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Book review
‘One of the best storytellers of contemporary India’ —Tribune
Momentous things happen elsewhere, in the big cities of Nehru’s India. In dull and dusty Pipalnagar, each day is like another, and ‘there is not exactly despair, but resignation’. Even the dreams here are small: if he ever makes it to Delhi, Deep Chand, the barber, will open a more up-to-date salon where he might, perhaps, give the Prime Minister a haircut; Pitamber will trade his cycle-rickshaw for the less demanding scooter-rickshaw; Aziz will be happy with a junk-shop in Chandni Chowk. None, of course, will make that journey to Delhi.
Adrift among them, the narrator, Arun, a struggling writer of detective novels in Urdu, waits for inspiration to write a blockbuster. One day he will pack his meagre belongings and take the express train out of Pipalnagar. Meanwhile, he seeks reassurance in love, and finds it in unusual places: with the young prostitute Kamla, wise beyond her years; and the orphan Suraj, homeless and an epileptic, yet surprisingly optimistic about the future.
Few authors write with greater sensitivity and skill about little India than Ruskin Bond. Delhi Is Not Far is a memorable story about small lives, with all the hallmarks of classic Ruskin Bond prose: nostalgia, charm, underplayed humour and quiet wisdom.
• Published: November 2005
• Imprint: Penguin
• ISBN: 0144000954
• Edition: Paperback
• Format: A
• Extent: 120pp
• Classification: Fiction
About the author For over forty-five years Ruskin Bond has been writing stories, novellas, essays, poems and children’s books. He has written over 500 short stories and articles, many of which have been published by Penguin India. Ruskin Bond grew up in Jamnagar, Dehradun, New Delhi and Simla. As a young man, he spent four years in the Channel Islands and London. He returned to India in 1955, and has never left the country since. His first novel The Room on the Roof received the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, awarded to a Commonwealth writer under thirty, for ‘a work of outstanding literary merit’. He received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1993, and the Padma Shri in 1999. He lives in Landour, Mussoorie, with his extended family.
‘One of the best storytellers of contemporary India’ —Tribune
Momentous things happen elsewhere, in the big cities of Nehru’s India. In dull and dusty Pipalnagar, each day is like another, and ‘there is not exactly despair, but resignation’. Even the dreams here are small: if he ever makes it to Delhi, Deep Chand, the barber, will open a more up-to-date salon where he might, perhaps, give the Prime Minister a haircut; Pitamber will trade his cycle-rickshaw for the less demanding scooter-rickshaw; Aziz will be happy with a junk-shop in Chandni Chowk. None, of course, will make that journey to Delhi.
Adrift among them, the narrator, Arun, a struggling writer of detective novels in Urdu, waits for inspiration to write a blockbuster. One day he will pack his meagre belongings and take the express train out of Pipalnagar. Meanwhile, he seeks reassurance in love, and finds it in unusual places: with the young prostitute Kamla, wise beyond her years; and the orphan Suraj, homeless and an epileptic, yet surprisingly optimistic about the future.
Few authors write with greater sensitivity and skill about little India than Ruskin Bond. Delhi Is Not Far is a memorable story about small lives, with all the hallmarks of classic Ruskin Bond prose: nostalgia, charm, underplayed humour and quiet wisdom.
• Published: November 2005
• Imprint: Penguin
• ISBN: 0144000954
• Edition: Paperback
• Format: A
• Extent: 120pp
• Classification: Fiction
About the author For over forty-five years Ruskin Bond has been writing stories, novellas, essays, poems and children’s books. He has written over 500 short stories and articles, many of which have been published by Penguin India. Ruskin Bond grew up in Jamnagar, Dehradun, New Delhi and Simla. As a young man, he spent four years in the Channel Islands and London. He returned to India in 1955, and has never left the country since. His first novel The Room on the Roof received the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, awarded to a Commonwealth writer under thirty, for ‘a work of outstanding literary merit’. He received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1993, and the Padma Shri in 1999. He lives in Landour, Mussoorie, with his extended family.
Non-Fiction
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