Ruskin Bond - Lone Fox Dancing - My Autobiography - Book Review

The books begins with three quotes - ‘ There may be no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but if a man believes with all his soul that there is, and spends his life in the effort to vindicate that belief, his efforts will surely bring him somewhere at last; perhaps to a brighter goal than even the rainbow’s end.’ - Aylward Edward Dingle - A Modern Sinbad. The second quote is from Sir Richard Burton - ‘From none but self expect applause’. The third quote is from Rabindranath Tagore - ‘Across the boundaries of life and death/There you stand, O friend of mine.’

In the dedication and acknowledgement section, he says that even a fox needs a family referring to the adopted family of Rakesh and Beena who has looked after him these many years. He feels that he is part of the greater world; of India and the planet Earth and the infinite worlds beyond. He confesses that he decided long ago to stop trying to grow up. He declares that at the same time ‘he is a young boy and an old writer’, without any regrets. He says that almost everything he has written has been drawn from his own experiences. Thus, fragments of his autobiography are scattered everywhere, in his novels, stories, essays and poems. Some of the vignettes from his childhood revolves around food. He loved mutton kofta, and desserts like Gulab jamun, jalebis, rasagullas and laddoos and had the habit of washing them all down with a glass of lemonade. The stories he heard from his ‘ayah’ and the cook Osman stayed in his memory. He was named as Owen Ruskin Bond by his father after the famous Victorian writer and painter, John Ruskin. Owens means warrior in Welsh. His father’s taste for photography and music had an influence on him in his later life. Before they packed their bags from Jamnagar to Dehra Dun, young pleads with his father to take the gramophone with them. His love for railways also was nurtured due to the constant shifting of homes, from plain to hills and then back to the plains. His habit of walking was also developed in Jamnagar because it was full of spacious palaces, lawn and gardens. He describes his autobiography as ‘story of a small man, and his friends and experiences in small places’