A Study of Ruskin Bond’s Selected Short Stories in the Light of Ecocriticism

1. INTRODUCTION

A charming quiet calm Himalayan town of Mussoorie for the ongoing decades is the spectator of the imaginative activities. It is a beguiling home of long insightful legend, the "Ruskin Bond". The huge hearted, veteran creator is the 'Pride of India'. He was not charmed towards Mussoorie as a town, yet rather to the surroundings slopes, timberlands and streams, or may be to the general population from the villages. In this incredible universe of horrendous contention where we have no chance to stand and welcome, the natural magnificence encasing us right now Ruskin Bond's fiction comes as a genuinely necessary boost. It is as unadulterated as the globule of nectar falling on the bits of turf, the petals of sprouts, and the leaves of trees. His structures are stacked with, legitimate appeal that contacts the heart. He seems to flood out his soul into his words. In the preface to Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra, he creates that it was an" unfading sort of a place" and that he felt a provoke puncturing relationship to the natural landscape around the cabin. He was spellbound with the proximity of maples, walnut and oak trees (The Best of Ruskin Bond, 1994). Ruskin Bond, up to standing Indian writer who squats in the Himalayan town of Mussoorie, is panegyrized as a writer, short story writer, poet, and writer for children, teenagers, and adults. An examination of Bond's life and work bears bits of information his complete as a writer and into his pledge to the expansion of English writing in India and to the mounting combination of diasporic and postcolonial writing. He is significantly acclaimed for his responsibility in forming six books or novellas, in excess of two hundred short stories, thirty five books for children, four volumes of self-portrayal, 300-400 every day paper articles, five aggregations of papers, and poetry gatherings. Despite this, he continues on to contribute articles irregularly to the vital day by day paper and magazines in India and abroad. Bond began disseminating his stories, in 1951, when he was just seventeen years of age and by then, Indian fiction in English had quite recently begun to take in a particularly, began in the 1930's with the books of Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao and R.K. Narayan. Anyway the authors did not endeavor to duplicate the King's English or British speakers and writers. Or maybe, vivacity, interest, and a specific Indian flavors were incorporated into their piece. According to Laxmi Holstorm:

The time when Bond arrived on the creative showcase, he conveyed with him a sprightlier and vivacious explanation to Indian writing in English. His works res sound both the effect of his Anglo-Indian instinct and infringe of the developing political, social, and ethnic conditions in India. Like Narayan, he has come to be known as a "territorial" writer, who energizes the topical tone and feel of the local locations and villages of the lower Himalayas. He brings a unique insider's perspective while delineating the verve of direct rustic or private community local people, yet his stories are moreover all inclusive (The Night Train at Deoli and Other Stories, 1998). Through his, meagerly shrouded diary, Bond examines with internal consciousnesses and sensitivity, the artfulness of his saints' as they cross personal, national, and social breaking points. Regardless of the way that, Bond is an Anglo Indian regardless, his structure and approach are astoundingly unbound from the stately preferences and categorize; rather, after decolonization he denies his British nationality by encasing India, where there is first experience with the world. In his piece entitled On Being an Indian he clears up that his selfhood, as an Indian is uncompromising: "Race did not make me one, Religion did not make me one, but instead history did and as time goes on the history tallies. Imagined on May 19, 1934, in the military center in Kasauli, a slant station close Sanawar, his dad, Aubrey Alexander Bond, picked the name Ruskin, after the well known Victorian creator 'John Ruskin', since he valued a comparable jazzy, inventive, and examining life. His dad was an English mentor and chaperon at Ram Vilas manor in Jamnagar until the point that Bond was five or six (Anderson & Domosh, 2003). It is here that, Ruskin Bond developed the learning of the Indian culture close by being the ordinary British child in India. He was upheld around the little sovereign and princess yet he was consistently alright with his Indian cook, ayah, and plant authorities insouciance to the impediment of class or societal station. In Jamnagar, when Ruskin gifted at the claim to fame of understanding he empowered a smack for astute and the model children writing, which were depicted to him by his father. His most loved book was Lewis Caroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland which gave him "a prevalent energy about the absurdities of life." At seven years of age, he was begrudged by his mother to Hampton Court School in Mussoorie, where he squandered pitiable years. It was a mission school, and abbesses were very stern and unfeeling. He made an endeavor to get away, anyway couldn't flung too far. In two shake of a sheep's tail, this yearning to part a long way from onerous conditions experiences, particularly, in childhood and early youth and the spirit of his age. Whimsically, his mother pulled back him from Hampton Court toward the complete of the instructive residency and faked him on the night get ready to New Delhi. There he accumulate his father, and that is the time when he came to understand that his parents had alienated, in spite of the way that his father had put out each one of the stops, to rejoin with his better half, who had her very own hard pressure, bolshie at attitude and had a getting a charge out of the outdoors life. He in like manner came to understand that his mother got hitched with a Punjabi businessman, Harbans Lal Hari, who had a used auto outlet and an auto darn shop in Dehra. Bond's relationship with his mother, Edith Clerke Bond, seems to have been particularly expelled. He delineates her as young, connecting with, and effervescing, anyway regrettably, she didn't give the unwavering quality or maintaining that the energetic Bond required around at that point. He authenticates that his mother frequently continued running off, relinquishing him with a persisting sentiment of tentativeness. It made in him a sentiment of flimsiness. Insurance and consistency were given by his father. He surveys a substantial number of his parent's squabble until the point that they separated when Bond was eight. He says: The early conclusion of shortcoming was never to relinquish me, and in adult life, when I saw quarrels between people who were close me, I was significantly pestered more for the children, whose lives will without a doubt be impacted by such enthusiastic conflict. However, would it have the capacity to be helped people who marry energetic, even the individuals who are in the friendship don't for the most part know one another. The body science may be right anyway the congruity of two personalities is the thing that impacts relationship to drive forward. Mr. Hari, according to Bond, was something of a Punjabi play kid who revered drinking, moving, and celebrating. Bond despises his mother's relationship and concedes that he concurs with his father's position in his creation. He endeavors to see, in any case. He clears up that his parents were inside and out not the same as one another and his father was fifteen years more prepared than his mother (Ruskin, 2015) A multi year old will without a doubt loathe his mother's contact with another man. I feel without question that my mother almost certainly had her own impulses, her very own point of view of life and how it should be lived. Everything considered, she had recently been eighteens when she had hitched

