‘I am still writing for the lonely soul': At 91, Ruskin Bond looks back at his literary life

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19-05-2025

A plentitude of pickles
Anglo-Indians grew up on chutneys. 'Sugar and spice and everything nice' – and it was only when I was in my teens that I discovered the pleasure of those 'pickled peppers that Peter Piper picked'!
Mango pickles are probably the most popular to set the tongue on fire, closely followed by lime or lemon, sharp and sour. But I have a weakness for the Punjabi shalgam-gajar achaar (turnip-and-carrot pickle), preferably home-made. It was first introduced to me by my Punjabi landlady some seventy years ago, and I am always on the lookout for it when turnips are in season.
Another home-made pickle that I enjoy is jackfruit. Jackfruit is an all-purpose vegetable that can be served up as a curry, pickle or even jam!
There is an array of pickle jars on my dining table, including lotus stem, green chillies, garlic, ginger and haldi. Yes, haldi makes a great pickle. Spread a little on your breakfast toast or paratha, but don't overdo it.
The other day, a doctor friend dropped in to see me, took one horrified look at my collection of pickles, and exclaimed, 'But all that salt, Mr Bond! It can't be good for your blood pressure!'
'Just a peck of pickle at breakfast,' I said. 'They say garlic is good for the blood pressure.'
'And so it is. But all that salt!'
He insisted on taking my blood pressure. It was a bit on the higher side.
'More leafy vegetables,' he advised, 'And don't pickle them!'
But cabbage leaves make a great pickle. They call it kimchi in Korea!
Laugh and be fat!
'Laugh and be fat, sir!'
This remark was attributed to Ben Jonson, the Elizabethan playwright – not to be confused with Dr Samuel Johnson, the chap who wrote the first-ever dictionary. Both were men of ample girth (we are told), but Ben was fun, and the good doctor was inclined to be grumpy.
Classical literature has its quota of portly men, most of them good-natured souls who have found a place in our affections. Mr Pickwick, the Cheeryble brother (in Nicholas Nickleby), a host of Dickensian characters, comic or choleric, and, of course, Shakespeare's Falstaff, stealing the show in Henry IV and The Merry Wives of Windsor.
English literature is full of loveable buffoons, strangely absent from American literature; those early pioneers and gunslingers were usually dead before they could put on weight.
The Americans did better in films. My favourite actor was Oliver Hardy (partner of Stan Laurel) who took all the hard knocks in their comedy films. And there was no finer villain than the suave Sydney Greenstreet, the fat man in Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon and other classics.
The novelist Rex Stout created a detective called Nero Wolfe, who grew orchards, drank gallons of beer and never left his apartment. He had a fabulous cook. All this must have been wishful thinking on the part of Mr Stout who, in spite of his name, had a trim figure, or so we are told.
Why this special interest in fat men? Well, I'm a little on the stout side myself, and while I can still climb the steps to my rooms (no easy task for anyone), I can no longer climb mountains or even the Qutub Minar. But then, I'm in my ninetieth year, and I see no point in fasting or jogging around Camel's Back Road (in Landour) in order to lose a few kilos.
So, am I on the side of Ben Jonson or Dr Johnson? I have my grumpy days, but, by and large, I'm still a cheerful soul.
'Laugh and be fat, sir!'
The loneliness of the writer
As a writer, you tread a lonely path. There is no one to hold your hand. That pen is yours and yours alone, and only you should decide what to do with it.
Basically, we write for ourselves. An author is his own best audience. After all, his little masterpiece may not find more than a handful of readers, so he must be content with the satisfaction that he derives from his creative effort.
My first book of poems sold twenty copies. I gave away a few copies, hoping for some kind reader's approval. When I asked one of them if he liked the book, he said, 'Terrific! The illustrations were great!'
When you set out to be a writer, you must be ready for heartbreak. There will be many disappointments. Not every editor or publisher will fall for your literary style, the appeal of your characters (if you are a fiction writer) or your great thoughts, if you aspire to be a great thinker.
There are all sorts of writers. Some are thinking writers, some are instinctive writers and some are lyrical writers. They work alone, sometimes in lonely places. It's only the formula writers who are immune to the anguish of failure. These are those writers who churn out a thriller a month while also being part of the party circuit and a member of the local yacht club. But they aspire to fortune, if not fame.
The great works of literature were often created in adverse circumstances: Wuthering Heights, while Emily Brontë struggled with tuberculosis; the poet John Keats, dying in his twenties from the same disease; Stevenson writing such diverse works as Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Suicide Club and A Child's Garden of Verses (among others) before dying on his island in the South Seas in his forties. Great works often emerged from great suffering: Dostoevsky in prison; Victor Hugo in prison and then in exile; Jonathan Swift in the stocks; Virginia Woolf struggling with depression; Ezra Pound combating madness.
But the greatest anguish, the desert of loneliness, comes to those who have achieved much and then lost it: Scott Fitzgerald's falling from favour and his descent into alcoholism. Hemingway's despair and suicide. Wilde's persecution and exile. Some writers fall from grace. Others are forgotten. Better not to be read at all than to be forgotten! The literary life can be cruel.
So, we must write for ourselves, and then we won't be disappointed.
Here I am, sitting at the dining table, putting down these thoughts, while several unrelated activities go on around me. They have nothing to do with what I am writing. Siddharth is shouting at Gautam. Gautam is shouting at Shrishti. Shrishti is on the phone, shouting at someone. Two little girls walk in through the open front door. It's someone's birthday, and they have brought sweets. The flow of my writing has been interrupted, so I help myself to a ladoo.
This is not a lonely scene, and mine is not a lonely life. But sometimes, when evening falls, and no one is in the house, I remember times when I was alone and lonely and writing just for some other lonely soul, someone I would never see or know. And I am still writing for that lonely soul.