This is Ruskin Bond’s fourth year at Kolkata Literary Meet, held in association with The Telegraph. This is also our fourth interview with him on the trot. So, I said, “We could talk about Ruskin Bond beyond books....” “Ruskin Bond beyond books? That means no Ruskin Bond!” chuckled the 84-year-young writer. But being the sport that he is, Bond, of course, indulged all our “non-book” questions, chatting well beyond the allotted time.

Other than writer, how would you describe yourself?

A bit of a maverick, maybe? (Laughs) A lazy chap who’s by nature reclusive, but who over the years has been forced to become a little sociable, and something of an extrovert. Again, maybe because of the writing. But also easy to make friends with, a good companion over the years…. What else am I? Stubborn! I don’t like being pushed into things if I am not keen. I like lots of space. I am not really a city person. I guess the fact that I’ve lived up in the mountains most of my life implies that I do like open spaces and being close to nature.

Now, tell us about the first time you fell in love with a girl…

This must have been when I was about four or five years old. We were in Jamnagar, where my father had started a small school for the royals, the girls particularly, they didn’t send girls to school outside the home. One of them, she was a princess, a little older than me, about seven. She fussed over me a lot, she was my favourite….

Do you rememberher name?

I am scared to tell it, no? (Laughs) No, I remember very well, she was called Jhanak. She used to pinch my cheeks.... I don’t know if you would call it falling in love, but it was an attachment.

I suppose after that it was when I was in boarding school in Shimla. There was a girls’ school not too far away and once or twice a year the senior boys were taken for a social.

And once again it was a princess! I seem to have had something for princesses (laughs out loud). Maybe because I was a pauper and they were a princess… so instead of The Prince and the Pauper, we’d be the princess and the pauper!

Her name was Indu. I caught a crush on her, and wrote her a letter. I was good at writing love letters, other boys used to come to me to write their love letters. I was 16, she would have been about the same. She had acted as Portia in the school play, The Merchant of Venice, and that’s when I saw her.

So I wrote this nice letter but it was intercepted by her principal. She passed it on to the girl’s mother, who read it and said, ‘Oh, what a lovely letter! Please send this boy over to our place for tea with us.’ But her principal also contacted my principal and he said, ‘Nothing doing. You are not going anywhere!’ Anyway, in spite of him we corresponded a couple of times… because the mother didn’t object.

Because she liked your letter!

Yes, perhaps. It was a nice love letter, it was not crude. After all, I was already reading if not romantic books, certainly trying to write letters like David Copperfield or somebody literary (laughs).

And the first time you fell in love with a place?

There was this little beach outside Jamnagar. My parents would take me there sometimes, I would have been between four and six then. I used to love that particular beach. I would paddle around and walk along the water collecting seashells, especially the larger ones, to put to my ear…. Later on I discovered that it’s not the sea you are hearing. If you take a teacup and put it to your ear, you’ll hear the same sound!

So I remember the beach. And as an adult maybe any sort of quiet little spot in the hills... one that goes around the bend of a mountain. I used to trek a lot when I was younger… you’d come across some beautiful vista or a corner where you felt restful, at peace with the world.

What about the first time you fell in love with a film?

Ah… that’s interesting! I was a film buff as a boy. The first film I saw was Tarzan The Ape Man but I didn’t fall in love with it because it was a bit scary. Then the musical, Bittersweet, it was very beautiful but that too scared me because the hero gets run through with a sword (laughs). So the first film that I probably fell in love with was Laurel and Hardy, probably Bonnie Scotland. They were always funny, and lovable too.

A hobby that you loved?

Of course my dad was a great stamp collector and I used to help him and I liked that. But my own hobby would have been… an early hobby, which sadly is no longer present, is in those early years when I used to go to films as a boy, I used to collect the pamphlets and posters advertising the film, in colour… scenes from the film and the cast… I used to collect those and I had folders for them. When I got older and maybe a bit sophisticated, I thought this was probably a childish occupation and I gave them all away. Now I regret it, I wish I had them.