picnics, parties. My mother uncovered to me later that he was outstandingly jealous, repulsing her from other men. Likewise, who wouldn't have been jealous? She was young, completely, vivacious-everyone investigated her. After his parents' severance, Ruskin Bond's guardianship was given to his father who presented to them simply more closely. Ruskin shared these experiences of the saint's life in Jamnagar which is referred to in the novella once upon a Monsoon Time and the short story The Room of Many Colors. The story acquaints us with an unfeasible or enchanted sight of childhood in which the legend is brought up in the adoring and developing arms of his father, ayah, and plant authority. He acquire yielding from arranged social orders and peoples, normal residents and sovereigns, Christian and Hindu, upper-station and outsider. The story gently shows the personal unsettling influence that is getting into the energetic legend's life with a natter of going to England, since India isn't their country, yet the child scrutinizes that he was imagined in India and should be acceptable to live in India. He was particularly attached to his ayah and debilitates to rush away in case he is segregated from her. Ruskin's love for his ayah is in like manner manufactured in the short story My First Love, where Ayah is the mother stature who exactingly is watchful about his physical wants, bolster him when he is frightened around night time, engages him with pixie stories of sovereigns changing into snakes and adapts him to the "precluded delights from the bazaar".

Elamparithy, (2015) [5] in any case, in this day and age, Nature is a champion among the most customarily talked word. When the prominent etymologist, Julia Kristeva, composed a book entitled Language - The Unknown in which she has said that, "Tongue is everywhere anyway our cognizance of it is moderately close to nothing. In a comparable vein, nature is moreover not at all observed anyway we are in nature, some bit of nature and enveloped by it all around." Elamparithy, (2014) [6] Many of us don't understand that mother earth is in uncommon risk. One of the outstanding scientists, James Lovelock who propounded ' Gaia ' theory once said that, "human creatures are too much clumsy, making it difficult to manage the environmental issues that we are looked with today. Notwithstanding the measures taken by the all inclusive society, the situation continues being dreary, hence the Nature Writing showed up. describes nature composing consequently: "Insightful consistent with life that offers sensible examination of the world, or reflects upon the political and philosophical repercussions of the associations among human creatures and the greater planet." The Environmental Reports, points out that, creating demands on customary capital, for instance, forests water; soil, air, and biodiversity starting at now outperform the world's capacity to revive these resources. Human creatures have constantly had nature as their setting, and it especially depends on the lives of the people and their condition. Condition here can be called as 'Geography.' These two sorts of settings the social setting and the physical setting is basic in any jewel, be it a novel, play or ballad. By social setting one means the culture of that particular society and the physical setting is the geography of the land. Bond's stories are the perfect instance of this. The shielding of the nature depends on the culture of that place. Raymond Williams in his paper Nature in The Cultural Geography Reader says Oakes and Price, (2016) [8] definitely a champion among the most powerful employments of nature, since the late eighteenth century, has been in this specific sentiment of goodness and chastity. Nature has inferred the countryside, the unblemished spots, plants and creatures other than man. The usage is especially present in complexities among town and country: nature is the thing that man has not made, anyway if he made it adequately long back a hedgerow or a desert it will generally be joined as normal. Further, Raymond Williams, (2015) [9] says that nature is something that is there for man to acknowledge, understanding and use yet he doesn't have the power to make nature. Its insurance depends on the culture of the place. Or then again, the culture of the place makes according to environment or the nature, as Darwin has proposed the theory of the 'survival of the fittest'. The individuals who alter well as shown by nature can survive euphorically on this earth and Ruskin Bond's stories are the perfect instance of this since his characters maneuvers according to the need of their condition. Along these lines, we can express that nature and culture are interrelated.In the old-fashioned conditions it was assumed that by turning one has come back to nature one obliterates each one of the conceivable outcomes of complete expansion and spiritual development. Each one of the parts of nature like water, fire, sun, trees, mountains et cetera have spiritual vitality, it was done to shield condition. In the old conditions people were god fearing and they had unbelievable trust in their religion and its

