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The Gold Collection
The ten stories in The Gold Collection are among the finest ever written by India’s most beloved writer, Ruskin Bond. Some of them, including masterpieces like ‘The Blue Umbrella’, ‘Angry River’, and ‘Panther’s Moon’, were written early in the writer’s career, while others, such as ‘Rhododendrons in the Mist’ and ‘Miracle at Happy Bazaar’, are more recent. All of them remain as golden as they were when they first emerged from the master’s imagination. A collection that will be treasured by all those who love Ruskin Bond’s fiction.
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Friends In Wild Place-Birds,Beasts And Other Compa
Since he was a young boy, Ruskin Bond has made friends easily. And his most rewarding friendships have often been with animals, birds and plants—big and small; outgoing and shy. This collection focuses on these companions and brings together some of Bond’s finest nature stories and essays, both classic and new. There are leopards and tigers; bulbuls and owls; bears in the mountains and elephants on a ship; wise old forest oaks and geraniums on balconies; a talking parrot and a tomcat called Suzie—and many more ‘wild’ and wonderful friends. Beautifully illustrated, this is a lovely gem of a book.
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When I Was A Boy Scenes And Stories From My Childh
In this beautiful, heartfelt and often humorous mini-autobiography, beloved storyteller Ruskin Bond relives the days of his childhood and teenage. He writes of carefree days in the port city of Jamnagar where little Ruskin would read books upside down, wander into old palaces, go for rides on lurching boats and in swooping, looping aeroplanes, and listen to tall tales told by a loving ayah and a colourful cook. He also describes his schooldays in Shimla—being dressed up as Humpty Dumpty for his very first stage performance, making friends and planning pranks. He remembers his days in Delhi, where he lived with his father for one magical year when they explored monuments, cinema halls and shops selling ice-creams and comics. And he recalls his time in Dehra when he developed his love of reading and writing, cycled far and wide and loafed in the bazaar with new-found friends. Funny and imaginative, nostalgic and tender, this truly timeless book— embellished with lovely colour illustrations—is a record of a very special childhood.
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The Girl On The Train
‘I thought of running away with Kamla. When I mentioned it to her, her eyes lit up. She thought it would be great fun. Women in love can be more reckless than men! But I had read too many stories about runaway marriages ending in disaster, and I lacked the courage to go through with such an adventure. I must have known instinctively that it would not work. Where would we go, and how would we live? There would be no home to crawl back to, for either of us.’ Seldom do we come across a person who leaves behind an impression on our very being. Call it being enamoured or moved, the memories we shared with them can catch us unawares even years down the line. It is not for the world to decipher what bond we shared and nurtured with them, or how real or surreal it was. This is our secret alone, meant to be kept close to the heart. In The Girl on the Train, we see tales of longing and lost bonds being traced again in Ruskin Bond’s simplistic narration. With these stories, you might once again walk down the memory lane of all those cherished moments gone by.
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The Yellow Umbrella
‘What should he be like, this lost man? A romantic, a man with a dream, a man with brown skin and blue eyes, living in a hut on a snowy mountaintop… a man who owed allegiance to no one… who was his own master, who lived at one with nature knowing no fear. But that was not Major Roberts—that was the man I wanted to be.’ It is believed that the foundation of every good relationship—platonic or otherwise—is friendship. The familiarity and ease that grow in friendships is what get many of us through a hard day. But it is not just the long-lasting associations that help us through life; it is also the acquaintances that we collect along the way. People are a sum of parts—of ephemeral yet significant encounters, and enduring and monumental intimacies. What makes a person whole is all the parts of themselves— good, wonderful, bad, ugly. In The Yellow Umbrella, with the story titled the same that has never appeared in print before, Ruskin Bond takes us down memory lane with nuggets from his past. The parts that made him who he is: unattainable love, intriguing friends, sturdy companions and books that help us through a rainy day.
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Listen to Your Heart: The London Adventure
'I followed my heart instead of my head. It is something I have done all my life.' Shortly before his eighteenth birthday, Ruskin embarks on a literary journey and reaches England after charting unknown waters. Greeted by the uncertainties of a new city, he muses over his loneliness, switches jobs, falls in love, befriends the ocean and relentlessly chases a big dream! What follows next is the metamorphosis of a journal entry into a novel as we time-travel to the fascinating events that led to the making of his iconic book, The Room on the Roof . Capturing memorable experiences from young Ruskin's life, Listen to Your Heart is an inspiration for aspiring young writers, a meditation on embracing fears, seizing every opportunity but most importantly living one's dreams.
