BOND OF BANTER: Ruskin Bond and Victor Banerjee rib each other at Victor’s beautiful stone-and-wood cottage called Parsonage in Landour, Mussoorie. Pictures by Samhita

The chat started in the study-cum-attic of Victor’s picturesque home in Landour, some 1,500ft above Mussoorie, that Ruskin describes in his book Landour Days as a ‘gingerbread cottage’. “Beware Rapid Thespian” says a sign nailed to a tree outside the cottage. Our session, spread over five hours, wound its way to Victor’s garden, shaded by dark pine trees, before ending up beside the cheerful fireplace in the living room

t2 (to both): What’s it like having Victor Banerjee & Ruskin Bond as neighbours?

Ruskin: Fortunately, we don’t live opposite each other. So we can’t throw stones on each other’s roofs!

Victor: It’s wonderful... because people usually don’t know what we look like. So, when accosted we can always point to the opposite direction and say, no, he lives there. Or somewhere else completely. About having Ruskin for a neighbour…what do you say about having a hungry neighbour? Nah, it’s actually wonderful, we have a great time.

Ruskin: When did you buy Parsonage and come to live here?

Victor: 1982.

t2: That’s the name of your cottage?

Victor: Yes, Parsonage. It was Emily Bronte’s cottage and we share our birthdays as well.

Ruskin: And you can call him the vicar…

Victor: Or the parson! He knows all about it because he’s just played a bishop [in 7 Khoon Maaf]. So, do you play a Catholic bishop or a Protestant one?

Ruskin: Actually I’m still not sure. There were nuns around in the church where we shot, so I’m guessing I was a Catholic bishop.

Victor: What was your name? You didn’t have a name!

Ruskin: No, I was just there… just a presence… sort of beaming on everyone.

Victor: Did they kiss your ring?

Ruskin: They didn’t give me a ring (indignantly). I’d have kept it then!

t2 (to Victor): How would you describe Ruskin the writer?

Victor: Do I have to answer all this seriously?

Ruskin: You answer any way you want!

Victor: I travel a lot, into remote areas…villages of Assam, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Jaintia Hills… and whenever I say I’m from Mussoorie, people say, ‘Isn’t that where the writer Ruskin Bond lives?’ Ruskin’s definitely one of the most widely read and the most widely loved Indian author in India.... The greatest thing about his writings is that he writes very simply, very clearly. So, it’s a delight to read him.

t2: Which of Ruskin’s stories do you like the most?

Victor: I can tell you what I hate. It’s his limericks…they are very badly composed…and they are absurd!

Ruskin: They are not bad at all, my limericks. I’ll tell you a lovely one, it’s about myself:

There was an old man in Landour
Who wanted young folks to laugh more .
So he wrote them a book
And with laughter they shook
As they rolled down the hill toRajpore

Victor: That’s probably the best one he’s written! I have got most of his works here… Panther’s Moon, then Rusty, then... (to Ruskin) which was the one I had given the title to?

Ruskin: Dust on the Mountain. You mean you want a part of my royalty now (laughs)?

No Cindy, you are NOT Priyanka, scolded Ruskin playfully, as Victor’s Bhutia tried to get cosy with him

t2 (to Ruskin): How would you describe Victor the actor?

Ruskin: Victor’s a very fine actor. A Passage to India was of course a notable film, he’s particularly good as Dr Aziz. Then, I thought he was very good in Shyam Benegal’s Kalyug. That was black-and-white, wasn’t it?

Victor: No, no it was in colour.

Ruskin: Oh. The TV I saw it on was black-and-white then! The film that brought Victor to Mussoorie, Doosri Dulhan, wasn’t bad actually. What else have I seen of him? Hullabaloo [Over Georgie and Bonnie’s Pictures]? And that film you made for the Australian television, where you played the defence attorney [Dadah is Death]? Then you had a short bit in that Polanski film [Bitter Moon].

Victor: My God, he’s seen more than I have!

Ruskin: I’m an encyclopaedia of films made in the 1930s and ’40s. Though I’m not counting him in that period (chuckles)!

t2 (to Ruskin): How would you describe Victor the writer?

Ruskin: As a writer, there’s a lot of potential which he hasn’t bothered to try and fulfill. But he might yet take it seriously.

t2: What kind of stories do you like writing the most?

Ruskin: Now I’m writing a little more tongue-in-cheek. With old age I might have lost some of my romanticism. But one of the advantages of getting old is that you have more to look back upon. And I’m a writer who does look back.

