Friends in Small Places- RUSKIN BOND AND SUDHA MURTHY

Yesterday was yet another enchanting day at Spring Fever'13, with much loved authors Ruskin Bond and Sudha Murthy. Paro Anand started the session by narrating how she met Sudha Murthy for the first time. Paro Anand went on narrate a story from Sudha Murthy's book- 'The Day I Stopped Drinking Milk' about the young ticketless traveller who was hiding underneath her berth. The ticket collector caught her and threatened to throw her out on the next station. But Sudha Murthy thought it was not right to throw out a young girl on an unknown station, so she took the girl to her home. Now the girl- Chitra works in the U.S! 
Followed by this moving incident, Sudha Murthy's editor Shruti read out the wonderful tittle story from the book. 

The session really became interesting as Ruskin Bond read out a poem from his collection- Hip Hop Nature Boy.
Before reciting the poem he said that publishers are usually not interested in publishing poetry so what he does is, he tells his publisher that he would write a story only if his poems are published!As it was expected, the poem was absolutely delightful and humorous but what made it better was his style of reciting it. He read it out like a little child who was enjoying the funny poem!

 Ruskin Bond really made the session interesting and fun. When Paro Anand asked him- "How many books have you written", he replied- "its unlucky to count!" 

He did it, He said it and we loved it- Ruskin Bond

"My favourite genre is short stories, because I am a lazy writer and they seem to keep getting shorter with age! When I run out of people, I write ghost stories."

"When  a particular character becomes popular, people expect more stories about him or her. When you run out of stories you have to make them up. My uncle Ken is long gone, so he cannot sue me now!"

" When you are telling lies in your stories like me, you tend to get a writers block. Keep the script aside and come back to it later. You should be patient and draw the story in your mind properly so that you don't get stuck half way through."


"My landline was not working, so I asked my grand daughter- Dolly to get me a cellphone. I held it to my ear and she said- dada you are holding it up side down, then switch it on. But nothing happened. So she said go to the window. I went the window. Open the window, she said. So I opened the window but nothing happened. Lean out of the window. I leaned out of the window and I dropped it!"

What we love the most about him, were his poems! I am sure he impressed every body sitting there with his innocence and spontaneous humour.

Here is the video of Ruskin Bond reading his poem- 'If Mice Could Roar'

                                                           Video by Writerspoint

She did it, She said it and we loved it Sudha Murthy

I take two-three years to complete a novel. I like to share whether

it is my experience, my joy or my sorrow. So I like to share everything, except my husband!  

Life has a larger canvas than imagination. Imagination has  limit, life does not. When I started meeting different people- tribals, rich people, poor people, politicians- my canvas became larger

I want to write a children's novel and for that I want to understand today's children. Today children have a greater exposure than what they had say 50 years ago.

When I was young, my grandfather asked me to promise him that when I have enough money, I should buy books for at least one library. And now, when I have made enough money I have bought books for fifty thousand libraries! 

I like children because they are un-biased and straight forward. Adults don't do that. When they tell me my book is good, it is very often followed by- we applied for a loan or something like that, because they mix my job in infosys and my job as writer. Once a little child told me- you write well but you do not read well. And that was the last time I read out my story.

Watch my interview with Paro Anand at Bookaroo HERE