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All about My Walkabouts
‘The adventure is not in getting somewhere, it’s the on-the-way experience. It is not the expected; it’s the surprise. Not the fulfilment of prophecy, but the providence of something better than that prophesied.’ The world has a lot to offer to the people who seek new experiences and are curious about the places, each distinctly unique, that makes up the world and the people that inhabit these places. Although one lifetime is not enough to visit and know every place in the world, we have books that introduce us to new cultures, foods and peoples. In All about My Walkabouts, Ruskin Bond offers us delightful stories from his travels around the world. From the stories from Indian hills, to the streets of London, to small towns in India like Mathura and Meerut, this book is for children and adults alike.
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Friends of My Youth
‘I needed a friend but it was not easy to find one among a horde of rowdy, pea-shooting fourth formers, who carved their names on desks and stuck chewing gum on the class teacher’s chair. Had I grown up with other children, I might have developed a taste for schoolboy anarchy; but, in sharing my father’s loneliness after his separation from my mother, I had turned into a premature adult.’ There is no telling where friendships might be made and how. Friends of My Youth is a collection of short stories by Ruskin Bond on how little and almost seemingly insignificant incidents of life can lead us to the person in whom we may find a companion, a comrade. These are the stories of how unknowingly, at times, friends are found and how they help eliminate our loneliness or become partners in crime in our personal missions. Narrated with utter simplicity, the tales make for a delightful remembrance of the friends made in the early years of life.
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The Blue Umbrella
?The Umbrella was like a flower, a great blue flower that had sprung up on the dry brown hillside.' In exchange for her lucky leopard's claw pendant, Binya acquires a beautiful blue umbrella that makes her the envy of everyone in her village, especially Ram Bharosa, the shop-keeper. Ruskin Bond's short and humorous novella, set in the picturesque hills of Garhwal, perfectly captures life in a village, where both heroism and redemption can be found.
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Writing for My Life
If only the world had no boundaries and we could move about without having to produce passports and documents everywhere, it really would be 'a great wide beautiful, wonderful world', says Ruskin Bond. From his most loved stories to poems, memoirs and essays, Writing for My Life opens a window to the myriad worlds of Ruskin Bond, India's most loved author. Capturing dreams of childhood, anecdotes of Rusty and his friends, the Ripley-Bean mysteries, accounts of his life with his father and his adventures in Jersey and London among others, this book is full of beauty and joy-two things Ruskin's writing is mostly known for. With a comprehensive introduction, this is the perfect gift to all the ardent readers and lovers of Ruskin's effervescent writing. A wide collection of carefully curated and beautifully designed stories, this book is a collector's edition.
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Boys Will Be Boys
But Miss Gamla did not like small boys. Or big boys, for that matter. She placed us high on her list of pests, along with monkeys (who raided her kitchen), sparrows (who shattered her sweetpeas) and goats (who ate her geraniums). We did none of these things, being strictly fun-loving creatures; but we did make a lot of noise, spoiling her afternoon siesta.’ We often look back at our time as children and think about them as the good old days—days full of mischief, wonder, curiosity and adventure. These are the days when we form lifelong bonds and make memories that become our balm on the hard days that life throws at us. These are the carefree days of galivanting, letting your imagination run wild and formulating grand plans. In Boys Will Be Boys, Ruskin Bond puts together a collection of stories and personal essays that capture the magical days of childhood. From adventures with wild animals and running amuck in ponds to finding ways of surviving algebra, a world of adventure awaits!
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Ways Of Dying Stories And Essays
Amitav Ghosh/ George Orwell/ Khushwant singh/ Ruskin Bond/ Mahashewta Devi/ Munshi Premchand/ Amitava Kumar/ Atul GawandeOne of the meanings of the word ‘olio’ is ‘a miscellany’. The books in the Aleph Olio series contain a mélange of the best writing to be had on a variety of themes, and present aspects of India and Indian life in ways that have seldom been seen before. Ways of Dying comprises stories and essays of deep insight into an inevitable part of life—death. The pieces in the book include Amitav Ghosh on the assassination of Indira Gandhi and its aftermath, Ruskin Bond on memories of his father’s funeral, Amitava Kumar on how it is necessary to find comfort and solace in the midst of profound grief, Mahasweta Devi on murder and revenge in rural India, and Atul Gawande on assisted suicide and what doctors fear the most when faced with the mortality of their patients. Elsewhere in the anthology, the reader will find one of Munshi Premchand’s greatest stories, ‘The Shroud’, a peerless meditation on the hypocrisies and feigned grief of dysfunctional families on the death of a family member, balanced by Khushwant Singh’s poignant essay on the death of his beloved grandmother. Rounding out the selection are George Orwell on the complex reasons that often lead to innocent blood being shed, David Davidar on the sadness and turmoil that whirls through a family upon the death of a patriarch, and Kolakaluri Enoch on the tragic death of a young girl.
