Celebrated author, columnist and short story writer Ruskin Bond was conferred with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2020 Tata Literature Live! Mumbai Lit Fest on 21 November for his immense literary contribution that has spanned six decades and captured the minds of readers, young and old.
Filmmaker Vishal Bhardwaj’s citation in the virtual event said of the author that through “his childlike wisdom and clarity, he creates deeply empathetic characters who find the extraordinary in the ordinary.”
The online ceremony was followed by a dialogue between festival director Anil Dharker, Bond and Bhardwaj in which the speakers tackled several topics including the writer’s creative process, the filmmaker’s adaptations of Bond’s works and how a short story unfurls as a full-length feature film.
Bhardwaj has previously collaborated with Bond on film adaptations of the author’s stories like The Blue Umbrella and Susanna’s Seven Husbands, which became the well-known Priyanka Chopra Jonas-starrer 7 Khoon Maaf. During the talk, Bharadwaj announced that he will be taking another one of the author’s works, a short love story, to the screen.
Bond, who has been living and writes out of his home at Mussoorie in India wrote his first novel, The Room on the Roof when he was 17. He has since authored more than a hundred novels, novellas, short stories, ghost stories and memoirs, many of which are heavily influenced by his experiences of living close to the Himalayan mountains.
“Ruskin Bond’s love for Dehra and Mussoorie comes alive in his magical descriptions of windy mountains, roads, lush green forests, spicy marketplaces and his quirky, emotive descriptions of ordinary folk that inhabit hill towns,” Bharadwaj added, “which make readers feel they belong to these charming places…”
Bond’s anthologies like A Face in the Dark and Other Hauntings, Rusty, the Boy from the Hills and The Night Train at Deoli and Other Stories are only among a few works that continue to be a source of delight to readers across the country.