A letter to Ruskin Bond

                           A letter to Ruskin Bond

Image courtesy - Google

Dear Ruskin Bond,     

                                        

At the outset, allow me the impertinence to address you as “Rusty” which is your pet name, so I guess.

I love to think that having grown so close to you through your books, any other salutation would have been cold and impersonal.

This is no letter for correcting my badly written manuscripts or penning a recommendation to some Publisher (I am no retired Army General in your neighborhood writing memoirs that no one wants to read!)

You are at liberty to dismiss my letter as one of those typical junk mails from your myriad readers, but to me, getting to write to you is cathartic and I don’t mind if my letter is trashed only if you read it once.

You have touched my heart by showing that simplicity could be fashionable though the tribe that subscribes to this view is nearing extinction.

I wanted to write to you long hand, the cursive way I was taught to write in my school way back in the late seventies in Shillong, but I have lost the skill after prolonged exposure to writing fuzzy e-mails in my Corporate job. So I have turned to Microsoft Word. My work station does not have slopes like yours!

I learnt to switch on the computer at the age of 35. Though I spend about 8 hrs a day pouring over my laptop, never really developed a fondness for it. Still keep pressing the wrong buttons. I am what they call "technologically challenged"

One of my mails that was unflattering about my boss landed up in his mail box! 

I still grapple with my high-end Mobile phone that I am supposed to carry as proof of being “digitally minded”. My son now bails me out when ever there is a technical glitch.

All my passwords to ATMs get locked with alarming regularity; I have never been able to master them. I have now bought peace by resorting to old, time tested Cheque books, they never let you down. My son can even match my signature now! How’ s that for grooming a second line?

Like you, I too grew up in a hill station (Shillong). Those days it used to be called as “The Scotland of the East”. We trudged through pine forests, stopping in between to play an impromptu game of soccer with the acorns, taking shoes off to cross a stream to reach our school.

I am not sure if the proud Scotsmen would like to rename it once again if they see the concrete jungles that have now chocked this lovely place of yester years.

I envy you in a way. You earn your livelihood from what you like to do best-write.

I too wanted to write but my father pushed me to read chemistry and now I dabble in Insurance where the most rudimentary knowledge of chemistry, C stands for Carbon, does not cut any ice.

Like you too, my best gifts were from very ordinary people.

The best smile I ever got was from the children of salt pan workers in Little Raan of Kutch in Kathiawar, Gujarat. These children skip school to help out their parents in grueling work of salt making in blazing sun when temperature soars around 50 C. Their parents have measly income of 10 paise a kilo of raw salt that we buy in the stores for about 20 rupees a kg.

My best lesson in professionalism came from my driver on the last day of his duty on my pay roll.

He did not appear for about an hour when I asked him to garage the car and turn over the key to me. Apprehensive that he may be removing parts surreptitiously, I spied on him to find out that he was giving one last round of polish to my battered old fiat. He calmly explained that driving car was his religion and it was his way of paying obeisance to his “deity”.

There was a “Dhaba” in Malda, a small town in Central Bengal, which I used to patronize for the delectable “Dal Tadka” and “Roti” freshly churned out of the tandoor. It used to be run by an old Sikh gentleman who must have been in his seventies. He spoke no Bengali and managed only rustic “Punjabi” but his customers lapped up what ever came out from his kitchen.

I came to know that his sons were very well placed- the eldest ran a very successful transport business in Canada and the youngest was a prosperous farmer back in their native place in Punjab. When I asked him as to why he does he not join one of the sons in his prime age- he rubbed two fingers on his forehead and replied” Jiska roti jahan likkha hai”.

Roughly translated- “every man has his pre-ordained place for his bread”; I did not require any further lesson on acceptance of fate in life.

  

I will close my babbling here. I know you are itching to hammer out one more story on your type writer (assume the keys have not fallen off yet).

Give my regards to your extended/adopted family. Hope your post man does not need any visit to the next door Orthopedic.

Yours truly,

Amitava Gupta

05/01/2009

PS- I don’t expect a reply. But being the eternal optimist that I am, a stamped envelope is enclosed. Just a small line in your own hand writing will make me a happy ghost!