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Rhododendrons In The Mist My Favourite Tales of th
n his new collection of stories, many of which have never been published before, bestselling writer Ruskin Bond collects together his finest tales of the Himalaya, the mountains he has called home for over fifty years. One half of the book is devoted to unsettling, sometimes terrifying stories of murder, mystery, and the supernatural. Kicking off with the sinister ‘Rhododendrons in the Mist’, a brand-new story, this section assembles chilling stories like ‘A Face in the Dark’, ‘Eyes of the Cat’, ‘Panther’s Moon’, and ‘The Skull’. The second section comprises tales that concern themselves with the everyday drama of life in the Himalaya. Starting with the autobiographical ‘Breakfast at Barog’, which has never before appeared in print, this section includes timeless stories like ‘The Blue Umbrella’, ‘The Cherry Tree’, and ‘A Long Walk for Bina’. The book concludes with an enthralling new story, ‘The Garden of Dreams’. Singular and unforgettable, Ruskin Bond’s new collection shows us once again why he is the country’s most addictive writer.
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Captain Young’s Ghost Ghostly Tales From The India
Vintage storyteller Ruskin Bond has created some unforgettable characters in his novels and stories, but perhaps the most memorable and unusual among them are the ghosts and spirits he has encountered. These ghosts are not always horrific; they are mysterious and often benevolent, or lonely creatures looking for company among humans. Collected in these pages are new stories written specifically for this volume—including Captain Young’s Ghost—and classics such as A Face in the Dark and The Haunted Bicycle. Here you will find the spirit of a captain from the British army who returns to the town he founded and rues the lack of Irish whisky; a little boy, long dead, who continues to guide passers-by on treacherous mountain routes; a heartbroken young girl of long ago who seduces young men with her song, and another who longs for a family and some friends. Set in the hills and foothills of North India—the perfect haunt for ghosts and spirits—this collection by the master storyteller will leave you spellbound.
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A Gallery of Rascals
Ruskin Bond is the most addictive and entertaining writer in modern Indian literature. The author of over a hundred novels and short-story collections, his fiction is especially celebrated for the unforgettable misfits, Dreamers, small-time con artists, rapscallions, thieves and drifters who populate it. For the first time ever, a gallery of rascals brings together the most memorable rogues to feature in Ruskin Bond’s fiction. A few brand new stories—‘a man called brain’, ‘Sher Singh and the hot-water bottle’, ‘crossing the road’— headline this collection and rub shoulders with much-loved tales like ‘the thief story’, ‘The boy who broke the Bank’, ‘tigers for dinner’ and ‘a case for Inspector Lal’. thrilling and effortlessly readable, the thirty stories in this book show exactly why Ruskin Bond’s fiction is irresistible.
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Night of the Millennium
Nowadays, we are often assured by the cool touch of technology when confronted with fear. Help is just a call away. But the creatures of the dark await in the shadows, laughing at our foolishness, for their powers transcend those of man’s modern gadgets. Could Pasand, a man of the millennium, ever think that his cell phone would be of no help as he is caught in the clutches of the family in the graveyard? Could Harley Warren, a researcher of forbidden subjects, ever imagine that the telephone he was using to keep in touch with his friend as he explored the dark depths of a sepulchre would be useless in the face of danger? These and other elements of the night find place in this book compiled by India’s favourite author, Ruskin Bond. Comprising stories by Rudyard Kipling, H.H. Munro, Bram Stoker and others, Night of the Millennium will chill you to the bone!
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An Underground Walk
Terror. The word conjures up images of ghosts, monsters, half-creatures and phantoms. But terror doesn’t always stem from the paranormal. It can turn up in unexpected ways in everyday life, clutching at our heart with icy fingers! Feel the blind panic of Hansard, a young student of Forestry, when he finds himself in the grip of a maneating tiger; the desperation of a Navy officer and his comrades in a slowly flooding chamber of a sinking submarine; or the terror of two children stuck at the bottom of a cave, several miles under the earth, and unable to find a way out. Written by masters of the genre and compiled by Ruskin Bond, here are gems from Sylvia Green, R.L. Stevenson, C.A. Kincaid and Aubrey Wade, among others. An Underground Walk is a collection of stories sure to keep you at the edge of your seat.