A brand new edition of Ruskin Bond's first novel for children Laurie is an English boy who moves to a hill town with his parents when his father is posted to India on work for two years. Laurie makes two new friends: Anil; the son of a local cloth merchant; and Kamal; who lost his parents during Partition and now sells buttons and shoelaces but dreams of going to college. Anil and Kamal introduce Laurie to an enchanted world of beetle races; ghosts; chaat and Holi; and he shares with them the secret pool he finds on the mountainside. At the pool the boys fish; build dams; take midnight dips; wrestle; and ride buffaloes. It is there that they plan their grand adventure: a trek to the Pindari Glacier; were no one from their town has gone before. On the slopes of the beautiful mountain they meet pumpkin-eating bears; and keep a close lookout for the Abominable Snow-woman who feeds children fruit; honey; rice and earthworms. This lost classic is a magical tale of adventure and...

'I think everyone has at least one eccentric aunt or uncle in the family. I had more than one. My boyhood days were enlivened by their presence.'India's best-loved children's writer Ruskin Bond introduces us to some of the most endearing and adorable characters he has ever written about—his grandfather, with his unusual ability to disguise himself as just about anyone; the eccentric Uncle Ken, with his knack for trouble; the stationmaster Mr. Ghosh and his amazing family; and the unforgettable Aunt Ruby and her hilarious encounter with a parrot!Heart-warming, funny and delightful, The Parrot Who Wouldn't Talk and Other Stories features some old favourites as well as refreshingly new stories. Marked by Bond's inimitable style and trademark humour, and embellished with lively illustrations, this book will be a firm favourite with children.

The stories in this collection capture the essence of the Indian Railways - from the small-town station, at the time of the Raj, to the present day big-city station bursting at the seams. The teening and varied life of the Indian Railway station and its environs have fascinated writers from Jules Verne in the 1870s to more recently Satyajit Ray, R.K. Laxman and more modern writers. In this anthology, one of India's best-known writers makes a selection of greattest railway stories the subcontinent has produced. Julese Verne Rudyard Kipling Flora Annie Steel Hon. J.W. Best Jim Corbett Khushwant Singh Ruskin Bond Manoj Das Intizar Husain Satyajit Ray Bill Aitkin R.K. Laxman Victor Banerjee Manojit Mitra.

Ruskin Bond was born in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh, in 1934, andgrew up in Jamnagar (Gujarat), Dehradun and Shimla. In the course ofa writing career spanning thirty-five years, he has written over ahundred short stories, essays, novels and more than thirty books forchildren. Three collections of the 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 Storeis.The Room on the Roof was his first novel, written when he was seventeen, and it received the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize in1957. Vagrants in the Valley was also written in his teens and picks up from where The Room on the Roof leaves off.These two novellas were published in one volume by Penguin India in1993 and in early 1995 a collection of stories, essays, poems and anovella were brought out in a volume titled...

Rakesh plants a cherry seedling in his garden and watches it grow. As seasons go by, the small tree survives heavy monsoon showers, a hungry goat that eats most of the leaves and a grass cutter who splits it into two with one sweep.At last, on his ninth birthday, Rakesh is rewarded with a miraculous sight—the first pink blossoms of his precious cherry tree! This beautifully illustrated edition brings alive the magical charm of one of Ruskin Bond's most unforgettable tales.

This is a collection of short stories from the Indian writer, which takes the reader on a journey through Indian culture. Bond is also the author of "Angry River", "The Room on the Roof" and "Night Train at Deoli and Other Stories".

Mani's Granny is seventy and can barely see through her old, scratched glasses. With only a hundred and fifty rupees in their pocket and a thirst for adventure, Mani and Granny set off to buy a new pair. On the way, they get drenched in rain, run into mules and encounter a terrible landslide. Will Granny ever be able to reach the town and get herself a new pair of glasses? This beautifully illustrated edition brings alive the magical charm of one of Ruskin Bond's most unforgettable tales.

