“Life at my own pace”- Ruskin Bond

Introduction

Ruskin Bond was born on 19 May 1934 Born to British parents. Ruskin’s father was with the
Royal Air force from 1939 to 1944. When Bond was eight years old, his mother separated from his
father. Bond spent his early childhood in Jamnagar (Gujrat) and Shimla and did his schooling from
Bishop Cotton School in Shimla. Following his high school education he went to his aunt's house in
Channel Islands in the U.K. in 1951 for better prospects and stayed there for two years. He worked for
a few years freelancing from Delhi and Dehradun. He sustained himself financially by writing short
stories and poems for newspapers and magazines. On his youth, he said, "Sometimes I got lucky and
some [work] got selected and I earned a few hundred rupees. Since I was in my 20s and didn't have any
responsibilities, I was just happy to be doing what I loved doing best." In 1963, he went to live in
Mussoorie because besides liking the place, it was close to the editors and publishers in Delhi. He edited
a magazine for four years. In the 1980s, the renowned publishing house Penguin setup in India and
approached him for writing a few books. Most of his works are influenced by life in the hill stations at
the foothills of the Himalayas where he spent his childhood. Bond's work reflects his Anglo-Indian
experiences and the changing political, social and cultural aspects of India, having been through colonial,
postcolonial and post—independence phases of India.
The author Ruskin Bond paints sensitive, colourful portraits of life in his native country to
capture the imagination of his young readers. One of India's most noted children's authors, he depicts
the many facets of India's natural and social landscape through his simple stories--from a temple near a
quiet, rural village or a bazaar in a small provincial town to a narrow city street brimming with buses,
bicycles, and the clamour of people. As Bond notes in his Rain in the Mountains: Notes from the
Himalayas, "I have been writing in order to sustain the sort of life I like to lead-—unhurried, even—
paced, sensual, in step with the natural world, most at home with humble people. ‘A natural storyteller,’
Bond found that his talent enabled him to make a living away from the more highly industrialized,
congested areas of India. Following the philosophy, he outlined in "What's Your Dream?" an
autobiographical essay from 1982's A Garland of Memories, Bond has found "a room of his own" at Ivy
Cottage, a house in the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains, and has pursued his single dream by
dedicating his life to being a storyteller.

Bond had his first success as a writer very early in his career. In fact, he was not even twenty
when he published The Room on the Roof, a novel that dealt with growing up in a changing India. When
Rusty, the tale’s orphaned protagonist, discovers that he is of mixed Indian-English heritage, he decides
to strike out on his own and work as a tutor in the town of Dehra Dun. His novel Room on the Roof
made its author something of a celebrity in India, not only because of his young age but because he was
able to capture the spirit of the land and its people so sensitively through his fiction. Throughout his
twenties Bond continued to write adult novels about his childhood, not turning to writing for children
until he had reached his thirties. Since then, he has written numerous stories and poems that capture his
nostalgia for the days of his boyhood: the natural beauty and calmness of his grandparent’s home and
the close, secure, loving relationships that he experienced with friends and family.
Bond illustrates his vision of childhood as a carefree age of mischief and joy where the only
worries are associated with cricket matches, beetle races, and parental anger at children because of their

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bad reports. Drama and suspense are often found in Bond's fiction for children. At the heart of Bond's
writings is the value placed on simplicity and a selfless attitude toward life experiences. Although the
stories deal with the pleasures of humble people, their lives are enriched by meaningful experiences and
a profound insight into life. Bond himself gains much of his inspiration from his surroundings and
develops many of his ideas for children's books on the long walks he takes on the mountains near his
home. "My interests (mountains, animals, trees, wild flowers) are embodied in these and other writings,"
Bond once explained. "I live in the foothills of the Himalayas and my window opens out on the forest
and the distant snow-peaks--the highest mountains in the world. . . . I sit here and, inspired by the life of
the hill people and the presence of birds and trees, write my stories and poems." Of his preoccupation
with the landscape that features so prominently in his work, Bond once explained, "Once you have lived
in the mountains, you belong to them and must come back again and again. There is no escape.