Gopal, Ram. Kalidasa,(2014)[10] Many antiquated human advancements illuminates us that altogether, every one of the nations of the world have rich tradition settled in the morals of living in concurrence with nature thusly, directing it. In the old conditions people adored the segments that establish biological systems, speaking to their necessities fulfilled from typical resources and meanwhile anchoring the condition that backings them. As the time passed on, the social and financial changes have started happening in the society. Along these lines the people ended up being progressively eager and money masterminded and purposely overlooked towards the earth. Elamparithy, S,(2012)[11] To surmount the Global environmental crisis the makers all through, the world focused on the Ancient Indic Philosophy of "Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam" which communicates that ''the whole world is by and by one family". This Hindu rationale, especially Advaita, assumes that,' the world is an unclear soul and is the affirmation of the Brahman i.e., the presence urges and everything on this earths 'is a manifestation of this basic power'. Along these lines, it built up a rationale of respect for every single living thing and despite for the non-living substances. By virtue of such ideological thoughts .This 'solidarity' with nature is a basic attitude if one needs to shield nature. Hawkins, R.E. Jim Corbett's,(2015)[12]Ruskin Bond is one such Indian short story creator whose stories particularly turns around nature and its edges, which clarifies his nervousness for the green layer of the earth. Perfect from the soonest beginning stage Bond has strong praise for nature as a result of which he, gets a handle on the hypothesis of 'Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam ' in his stories since he is an incredible lover of nature and meanwhile a supporter of Hindu religion and Hindu values and beliefs. The importance of Ruskin Bond with the Indian life and its people is both wide and colossal. The Indian conviction of 'Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam ' and a cognizance of an old race passed on Bond an undeniable significance. Bond got, on an academic and sharp of the smarts of Indian progress and ethnicity. In his story The Kite creator he imparts his relationship among man and tree and shows a superb and delightful idea .We create at much a comparative pace, if we are not hurt or starved or hack down. In our childhood we are amazing creatures, and in our declining years we stoop a bit, we broaden our delicate appendages in the sun and subsequently, with a mumble, we shed our last clears out. Kitemaker, Mahmood Ali, in the record of Bond, The Kitemaker,(2013)[13] discusses the insoluble relationship among man and nature. With the hands were wound and creased like the establishments of the primordial tree and Ali, his grandson, looked like the energetic mimosa plant. The lines towards the complete of the story are exceedingly suggestive: "The sunlight was slanting over the elderly person's head, and a little white butterfly laid on his gushing facial hair .The butterfly left the elderly person's facial hair and made a trip to the mimosa tree.‖Bond, the Best of Ruskin Bond, the parallelism among man and tree gives the total epitome of Ruskin Bond's treatment of nature. Bond assumes that one could get quietness among trees, the mountains, the streams and the pool of the Himalayan valleys. In this manner he implores enrichments and brightness from the master as slopes and fields as his natural surroundings; while as light he accomplishes the entrenched attempted insightfulness of the past cultural digestion. Nature imageries that happens discontinuously in Bond's works are of a mountain pool, banyan tree, cherry tree or an isle of trees that have ended up being little bionetwork addressing the universe in a microcosm and various types of creepy crawlies, birds and creatures and humans land to these spots searching for a paradise. Nature treats everyone approach. "Noorokariyil, (2015) [14] Bond is a humanist and his humanism is clearing for inside him there is a love and love, for man, and also for the verdure. Bond's composing is an impressive record of his tension for the earth all things considered with its diverse perspectives. It would befit thus to consider him an environmentalist. Possibly his stories may have a mind-boggling explanation of the affairs of the front line world, yet stress for the earth and it's demolition is a rehashing point in them. His comprehension of nature is that of a romantic and a mystic. He praises the adjusting qualities of nature. He has been so significantly included with the typical world that his character has ended up being bound together with it. Bond's attitude towards the Botanical world, to the trees especially, is moderately like that of the Hindu's who respect and love trees which offers shade, verdant nourishments a profitable resource for the life of man. Trees give us oxygen to breathe in and take our carbon dioxide and fill the earth with outside air which is required to have a sound presence. To say it evidently, trees are our life and we need to regard them. The tree group can be pursued to the Vedic conditions.

