Ruskin Bond’s Favourite Chair
Bond was introduced to the vast world of books at a forest rest house in the Rajaji National Park in the foothills of theHimal. He was eight and it was the era when the jungles used to thunder with the sound of the guns. Rajaji was not a national park in the ‘40s, and was the hub of keen shikaris. On the first day, little Bond had to accompany his guardians, but on the second day ‘he declined the invitation’ and instead took refuge in the rest house library. He writes, “One would think that an eight year old boy would be thrilled at the prospect of accompanying a shikar party on a safari but I had to be forced into going.”. At the rest house, Bond discovered PG Wodehouse’s Love among the Chickens, the famous Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, the Queen of Mystery Agatha Christie and Jack London’s White Fang. This put the oil on fire of a sort.
