Ruskin Bond was born to Edith Clarke and Aubrey Alexander Bond, 

in Kasauli, Punjab
States Agency, British India. His father taught English to the princesses of Jamnagar
palace and Ruskin and his sister Ellen lived there till he was six. Later, Ruskin's father joined
the Royal Air Force in 1939 and Ruskin along with his mother and sister went to live at his
maternal home at Dehradun. Shortly after that he was sent to a boarding school in Mussourie.
When Bond was eight years old, his mother separated from his father and married a Punjabi
Hindu, Hari. His father arranged for Ruskin to be brought to New Delhi where he was posted.
He was very close to his father and describes this period with his father as one of the happiest
times of his life. When he was ten, his father died during the war, while he was posted in
Calcutta. Ruskin was at his boarding school in Shimla and was informed about this tragedy
by his teacher. He was thoroughly heartbroken. Later, he was raised by his mother and
stepfather who lived in Dehradun.

He did his schooling from Bishop Cotton School in Shimla, from where he graduated in
1950. He won several writing competitions in the school including the Irwin Divinity Prize
and the Hailey Literature Prize. He wrote one of his first short stories, "Untouchable", at the
age of sixteen in 1951.

Following his high school education he went to his aunt's home in the Channel Islands (U.K.)
in 1951 for better prospects and stayed there for two years. In London, he started writing his
first novel, The Room on the Roof, the semi-autobiographical story of the orphaned Anglo-
Indian boy named Rusty; he did various jobs for a living. It won the John Llewellyn Rhys
Prize, (1957) awarded to a British Commonwealth writer under 30. He moved to London and
worked in a photo studio while searching for a publisher. After getting it published, Bond
used the advance money to pay the sea passage to Bombay and settle in Dehradun.

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, Penguin set up in India and approached him to write some books. He had
written Vagrants in the Valley in 1956, as a sequel to The Room on the Roof. These two
novels were published in one volume by Penguin India in 1993. The following year a

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collection of his non-fiction writings, The Best of Ruskin Bond was published by Penguin
India. His interest in supernatural fiction led him to write popular titles such as Ghost Stories
from the Raj, A Season of Ghosts, and A Face in the Dark and other Hauntings. Since then he
has written over five hundred short stories, essays and novels, including The Blue
Umbrella, Funny Side Up, A Flight of Pigeons and more than 50 books for children. He has
also published his autobiography: Scenes from a Writer's Life describes his formative years
growing up in Anglo-India and a further autobiography, Lone Fox Dancing, was published in
2017. The Lamp is Lit is a collection of essays and episodes from his journal.

Since 1963 he has lived as a freelance writer in Mussoorie, a town in the Himalayan foothills
in Uttarakhand where he lives with his adoptive family in Landour, Mussoorie's Ivy Cottage,
which has been his home since 1980. Asked what he likes the most about his life, he said,
"That I have been able to write for so long. I started at the age of 17 or 18 and I am still
writing. If I were not a professional writer who was getting published I would still write." In
his essay, "Scenes from a Writer's Life", he explains his Indian identity, "Race did not make
me one. Religion did not make me one. But history did. And in the long run, it's history that
counts."

His sister Ellen lived in Ludhiana with his step sister until she died in 2014. He also has a
brother, William, who lives in Canada.

Literary style

Most of his works are influenced by life in the hill stations at the foothills of the Himalayas,
where he spent his childhood. His first novel, The Room on the Roof, was written when he
was 17 and published when he was 21. It was partly based on his experiences at Dehradun, in
his small rented room on the roof, and his friends. His earlier works were written without it
being meant for any particular readership. His first children's book, Angry River, published in
the 1970s, had its writing toned down on a publisher's request for a children's story. On
writing for children, he said, "I had a pretty lonely childhood and it helps me to understand a
child better." 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.

