A Page from my Diary
25th September, 2009
When you finish reading a book, especially after the last
line, you are left with a void- the world of 300 or 400 pages which you had
loved being a part of, has ended, much to your satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
You are left with an inspiration, and thinking. You are compelled to give at
least a thought to the author’s feelings at the end, his/her viewpoint and all
that he learnt through his experiences. It affects you deeply, though sometimes
the effect is short-lived. You are left with imagination of the situation,
similar incidents occurred with you in the past. You want to believe the lines
and everything that is conveyed in between the lines and bask in your own
fantasies.
Today I finished reading “Delhi is not far” by Ruskin Bond.
I would say that the book is not as good as any of his short stories, but then
everything he writes urges an afterthought. Though simple in prose and easy in
diction, every just-so writing of his is thought provoking. This novella left
me with a dollop of nostalgia, a sweet-sour feeling.
11th December, 2009

But the fact that he had written such a masterpiece at the
age of 17 only made me a huge fan.
12th February, 2010
My favorite short story by Ruskin Bond (among the few that I
have read) is ‘The Night Train at Deoli’.
“’The Night Train at Deoli’ is a story of adolescent
infatuation presented with great sensitivity. It expresses the narrator’s love
for a poor basket-seller whom he encounters at a small railway station while on
his way to Dehra. He meets the girl only twice, never to see her again, but she
remains in his memory ever after. The story reminds us of Wordsworth’s ‘The
Solitary Reaper’, a frequently made comparison that has earned Bond the
Soubriquet ‘Indian Wordsworth’.”
And yet again the last lines leave me with deep longing and
nostalgia. “I wonder what happens in
Deoli, behind the station walls. But I will never break my journey there. It
may spoil my game. I prefer to keep hoping and dreaming, and looking out of the
window up and down the lonely platform, waiting for the girl with the baskets.
I never break my
journey at Deoli, but I pass through as often as I can.”
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