Critical Comments
In the prose Life at my own pace, Ruskin Bond paints the picture of his childhood and India at
that time with his memories and experiences. Ruskin Bond was born in Kasauli military hospital in 1934
and was baptized in the little Anglican church. When he was two or three months old, his parents left
for Jamnagar, a small State in coastal Kathiawar (now in state of Gujrat). He describes that the city of
Jamnagar was full of palaces and spacious lawns and gardens. His father taught him to read and write
long before he started going to school. One of the books he read was Little Henry and His Bearer.
His mother liked to go to parties and dances and was happy to leave him at the care of servants.
However, the marriage between his father and mother did not last and they were divorced. At that time
Bond was of age of eight or nine years. His mother married again to a Punjabi businessman, and he went
to join his father in his air force hutment in Delhi and then to Dehradun.
Ruskin Bond also narrates the under current hatred among Indian for ruling British people as he
certain bitter childhood memories. Most of domiciled Europeans and Anglo-Indians were not interested
in politics. He has listened derogatory remarks in his childhood but was not followed physically and he
ignored it. He remembers the incidence when two passing cyclists struck him over his head that stunned
him. It was their psychological satisfaction to successfully assaulted someone whom they identify and
associate with ruling race. At that time, he was very young to exercise tolerance like Gandhi, but he did
not report to his family members. With the passage of time, he has become a better person than an angry
bitter person as he finds both cruel and kind, decent or indecent people exist everywhere.
Ruskin Bond narrates the simple life of Indian people at that time. Tanga and pony- trap (horse
carts) were the modes of transportation at that time. Trains were not crowded in those days as they are
found crowded in these days because of overpopulation and increasing number of passengers. Bottled
drinks were rare at that time as occasional lemonade were the only aerated soft drinks. Orange juice or
lime juice were made in homes unlike present packed juices.
Ruskin Bond joined boarding Bishop Cotton School at Shimla. To him ten years in boarding
school was to convince that such places bring an unnatural separation between children and parents
which is not good for body and soul. School seemed to be dull place after his father had gone away as
he was attached with his father. There used to be programmes like compulsory games and daily chapel
attendance to inculcate leadership qualities among students. But to him his leadership qualities remained

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unchanged, and he discovered that the world at large judges people according to who he is rather than
what he has done.

He also remembers the indifference of the headmaster. His father fell ill due to malaria and
jaundice when he was at Calcutta. The news of the death of his father came when he was at school, he
burst into tears. He usually keep the letters of his father in his locker. The headmaster took the letters
with promise to give Ruskin back, but he later on forget and denied that he was given letters. This hurt
Ruskin Bond a lot especially when the headmaster asserted his authority to suppress others. At that time
Ruskin Bond realized that words can hurt too.