Victor: Ruskin’s father’s grave is in the Bhowanipore cemetery. Last time he was in Calcutta, he went there…

Ruskin: I remember Victor had taken me to the Calcutta races. He made me put a 100 rupees on a horse, which was so far back in the race that it was first in the next race!

t2 (to Victor): How would you describe Victor the actor?

Victor: As somebody who enjoys playing different roles and takes them seriously only as long as they last....

Acting was a hobby since I was a child. People in Shillong still talk about my acting and singing. In fact, my wife [Maya] tells me that she married me because I was a singer, not an actor.

I enjoy acting. But I didn’t realise that when you become a professional actor, especially in India, there’s a whole lot of baggage. People look up to you as a celebrity, you suddenly become a Page 3 piece of flesh.

Calcutta is one of the loveliest cities to walk in and I used to be a walker every day — right from Metro [cinema] down Park Street, all the way back home. On Sundays I’d go to the Maidan, there were so many things — from magicians to astrologers, to parrots, to booksellers, to pimps…. Now I do nothing.

Ruskin: When you were in England, you did the York Mysteries…

Victor: My fondest memories as an actor are of working in the York Mysteries.

Ruskin: But how do you remember all those lines!

Victor: In Shakespeare or the York Mysteries, you have no choice. But in the movies I use idiot cards, I write down my dialogues on strips of paper…

In [Satyajit] Ray’s Ghare Baire, I had a scene with my wife [Swatilekha Sengupta] on the balcony. During the take, I came out and saw my wife standing and after the first line, I dried up. Manikda said ‘Ki holo (what happened)?’ I said you’ve moved her... but I have my script taped to the back of the banister!’ After that he and I had this wonderful understanding and he would always check where my strips of paper were hidden!

t2 (to Victor): How would you describe Victor the writer?

Victor: I enjoy writing. But my mind flits from one end of the spectrum to the other. I’ve got far too much to say and far too complex a thought process. To try and discipline that is my toughest job as a writer.

Most of what I write has an element of controversy. I’m never politically correct, though I’m not intentionally controversial… I’m a sentimentalist, an idealist…a romantic… you know a ‘Victor-ean’ writer! My mentor was professor Lal, who died recently. He taught us the beauty of language, how to love words and gave us the courage to create words.

t2 (to Ruskin): Why did you become a writer?

Ruskin: Well, I wasn’t much good at anything else (laughs). As a boy I was a bookworm. I learnt to read and write before I started school, my father was very good that way. So, by the time I finished school, I had decided to be a writer, come hell or high water. The only other ambition was to be a tap dancer. But I don’t think I had the figure for it, even then!

t2: What has been the high point of your life as a writer?

Ruskin: Gosh, that’s a tough one! Well, it’s right now. I think I’m finally beginning to become a proper writer.

t2: And what is a proper writer?

Victor: I’d like to interject and say that Ruskin can now sit back and not worry about where the next meal comes from. He’s made it, in every respect, so he can relax and write.

Ruskin: But I still have feelings of insecurity… you know, how much will there be in my royalty next month? Because as a writer I am not going to have a provident fund or pension.

Victor: I have the same nightmares as well. But I, unfortunately, can’t sit back and write, I have to act. And no one wants an ancient actor. Ruskin has come to a point where he doesn’t need to prove himself anymore.

Ruskin: But I still think I can write better. And I’m trying to write better.

Victor: How would you like to improve?

Ruskin: In terms of maybe deeper characterisation, get to the heart of things...delve into people… all kinds of people.

Victor: And how far would you delve? Would you now write more than what children would be able to take?

Ruskin: Well, yes. But kids now jump very quickly from children’s books to adult books. Now I’d like to delve into characters…why at times they behave in strange ways, or commit crimes…

t2 (to Ruskin): What keeps you going?

Ruskin: When the bank balance falls very low, that makes me sit up and start writing! Also, I enjoy writing, it’s not really a task.

When I went to Gopalpur on Sea, I met a ghost. Well, I made up the ghost but it was just the right sort of a place for a ghost…an old dak bungalow. As I started going to bed, a bearer came and attended to me very well. The next morning, I told the caretaker that you have such an attentive bearer. He said, ‘but we don’t have one! There was a retainer who was devoted to his English sahib many years back. He must’ve mistaken you for his master.’

I came back to Mussoorie and knock, knock, knock, late at night, there was the retainer. So, the ghost followed me all the way from Gopalpur!

That’s what I do, when I run out of people, I make up ghosts.

t2 (to Victor): Why did you become an actor?

Victor: Because when I was three-and-a-half, I did Three Little Pigs and got an award for it in St Teresa’s in Calcutta. Then I went to school in Shillong and the Irish brothers discovered this aptitude in me. I was in school plays and the school choir. I got a scholarship to study to become a tenor at Trinity College but my mother refused to let me go. She said, no, you will go and marry an Irish woman! There ended my singing career.

