Fiction and Film

Ruskin Bond, the renowned author who has been living in and writing from Mussoorie for the past six decades, has been a great favourite with people across the country. His works, written against the backdrop of the Doon valley and Mussoorie, have most endearingly, brought alive this region. This book highlights various aspects of Bond’s writings in a well-defined way. It explores his writings and throws light on the films and the television series based on them. These are Shyam Benegal’s Junoon, Vishal Bhardwaj’s The Blue Umbrella and 7 Khoon Maaf, and Ek Tha Rusty (TV series).

The work seeks to focus on the romantic tradition and looks at the romantic imagination, which is the soul of Bond’s work. This dimension gives his writing the uniqueness which makes him the writer for all ages, all seasons. The book explores the romantic vision of the author which binds together the elements of his writing like innocence, personal narration, love for the past, love for nature and environment, and interest in childhood. It places Bond in the great romantic tradition of the 19th century due to his lyricism, spontaneity, subjectivity, interest in the mysterious, and the qualities of innocence and wonder in his writings. It also locates Bond among his contemporary writers in English besides establishing that he cannot be confined to being a children’s writer.

Fiction and Film: Ruskin Bond’s Romantic Imagination underlines how Bond always writes about people gone away, places vanished and changing landscapes of time.

Contents: 1. Introduction: Mapping the Territory. 2. Prelude: Growing Up as Rusty. 3. Notes from the Himalayas: Bond of the Mountains. 4. The Past in Many Hues: Historical Narratives. 5. In a Different Medium. 6. The Storyteller: Bond’s Narrative Strategies and Territorial Affiliations. 7. Summing Up: The Poetic Imagination.