Delhi is not Far

 

'...I knew I was free; that I had always been free; held back only by my own weakness, lacking the impulse and the imagination to break away from an existence that had become habitual for years.'

Yes, it is hard to change habits. It is hard to come out of cocoons. But it only needs a single step to start the life of your dreams. 'Delhi is not Far' is a book that tells the story of taking that first step.

Ruskin Bond loves writing about his good old struggling days, and we, his fans, love reading those. He started his serious writing, after coming back to England, in a small room in Dehra. And his first novel was also about a life spent in a room on the roof. I love reading about his characters (his fictional doubles), during their initial days of struggle, living in a single room with meager facilities. Here also Arun lives in a small room in a mohalla in the small town of Pipalnagar, where

'There are days and there are nights, and then there are other days and other nights, and all the days and nights in Pipalnagar are the same.'

It is a kind of dull town, where there is 'resignation, an indifference to both living and dying.' The town is so small that everyone knows everyone. Here people have very small business choices and they have very small dreams. Barber dreams of going to Delhi to be a barber; junk dealer wants to go to Delhi to open a large junk shop; rickshaw-puller wants to go to Delhi to change his paddled rickshaw to a scooter-rickshaw. But there is Arun, and there is Suraj, who have dreams bigger than those of Pipalnagar natives. Arun has till now written a few Urdu detective novels and is waiting for a big break. He waits for an inspiration to write a blockbuster, and he finds his inspiration in Suraj who, despite being an epileptic, is surprisingly optimistic about the future. Together they dream of a better future.

There is no substantial plot in the story. It moves through the day-to-day life of residents of the sleepy town of Pipalnagar. If someone gives you this book, without its cover, and without revealing the title and the author, you will certainly come to know that it's a Ruskin Bond book. The language is Ruskin Bond-specific- extraordinary descriptions of ordinary people and things. And being a hill-lover, he couldn't stop himself from writing about hills even when the book is about Pipalnagar, a town in the plains.

'I don't think that man can be complete until he has lived in the hills. Of course, we are never complete, but there is something about a mountain that adds a new dimension to life. The change in air and altitude makes one think and feel and act differently.'

It is a magnet that pulls you into a nostalgic world of Ruskin Bond's small towns, hills, nature, ordinary people, ordinary situations, but extraordinary dreams. This man writes about life as it is. He is satisfied in the present, and he makes us feel satisfied with our lives and the small events happening around us. He has made us feel contented and happy with the present, but to always keep dreaming. I love the lines with which he ends this wonderful book:

'Yesterday I was sad, and tomorrow I may be sad again, but today I know that I am happy. I want to live on and on, delighting like a pagan in all that is physical; and I know that this one lifetime, however long, cannot satisfy my heart.'

Go for this book if you are a Ruskin Bond book. Go for this book if you want to know about Ruskin Bond.

-Ekta Kubba