But I acted throughout school and was given awards. So, when I took up a 9-to-5 job in New York, I tried casting a play. It was based on Patricia Hearst’s story and was offered a role. Thrilled, I landed up and they asked for my equity number. I said I don’t have one. Now, New York can be very abusive… they abused me and threw me out since one had to be a union member to act there.

A month later, I decided to quit and go back to what I enjoyed. So I came back to India and spoke to Mr Ray. He looked at my reviews and recognised some of the critics and said, ‘Ya, I’ll take you in my next film’. So that’s how I began with Shatranj ke Khiladi.

t2: What has been your high point as an actor?

Victor: York Mysteries, without a doubt. Standing there naked on a cross, at zero degrees temperature....

t2: What keeps you going as an actor?

Victor: Right now? The need to keep the kitchen fires burning. Nothing else. I don’t get offered these great films that are being made now. And I’m left to work in what I don’t respect, though I try to play them respectfully.

Ruskin: I wish you’d play one of my characters, Mr Oliver, an eccentric schoolmaster.

Victor: Dame Peggy Ashcroft wanted me to be cast one day in Shakespeare’s Lear. So, that’s what I’m waiting for.

By now our chat had drawn in the others present in the cottage — Kiran from London, little big girl Tirana Bains of Welham Girls in Dehradun and her father, a soft-spoken, Shakespeare-spewing civil servant. The most important participant was, of course, Cinderella, or Cindy, Victor’s 14-month-old Bhutia dog

t2 (to Ruskin): How long have you lived in Mussoorie-Landour?

Ruskin: I came to Mussoorie in 1964 to live. Gradually I promoted myself, kept coming up the mountain till I ended up in Landour in 1980, at Ivy Cottage. That’s I-V-Y. A lot of people, when they write to me, put I.V. Cottage on the envelope… that’d be intravenous cottage (laughs)!

t2: How much has living in Mussoorie and Landour influenced your writing?

Ruskin: Considerably, since a lot of my stories are based here…. Then I met Victor here, when he came house-hunting in 1982.

Victor: There was a time when Ruskin would actually walk up here, have dinner and walk down. But he would never walk past the graveyard…he was a real darpok!

Ruskin: I write ghost stories but I get scared. Old graves are romantic, but new graves are sort of scary. Victor’s house is right next to the cemetery here and I think one of these days, people will have him back as Count Dracula…

We then launched into a delightful discussion about the different kinds of Indian ghosts Ruskin has written about… churails, bhoots, prets. So, which is the most frightening? ‘I suppose the churail,’ Ruskin replied.

t2 (to Victor): How much time do you spend in Landour?

Victor: I only leave Landour when I have to. I spend almost 10 months a year up here.

t2: What do you like and dislike about it, vis-à-vis the time you spend in Calcutta?

Victor: When I moved here, I liked the fact that I wasn’t the only eccentric around... now I’m probably the only one left. Every person that lived in Landour at that time had a past that they were proud of and skeletons that they didn’t wish to reveal.

Ruskin: I didn’t have any skeletons!

Victor: This guy? I tell you…he has a whole bagful of bones…all labelled Ruskin Bond!

Landour was a very colourful sort of place. There was a six-feet hulking German woman who used to smoke bidis and read cards. Then a Dutch woman, who had three or four lovely children, all from different fathers, on different beaches.

Ruskin: Not three or four, she had over a dozen children.

Victor: I often say my heart belongs to Landour, my soul rests in Assam. Calcutta is just a pit stop.

Ruskin: What about Assam strikes you so much?

Victor: I grew up there… the smell of the earth, the smell of tea, the people. The people are lovely, the garden labourers are simple adivasis. And in the Northeast, people enjoy life. We used to come up these twisted roads and go up to school. For the first 16-18 years of my life, I met all these people who drank heavily and there was no social hierarchy.

And then I came down to the plains and went to Calcutta and I realised that now the roads were not twisted, but the people were.

What I like most about Calcutta is that the average person on the street is educated. I have actually heard two taxi drivers discussing Plato and Aristotle, and arguing about who was more important!

Ruskin: Yes, there’s a respect for literature in Calcutta. Young people actually save money to buy books in Calcutta, which is unique!

Victor: What has turned me off for years now is the anarchy and the violence. Bloodshed for dead political ideals is something I have not been able to tolerate. You shed blood for the independence of a country but to shed your own blood for the sake of a political party? No, no!

