akademi award for ‘Our Tree Still Grows in Dehra’ in 1992. The author’s status as a highly popular cultural icon, however, is a recent phenomenon. It is only in the last couple of decades that his books became must-reads for schoolchildren. Some of these children then go on to read his other works, and some go on to share on social media their love for his works. There have been multiple short videos of “vloggers” showing us the way to Bond’s home.

No wonder, then, that every year brings new releases bearing his name, even if some are new anthologies of previously published pieces. They respond to the readers’ demand for the next Bond book.  
 
But, of course, this trend would have died down long ago if the readers were not getting something out of these new books. What do they get? Firstly, Bond has a wonderful way of keeping things simple, which is not a simple task. Then there is his way of looking at the world afresh with wonder and awe. Thirdly, he is attentive to the small things that make up the most of our lives.

All these three qualities are on display in his latest offering, ‘Another Day in Landour: Looking Out from My Window’. In a short video he introduces this book: “It tells you something about my life here, things I do, my neighbours, my friends …” (you can watch the clip here: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qDtWzaP1y5A)

The book reproduces the author’s journal, written over the past two years, in which he describes his days in his unique way: from the joy of seeing a new flower bloom to the pain of a toothache that just can’t be ignored. Outside, the seasons change. In his room, for Ruskin, every morning brings new thoughts, new observations.

It begins thus:

“Journals …

I have kept them over the years, but never on a regular basis. Sometimes too much was happening, sometimes too little.

My first book, ‘The Room on the Roof’, was based on the journal I’d kept as a sixteen-year-old in 1951. Over the next two years it became a story, transformed into fiction. Eventually it was published as a novel.

There’s no fiction in this journal. Seventy years after celebrating my room on the roof in Dehradun, I am now celebrating the window of my small bedroom-cum-study in Landour, Mussoorie.

I have slept beside this window since 1980, and I hope to spend a few more days and nights beside it before going into the great unknown.

It’s a warm day today, but there’s a cool breeze coming in at the window. It’s a Sunday and cars are honking on their way to Char Dukaan (which now has six shops). They won’t see the snowcapped peaks today. Too much dust from the plains, too much smoke from forest fires.

But it will clear up once it rains, and then, even with my weak eyesight, I will be able to take in the purple of the mountains, the deep blue of the sky, the bright green of new leaves on the deodars, and all the colours of life.”

‘Another Day in Landour’ is a delight for anyone who enjoys Bond’s warm, gentle, witty prose, and his wonderful way of looking at nature, at people, at life itself.