Nostalgic India

I had never heard of the novel The Room on the Roof, by Ruskin Bond, until this past week, when I saw it listed as a "want to read" by a Goodreads friend.  In fact, I'd never heard of Ruskin Bond.

But Bond is a fairly well-known Indian writer, now in his 80s, who has written novels, ghost stories, children's fiction, and poetry.  The Room on the Roof was written, based on the author's own journal, in about 1951 when he was seventeen.  In his "Introduction" to my Kindle edition, he makes it clear that much of the novel is autobiographical, and was written at a time, just after graduation from secondary school, when he was living in London and "feeling very homesick for India."

The hero, and first-person narrator, is a sixteen-year-old, Anglo-Indian boy named "Rusty,"  As the novel opens, Rusty lives in the European quarter of Dehra ("Dehra Dun" on most maps), a city located in the low Himalayan foothills about 150 miles north of Delhi.  Dehra has a population of about a half million now, but the story, told in 1951, suggests a town of closer to about 25,000.*  Rusty's parents are deceased, and he lives under the supervision of a tyrannical and snobbish guardian who has made every effort to raise Rusty as a British child, concealing the fact that the boy -- blue eyed and with blond hair -- is half Indian.

Despite being 16, Rusty must seem to us today as closer to 12 or 13 in his thoughts, interests, and occupations.  I thought at first that this seeming retardation was a result of his stern upbringing.  But Rusty's frustration -- and eventual fury -- with his sheltered life (a life where he is friendless and has little to occupy his days) finally causes him to escape from his house and his guardian, and meet other boys his age in the "native" section of Dehra.  These boys, although their lives are much more adventurous and undisciplined than Rusty's, all belong to India's middle class.  They are not the destitute of India, by any means.  And they seem equally childlike by today's standards.

Bond paints an attractive picture of Indian life in and around Dehra (even today, a city of above average income and educational standards), and of the scenery and wildlife in the surrounding jungle.  He also paints a moving picture of adolescent loneliness -- Rusty's loneliness, especially, but also the underlying loneliness of the Indian friends that he meets. 

Friendship is a central theme for Bond, and the intensity of friendship customary among young Indians is shown vividly.  Rusty finds a job tutoring Kishen, a slightly younger boy, in English, employment for which he receives room and board.  Rusty and Kishen form bonds of brotherhood: "He loved Rusty, but without knowing or thinking or saying it, and that is the love of a brother."  Rusty meets another boy his own age, a Sikh, who soon is calling him "my best favourite friend."

Rusty had abandoned the stuffy and repressive world of British post-colonial life, and -- with his new Indian friends -- feels, for the first time ever, truly alive.  He even manages to fall in love with Kishen's beautiful young mother -- an affection that she (married to the much older father) certainly returns and that may or may not -- depending on how one reads the story -- have resulted in an affair.

Then Rusty's entire new world falls apart.  His "best, favourite friend" moves away.  Kishen's mother is killed in an auto accident, and Kishen is taken to another city to live with relatives.  Rusty once more finds himself alone and isolated.  After a long period of despair, he decides to emigrate to Britain, if possible.  But en route to Delhi, he runs into Kishen, who has escaped the clutches of his relatives and is living by his wits (and lack of scruples) in another city.  Kishen talks Rusty into giving up thoughts of emigration, and returning with him to Dehra.  The two "brothers" will make a new attempt at living life in India.  Kishen tries to assure his "brother" that all will be well, as the novel ends:

Kishen laughed.
"One day you'll be great, Rusty.  A writer or an actor or a prime minister or something.  Maybe a poet!  Why not a poet, Rusty?"
Rusty smiled.  He knew he was smiling, because he was smiling at himself.
"Yes," he said, "why not a poet?"
So they began to walk.
Ahead of them lay forest and silence -- and what was left of time.

The Room on the Roof is written in simple, but eloquent language -- eloquent especially considering the age of its author.  Bond at 17 tends to favor short, simple, declarative sentences, but with use of a sophisticated vocabulary.  (In dialogue, especially, he falls back occasionally on Hindi slang or idioms -- only some of which are defined in my Kindle dictionary, but the meaning of which are clear from the context.)

In his "Introduction," the elderly Bond -- looking back fondly on his first published work -- notes that it received generally favorable reviews (including a number of literary prizes), but that one reviewer had complained that he wrote in "babu English."  Meaning, I suppose, simple English as written by a native Indian.  If so, I'm all for use of "babu English," especially in the context of this Indian novel.

The book is also a romanticized recollection of middle class Indian life, by a boy who had all too recently torn himself away from that life and found himself living in a very different, very cold, and very alien land and culture..  I'm not opposed to a little romanticism, at times, either.
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*(6-23-16) World Book Encyclopedia in 1955 gave its population as 116,404, but it "feels" much smaller in the story.