Since you are such a movie buff, tell us some of your movie recommendations…

Oh yes, I could recommend… though most of them would be of that era (1930s and ’40s). You see, they made very good films, based very often on literary works. And I liked black-and-white movies because they concentrated a lot on close-ups, on character and they were good at creating suspense. Sometimes too much colour distracted you… or distracted me! Colour was okay for westerns and films with scenic splendour, but for drama I used to like black and white.

I’ll tell you six of my favourites… One was Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939). It was a school story. Another good one is a favourite of many — Casablanca (1942). That was a World War II film. Then The Third Man. It was a thriller set just after World War II. It had Joseph Cotton and Orson Welles. And, of course, all the Laurel and Hardy films. I liked the Marx Brothers too, A Night at the Opera was probably their funniest. For good action, The Charge of the Light Brigade, which had Errol Flynn.

BOND’S BEST

Anything from current times?

You see, I turn on the television in the evening and there are three or four channels (showing films) but I get fed up trying to find a good film! There probably are good films now but they are not being shown on TV. Either there are aliens or monsters or they are torture films or non-stop action or Mission Impossible or kung fu. I was looking at the list of Oscar-nominated films… I’m unfamiliar with most of the stars today but I would like to see Dunkirk. But I would have to go to Delhi or somewhere to see it anyway, the hill stations no longer have cinema halls.

Anything in Hindi?

Sometimes friends would drag me along. I have to confess, though, that I used to nod off in some of those (laughs). But I liked some. I liked that pretty vivacious girl… Madhubala. In 1955 I saw a film called Mr. and Mrs. ’55, it had Madhubala and Guru Dutt. He made some good films. One of them was Pyaasa. I saw that, it had some good songs. In fact, I can sing that song, the one about the barber giving the tel malish…

You can? Shall I take out the video recorder?

(Laughs out loud) I have a terrible singing voice. Victor Banerjee (his friend and neighbour in the hills of Landour) didn’t allow me to sing in his car. He said the door falls off!

Anyway, I also liked corny musicals, like V. Shantaram’s Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baje. Occasionally I watch contemporary movies too, because the rest of the family is watching it and I have to!

You played a priest in Saat Khoon Maaf (which was adapted from his novella Susanna’s Seven Husbands). Which other roles do you think you would have done brilliantly?

I must have been pretty bad, because nobody offered me a role after that! (Laughs) But yes, I think I’d make a nice, fat villain. Like Sydney Greenstreet in Casablanca (laughs again).

Moving on to your recent autobiography, Lone Fox Dancing, it appears that both your parents shaped you in their own way...

Ya, I guess I got from my father much of his intellect. Because he was a serious person. He didn’t have many friends, at least not during the time that I was with him (His father, Aubrey Bond, died when Ruskin was 10 years old). He wasn’t a gregarious man, at least not in his 40s, which is when I was a child... he had married quite late. Whereas my mother (Edith Clarke) was sociable, she liked parties... she was much younger. From my mother I probably got my sensuous nature.

Also I think her unconventional lifestyle rubbed off on you and led you to pick an unconventional profession like writing…

Yes, it’s true she was unconventional, took up an unconventional life. But again my father, though I knew him only for a few years in Jamnagar and then two years in Delhi when he was with the RAF, but when I heard about his earlier career… and he did many things — from being a teacher to being a tea planter in Travancore, Cochin, and he collected butterflies, and he travelled around quite a lot… his interests were very varied.

You are surrounded by your adoptive family now...

Rakesh was born in 1973, he came to me when he was two or three months old. His father, Prem, who had been looking after me and working for me, brought him from the village. And the first thing he did was pull my glasses off and throw them somewhere, which I thought was a very nice thing (laughs).

Anyway, I helped bring him up and spoiled him thoroughly, of course. And later on he and Beena had a runaway marriage. It was against her parents’ wishes, it was against his parents’ wishes, I was the only one who approved (laughs).

They have three children. And Beena’s younger sister married Rakesh’s young brother. That enlarged the family, but it kept the in-laws to a minimum (laughs out loud).

I liked that pretty vivacious girl... Madhubala

I think I’d make a nice, fat villain. Like Sydney Greenstreet in Casablanca

— Samhita Chakraborty