You haven’t asked me, but let me clarify — I think Kashmir is a genuine liberation movement, I don’t think it’s a political movement. I felt so about Bangladesh, Goa…but all this is personal. Which is why my writing is provocative.

t2: Do you see yourself picking up the pen for Kashmir?

Victor: I have friends on both sides. But no, writing doesn’t help!

t2: But Uttarakhand happened… [Victor had written and campaigned for the statehood movement]

Victor: Yes, Uttarakhand happened, and it happened very well. And I was on the streets of Mussoorie, yelling “Mulayam Singh murdabad”.

t2 (to Ruskin): What’s a day in the life of Ruskin like, in Landour?

Ruskin: Very boring!

Victor: I can answer that. On a day like this, all clouded over, he wouldn’t get out of bed. If he didn’t have this interview with you, he wouldn’t have seen the Prime Minister of India!

Ruskin: I get out of bed at six in the morning and I go back to bed at 7.30! I get up, potter around, have a cup of tea, then I feel drowsy and slip into bed again. Then I get up around 8.30. I work through the mornings usually.

Victor: Then he waits for the postman to bring him his cheques.

Ruskin: The post comes along at 1 ’clock and I wait for it. I don’t use email.

Victor: Then he takes a very leisurely stroll up to Char Dukan to make sure the bank’s still there (Ruskin tries to protest but ends up laughing even harder than Victor)!

t2 (to Victor): What’s a day in the life of Victor like, in Landour?

Victor: I’m woken up at dawn every day by a Whistling Thrush. We’ve got three nests of Thrushes in this house and I think they pass on this duty of waking me up from generation to generation…

I come out, look around my garden, see if the bird bath is filled, if the fish tank is looking alright, if the world is okay. I look into the distance at Nanda Devi — she’s only visible at dawn — I give Cindy some milk, may be an egg, as a bonus.

Sometimes I write, sometimes I read or listen to music. I love our plants. I see which ones need to be pruned or manured and then I let my wife do the dirty work!

I am an avid bird watcher. I spend a lot of time watching birds. I used to catalogue the birds that I saw here… One time, I had about 40 species of birds visit my bird bath.

t2 (to Victor): In 7 Khoon Maaf, Ruskin has come up with seven ways in which Susanna kills her husbands. What would you suggest to Susanna?

Victor: Well, she could try talking non-stop (the room erupts in laughter, despite the women outnumbering the men). She could try cooking what his mother used to cook, that would definitely kill him! If I had to get rid of someone, I would feed him my nettle soup, which I am famous for here. I would spike it with mushrooms that I grow here! [Stat warning: when in Landour, steer clear of nettle soup, or mushrooms!]

t2 (to both): What is the one question that you wish someone would ask you?

Victor: “If you had a choice, would you change anything in the life you’ve lived?” My answer would be a very emphatic YES. There are many things I would change. It would still remain as colourful, as eccentric, as mad as it was, but different.

Ruskin: I wouldn’t change a thing. I would love to live my life again, I have no regrets. All the mistakes I have made, I’d make them again!

The question I’d like to be asked is: “Would you like to have one more love affair before you pop off?” And I’d say, yes, I would love to!

t2: You have anyone in mind?

Victor: Priyanka Chopra?

Ruskin: No, no!

Victor: What no, no? Too young?

Ruskin: No! She’s about 30!

Victor: Are you saying she’s too old? That she’s over the hill?

Ruskin: Nobody is over the hill (his words were drowned in the ensuing laughter, but Ruskin kept repeating: “Nobody is over the hill!”)

Victor: I am. I am so over the hill, I’m on the other side!

Rapid-fire Ruskin

First book you read: Alice in Wonderland. It was first read to me by my father and later I read it myself.

One book that’s influenced your imagination: When I was 12 years old, I read David Copperfield.

[Victor: Do you see Mr Micawber in me? Ruskin: I see Mr Dick in you!]

Anyway, when I read Copperfield, that’s when I wanted to become a writer. David grows up to become a writer. He runs away from home, so I decided I should run away from home too. But I came back very hungry… I had taken very little pocket money with me!

What are you reading right now?

The Golden Ass. I picked it up because I was at a breeding farm recently and they had all these donkeys — to breed mules. How charming those donkeys were, with long, upstanding ears and sensitive, tender eyes. The only thing is, they spoil it all when they go hee haw-hee haw!

I read anything that comes my way. I love crime thrillers, the best among the present writers is Peter Robbins, I think.

I had read Wuthering Heights as a boy…I sat up all night till I finished it. Two-three weeks back I got hold of a copy again and I stayed up all night reading it. It’s that kind of a book.