By Trisha Mukherjee | PTI
Author Ruskin Bond has his future chalked out - he wants to write more, read more and sleep more.
Over 500 short stories, novellas, essays and an autobiography later, Bond - at 83 - stresses that there is a lot more to be written.
The bucket list of the much-loved children’s author is topped with a desire to pen more children’s stories and “gory” crime thrillers.
“Everybody wants another children’s book. I’d like to do some good gory crime stories, something of everything. That way you don’t get bored, moving from one genre to the other,” he told PTI.
However, the Landour-based writer, who recently launched his autobiography “Lone Fox Dancing” here, doesn’t like to write under pressure.
“I have accumulated publishers over the years and now they are all after me - ‘Mr Bond, you owe us a book.’ I am feeling a bit overworked. I don’t like writing under pressure,” he says.
“So I will make them wait,” Bond chuckles. Having spoken on several occasions about his love for reading, it is not surprising that he wishes to read more books - not the latest bestsellers but his favourite authors.
“I have read thousands of books, but there are so many that I still haven’t read. And I am not talking of the latest bestsellers, I am talking about the books that I have missed over the years by the writers I like,” he says.
He writes in his memoirs about his fondness for authors such as Agatha Christie, P G Wodehouse, Charles Dickens, Somerset Maugham, George Bernard Shaw, Jerome K Jerome and Mark Twain.
He may have read two or three books of a particular author, but now wants to read more of the writer’s works.
“I like reading and good writing,” he says.
Poke him a little further, and he adds that he loves a good nap, too.
“I enjoy sleeping - I always have,” he says simply.
Bond adds that he is a man who is easily pleased - “not a difficult person; I don’t think so anyway”.
By and large, Bond believes he has lived a life without regrets.
But looking back on his life, would he change anything?
“Perhaps, a few more love affairs,” he replies promptly.
On a serious note, he wishes he had been kinder to some people, particularly his mother, who separated from his father when Bond was eight and married another man.
“I could have been a bit kinder to people, maybe more understanding of my mother - hadn’t been too censorious and been a little supportive. Sometimes one feels guilty, that one could’ve done more for someone,” he reminisces.
Happiness, he believes, is an “elusive” word. “But you could say contentment is there,” he says.
Written with Bond’s quintessential wit and warmth, the autobiography, published by Speaking Tiger, takes readers back in time to the genesis of some of his memorable works.
As for naming his autobiography, given a chance, he says, he will call it “Twenty-Two Steps”, after the 22 steps, each of a different shape and size, that lead to his quaint Ivy Cottage in the hills.
The book also contains over 50 photographs, some never published before, capturing the author’s life.