Critical Comments.
‘Life at My Own Pace’ is Ruskin Bond's non-Fiction writing first published in the collection
Delhi is not Far. Bond brings alive his characters by means of vignettes: short, intelligently brought out
pictures in words or sketch. Bond is a subjective writer. who writes about real people from his own life
— his parents. grandmother. teacher, friend. gardener and tenants like Miss Kellner. He writes about his
birth, his lonely childhood days, his parents' divorce, and how it impacted his father and him. He
recollects the happy times he spent with his father, who was also the only good friend he had; and how
he was left utterly lonely by the sudden demise of his father when he was only nine years old. There is
in his work, a touching description of the bond he shared with his father. the memory of which was to
remain with him in the years to come.
Bond lived alone with his grandmother in their Dehra home. Bond describes in great detail the
beauty of his grandmother's green countryside home in the hills of Dehra Dun with its garden of flowers,
blossoms and fruits. Bond also describes (using a plain, clear and simple style) the people in his life such
as his father, his mother Miss Kellner, his gardener Dukhi, and his school teacher and headmaster.
‘Life at own pace' is written in a deceptively simple language wherein Ruskin Bond describes
the princes and princesses in Jamnagar, where he goes to stay with his father who was their tutor. Bond
speaks affectionately about his loving father who taught him formally to read and write, and procured
wonderful children's books for him. His father would read to him. He also instilled in little Ruskin the
love for books, a habit he nurtured, especially when life became too lonely after his father’s death. Bond
missed his father's love, care and the letters that his father wrote to Bond when Bond was in the boarding
house. Unfortunately for him, the letters were lost when they were taken by the heartless school
headmaster, and he was left only with memories of his dead but loving father to sustain him. Bond could
never forgive the headmaster for disrespecting a child's faith and losing his treasured possessions- his
father's letters. If in the middle of the story he says. ‘Words don't hurt’, when two Indian boys called him
‘Red Monkey” and ‘White Pig’; by the end he realises the harsh reality that ‘Words do hurt,’ when he
was told by the headmaster that it was Bond who made a mistake and that he never received any letters
from Bond to be kept in the locket of the headmaster.
Bond engages in self-deprecating humour (Self-deprecating humour- when a person knows their
own weaknesses and shortcomings and they are not afraid to make fun of themselves and their
shortcomings, mistakes and failures) and irony (irony is the difference between what is and what is
expected or supposed to be) which is undoubtedly one of his strengths. He tells us of an incident ‘just a
year or two before independence’. He was eleven-year-old then. In his own words: ‘...two passing
cyclists young men swept past and struck me over the head. I was stunned hut not hurt. They rode away

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with cries of triumph - l suppose it was rare achievement to have successfully assaulted someone whom
they associated with the ruling race.’ Bond also gives his humour in short sentences. In support of
walking, he writes about an accident he had as a teen when he rode his bicycle into a bullock cart. But
when he walked, he never once walked into a bullock cart. Or how he was born in a Pasteur institute
which was usually used only to treat rabies.

The story describes the train journey undertaken by Bond and his father from Jamnagar, in
Kathiawar to Dehra Doon. Bond draws a parallel or connection between train journeys and human
relationships. Just as journeys remain incomplete, relationships in Bond's life and his stories are also
brief, short and divided into many parts. A train journey is an extended metaphor for the life experience
itself – a life composed of meetings and partings.

‘Life at My Own Pace’ is Bond's reflection on life; the simple thoughts that most people think
about, in their solitude. The book is an expression of Bond’s sense of alienation as an Anglo- Indian boy
in post-independence India. He disliked boarding school because its separated him from his father. After
his father’s tragic death. this sense of alienation became even stronger. (alienation- to not have a sense
of attachment or connection to society or the people around you)
The story is set amidst the Garhwal hills of northern Uttar Pradesh (now Uttarakhand)- the usual
setting of most of a vast number of Bond's stories. The story features most of Bond's regular settings
that he uses in most of his works- the railway stations, the village, Delhi with all its important historical
landmarks - thus engaging the reader on an emotional level, allowing them to establish a deeper
connection with the story. This also gives the story a sense of timelessness. It deals with the
heartbreaking results of his parents' divorce, loneliness. living in poverty, and the new friends who lent
him a helping hand. The story appeals to the readers to cherish the joys of small things and experiences
in life because happiness. no matter how temporary, lies in everything.
‘Life at My Own Pace’ is marked by clearness and emotional clarity. It celebrates the travels and
struggles of the common man in India (here, a child). The memoir is also a celebration of the quiet,
unhurried life, lived at one’s own pace.

Summary
Bond writes that he has always been a walking person all his life, never owning or driving any
vehicles. He was born in Kasauli military hospital in 1934 and was baptized in the little Anglican church.
His father worked as an English teacher to several young princesses in Jamnagar, a small State in coastal
Kathiawar. The author’s earliest memories are from Jamnagar, where he developed his love for walking.
Jamnagar was full of palaces, lawns and gardens and he would spend his time exploring and walking all
of this territory. It was on one of these walks that he encountered his first cobra. As a young boy of just
of 3 years he also has a fascination for the two princesses from the royal family who were his father’s
students.