In this new century, we the human race is staying at the crossing point of all the change condition and going up against unanswered request associated

pummeling we have to change our characteristics, cognizance from exploitative to moral and our methodology from, 'Culture of Violence to Culture of peace' for making economical peace and concordance. In the present time, advancement for modernization is in charge of the total obliteration of this biology: it is annihilating our resources conveniently. At display our focal concern is to consider elective strategies for advancement which should be eco-pleasing by "advancement with a human face and that will interface improvement with culture." In such manner, the works related to the ecological advancement, the compositions that discussion about the obliteration of nature and its greenery, of the organic and physical world, has been imagined .The roaring inside her are a bit of the major messages that have had the ability to shape open discernment about biology. Regardless, fatigue of nature has unfurled the consideration of many writers just in the wake of losing critical proportions of natural resources. Cheryii Glotfelty sees that academic examinations have appeared to be not interested in environmental concerns. Be that as it may, ecological input and theory have, undoubtedly, existed through the seventies yet was missing fitting organization. This blended the earnest necessity for the organization so 'Relationship for the Study of Literature and Environment' (ASLE) was formed.

1. The Best of Ruskin Bond (1994). New Delhi: Penguin Publications Pvt. Ltd., 1994. Print. 2. The Night Train at Deoli and Other Stories (1998). New Delhi : Mukul Prakashan, Print. 3. Anderson, Kay, Mono Domosh (2003). Steve Pile and Nigel Thrift, Eds. Handbook of Cultural Geography. London: Sage Publications Ltd., 2003. Print. 4. Bond, Ruskin (2015). A Handful of Nuts . New Delhi: Penguin Publications Pvt. Ltd., 2015. 5. Elamparithy, S. (2014). "From Waste Land to Wonder Land: The Psychology of EcoDegradation and The Way Out". Contemporary Contemplation on Ecoliterature . Ed. Dr. Frederick Suresh. New Delhi: Author's Press, 127. Print. 6. Elamparithy, S. (2015). "From Waste Land to Wonder Land: The Psychology of EcoDegradation and the Way Out". 7. Buell, Lawrence (2013). The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing and The formation of American Culture, London: Harvard University Press, 2013. Print. 8. Oakes and Price (2016). Fundamentals of Ecology. Dehra Dun: Natraj Publishers, 2016. Print. 9. Raymond Williams (2015). The Complete Poetical Works. London: Macmillan and Co., 2015 Bartleby.com, 2015. www.bartleby.com/145/. 10. Gopal, Ram Kalidasa (2014). His Art and Culture. New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company, Print. 11. Elamparithy, S. (2014). "From Waste Land to Wonder Land: The Psychology of EcoDegradation and The Way Out". Contemporary Contemplation on Ecoliterature . Ed. Dr. Frederick Suresh. New Delhi: Author's Press, 127. Print. 12. Hawkins, R. E. (2012). Jim Corbett's India. New York: Oxford University Press, Print. 13. The Kitemaker (2013). USA : John Hopkins University Press, Print. 14. Noorokariyil (2015). Contemporary Literary and Cultural Theory: From Structuralism to Ecocriticism. New Delhi: Pearson, Print.

Research Scholar, Swami Vivekananda University, Sagar, Madhya Pradesh