Bond said that while his autobiographical work, Rain in the Mountains, was about his years
spent in Mussoorie, Scenes from a Writer's Life described his first 21 years. Scenes from a
Writer's Life focuses on Bond's trip to England, his struggle to find a publisher for his first

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book The Room on the Roof and his yearning to come back to India, particularly to Doon. "It
also tells a lot about my parents", said Bond. "The book ends with the publication of my first
novel and my decision to make writing my livelihood", Bond said, adding: "Basically, it
describes how I became a writer".

Being a writer for over 50 years, Bond experimented with different genres; early works
include fiction, short stories, novella with some being autobiographical. Later, he tried
out non-fiction, romance and books for children. He said his favourite genres are essays and
short stories. He considers himself a "visual writer" because for short stories, he first
imagines it like a film and then notes it down. For an essay or travelogue, such planning is
not needed for him. He feels the unexpected there makes it more exciting. Bond likes Just
William by Richmal Crompton, Billy Bunter by Charles Hamilton and classics such as Alice
in Wonderland and works by Charles Dickens and Mark Twain.

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 The Blue Umbrella by Ruskin Bond (Summary)

The blue umbrella is a novel of children’s genre. It is about a young girl, Binyadevi,
and her family. Binya lives with her family in a small village. She is a simple girl with
realistic dreams. The story has multiple emotions including materialistic love, jealousy,
and kindness.

Binya is a girl who belongs to a poor family, and they are just surviving. She does not
have anything precious except one thing, a bear claw necklace. It is precious because it
is a good luck charm, at least this is what her mother thinks. One day, while doing
chores Binya saw a beautiful blue umbrella. She fell in love with the umbrella but it
belonged to an English woman. She started staring at the umbrella, the English lady
saw her. The lady looked at her, and her bear claw necklace. She wanted to have that
bear claw necklace the same as Binya wanted her blue umbrella.
When the lady asked, Binya offered her bear claw necklace in exchange for the blue
umbrella. When Binya got the umbrella she was very happy. All the people in the
village admired her beautiful umbrella and were jealous of her. They always thought
about how did Binya manage to get such an expensive umbrella when she was really
poor. Binya did not care about others. She kept the umbrella and took it where ever she
went. She was in love with that beautiful thing.
There was a shopkeeper named Ram Bharosa. Binya and her brother used to buy
toffees from him. He saw Binya’s umbrella and wanted to own it. He offered Binya
free toffees in exchange for the umbrella. But, Binya’s love for the umbrella was so
strong that she refused to take the toffees. Ram Bharosa got angry and one day asked

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his servant who was a little boy, to get the umbrella. The boy planned to steal the
umbrella and when he failed, he told Binya’s brother that Ram Bharosa gave him the
task of stealing the umbrella. Everyone in the village came to know about what Ram
Bharosa did to the little girl, Binya. The villagers felt awful for the girl and started
buying things from another shop instead of Ram Bharosa’s shop. Isn’t it an irony that
Ram Bharosa broke everyone’s Bharosa by asking the boy to steal the umbrella?
After some days, Binya’s blue umbrella faded, it had the marks of stitches but still, it
was the most beautiful umbrella in the whole village. One day Ram Bharosa offered
Binya a toffee again, this time it was not for greed or to get something in exchange. He
was really feeling bad for what he had done and wanted to become a better person. The
same day Binya realized that she did not need an umbrella to be happy or to look
pretty. She had her family, villagers, and the beautiful nature to make her happy. She
lost her love for the umbrella and gave it to Ram Bharosa when he gave her the toffee.
Ram Bharosa had a smile on his face. He did become a less greedy person. People
started forgetting about what had happened earlier when Binya forgave Ram Bharosa.
They started buying things from him again. His shop started getting crowded again but
this time there was something new, Ram Bharosa behaved unselfishly with his
customers and always had a smile on his face.

We do not need an object to be happy. Good people around us and the beauty of nature
is enough to make us happy. If we fall in love with an object one day or the other the
love will fade away. The love between people never fades away.