He mentions a book he read called Little Henry and His Bearer, which was about how a small
English boy converts an Indian man. Bond humorously writes that his case was the opposite as his ayah
or caretaker taught him taught him to eat paan and other forbidden delights from the bazaar, while the
bearer or servant taught him to abuse in the Hindustani language. His parents were not very religious.
The only time he felt threatened by religion was when he fell down and sprained his ankle and his aunt

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said that that was a punishment for not going to church. His father was a good man, teaching him to read
and write long before he started going to school and shared many books with him.

His mother, who was twelve years younger than his father, enjoyed going out to parties and
dances. She left him in the care of the ayah and bearer, and he had no objection to this arrangement. The
servants pampered and took care of him and his father also pampered him bringing books, toys, comics,
chocolates, and stamps when he returned from visits to Bombay.
Bond enjoyed walking along the beaches, collecting seashells, and this made him develop the
habit of staring hard at the ground. This habit has stayed with the author all his life, helping him find
small odd objects along his walks such as coins, keys, marbles, pens, bangles feathers and so on.
However, the habit also landed him up in new and different places as he would sometimes look at the
ground and accidentally walk past his destination.
He was also sensitive to approaching footsteps and would look up from time to time to examine
the faces of passers-by. He listened to the sounds of birds singing in bushes or trees, and looked for
unfamiliar flowers or plants growing in unusual places. When he arrived at his grandmother’s house in
Dehra Dun in 1939, this is where he really developed his habit of walking as something he would always
take part in, something important to him. Dehra Dun was a small, quiet garden town, with tall green
trees and beautiful flowers along the garden walls.
His grandmother had a tenant, Miss Kellner, who had been crippled in a birth accident and had
been confined to a chair all her adult life. Miss Kellner was able to afford an ayah and four strong
palanquin bearers, who carried her about when she wanted to move the chair. He enjoyed playing cards
with her. He remembers his grandmother’s gardener who went by the name of Dukhi (sad) and Dukhi
never smiled or laughed. Bond recalls the incident when he was called insulting names (Red Monkey
and White Pig) because he was looked the British who ruled India and he was also once beaten by two
young Indian men simply because he looked like a white sahib.

Bond writes of the sad divorce of his parents and how he now spent more and more time with
his father. He enjoyed this time, but his father felt that he would do better in a boarding school.
Consequently, preparations were made for Bond to stay and study at a boarding school. Bond writes
how the two weeks he spent with his father before going to boarding school as one of the happiest times
of his life. They went on walks together, ate ice cream at a famous restaurant, went on rickshaw rides,
browsed through bookstores, watched movies and so son. Finally, the time came and Bond was sent to
a boarding school.

Bond did not like boarding school, he felt that it was unnatural to separate a child from their
parent. He kept in contact with his father through letters. And they made plans to go to England. But his
father fell sick, with malaria and jaundice. One day, Bond received the sad news that his father had
passed away. The headmaster asked for the letters that his father had wrote to him saying that he would
keep them safely. But at the end of school when Bond went to ask for the letters, the headmaster did not
remember taking them and had the letters were all lost. The headmaster blamed Bond and said that Bond
had made a mistake and that he had never received any letters from Bond. Bond writes that these words
hurt him more (being blamed for losing the letters) that being called insulting names.

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Glossary
Walking person: the person who is moving from place to place

Steam—roller: heavy slow-moving vehicle with roller, used to flatten newly made roads.
Solid: concrete, firm, hard, sound, reliable,

Bullock—cart: cart driven by castrated bull.

Stirred: caused to move,

Furious: very angry, raging

Endurance: determination, fortitude, patience.

Rabies: a disease caused / transmitted by biting of mad dog.

Coastal: border area of land near sea.

Envious: feeling or showing envy.

Fanatical: a person obsessively devoted to a belief.
Ladybirds: small beetle, usually red with black spots

Outskirts: outside area of city

Exotic: introduced from abroad, strange, and unusual.

Wizened: shrivelled looking

Phlox: plant with clusters of white or coloured flowers

Geraniums: cultivated pelargonium, herb or shrub with fruit shaped like crane’s bill.
Catapults: forked stick with elastic for shooting stones, historical military machine for hurling stones,
device for launching glider.

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