Autobiographical sketches and stories from India's best-loved writer in English. For over four decades now, by way of innumerable short stories, essays, poems and novels, Ruskin Bond has championed simplicity and quietude in life and in art. This collection of essays and episodes from his journals is, in his own words, "a celebration of my survival as a freelance'. The author's early forays into the literary magazines of the 1950s and '60s are described in the first part of the book, along with some examples of his work at the time. The sections that follow contain extracts from an unpublished travel journal he kept during the '60s, episodes from the highways on which he was a frequent traveller, and vignettes of life in Mussoorie, past and present. With understated humour and compassion, Ruskin Bond records the charming eccentricities of friends and acquaintances (a former princess cheerfully obsessed with death and disaster); the silent miracles of nature ("New moon in a...

A compilation of love stories and poems from the classical literature and folklore of India Set in regions of great natural beauty where Kamadeva, the god of love, picks his victims with consummate ease, these stories and lyrics celebrate the myriad aspects of love. In addition to relatively well-known works like Kalidasa's Meghadutam and Prince Ilango Adigal's Shilappadikaram, the collection features lesser-known writers of ancient India like Damodaragupta (eighth century AD), whose 'Loves of Haralata and Dundarasena' is about a high-born man's doomed affair with a courtesan; Janna (twelfth century), whose Tale of the Glory-Bearer is extracted here for the story of a queen who betrays her handsome husband for a mahout, reputed to be the ugliest man in the kingdom; and the Sanskrit poets Amaru and Mayaru (seventh century), whose lyrics display an astonishing perspective on the tenderness, the fierce passion and the playful savagery of physical love. Also featured are charming...

'I have come to believe that the best kind of walk, or journey, is the one in which you have no particular destination when you set out.' Ruskin Bond's travel writing is unlike what is found in most travelogues, because he will take you to the smaller, lesser-known corners of the country, acquaint you with the least-famous locals there, and describe the flora and fauna that others would have missed. And if the place is well known, Ruskin leaves the common tourist spots to find a small alley or shop where he finds colourful characters to engage in conversation. Tales of the Open Road is a collection of Ruskin Bond's travel writing over fifty years. Here, you will encounter a tonga ride through the Shivaliks, a hidden waterfall near Rishikesh, walks along the myriad streets of Delhi (one of which used to be the richest in Asia), trips down the Grand Trunk Road, stopovers in little tea stalls in the hills around Mussoorie, and an excursion to the icy source of the Ganga at over...

A delightful read... no one understands nature like Ruskin Bond and it takes his ability to put this wonder into words'—Deccan Chronicle For over half a century, Ruskin Bond has celebrated the wonder and beauty of nature as few other contemporary writers have, or indeed can. This collection brings together the best of his writing on the natural world, not just in the Himalayan foothills that he has made his home, but also in the cities and small towns that he lived in or travelled through as a young man. In these pages, he writes of leopards padding down the lanes of Mussoorie after dark, the first shower of the monsoon in Meerut that brings with it a tumult of new life, the chorus of insects at twilight outside his window, ancient banyan trees and the short-lived cosmos flower, a bat who strays into his room and makes a night less lonely... This volume proves, yet again, that for the serenity and lyricism of his prose and his sharp yet sympathetic eye, Ruskin Bond has...

In this delightful collection; Ruskin Bond introduces us to the Dehradun he knows intimately and loves unreservedly—the town that he had spent many years of his childhood and youth in. A town which; when he knew it; was one of pony-drawn tongas and rickshaws; a town fond of gossip but tolerant of human foibles; a town of lush lichi trees; charming winter gardens and cool streams; a small town; a sleepy town; a town called 'Dehra'. With classic stories and poems like 'Masterji'; 'Growing up with Trees'and 'A Song for Lost Friends' and previously unpublished treasures like 'Silver Screen'; 'Dilaram Bazaar' and 'Lily of the Valley'; this anthology is replete with journal entries; extracts from the author's memoirs and; of course; poetry; non-fiction and stories set in or inspired by Dehra. Evocative; wistful and witty as only Ruskin Bond can be; A Town Called Dehra is a celebration of a dearly-loved town as well as an elegy for a way of life gone extinct.