Ruskin Bond was born in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh , on 19th May, 1934, and grew up in Shimla, Jamnagar, Dehradun

and Mussoorie. As a young man, he spent four years in the Channel Island and London. He now lives in Landour, Mussoorie, with his adopted family.

In the course of a writing career spanning thirty five years, he has written over a hundred short stories, essays, novels and more than thirty books for children. Three collections of short stories, The Night Train at Deoli, Time Stops at Shamli and Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra have been published by Penguin India. He has also edited two anthologies, The Penguin Book of Indian Ghost Stories and The Penguin Book of Indian Railway Stories. Bonds writing is greatly influenced by the hills, and the valley of Dehra Dun, where he spent his childhood. Ruskin Bond?s first novel, The Room on the Roof, written when he was seventeen, won the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize in 1957. Vagrants in the Valley was also written in his teens and picks up from where The Room leaves off. These two novellas were published in one volume in 1993. His non-fiction writing, Rain in the Mountains was also much acclaimed. Since then he has written several novellas (including Vagrants in the Valley, A Flight of Pigeons and Delhi Is Not Far), essays, poems and children?s books. Ruskin Bond has also written over 500 short stories and articles that have appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies. His novel, The Flight of Pigeons was adapted into a movie, Junoon.