NEW DELHI: The celebrated author Ruskin Bond graced the final day of the World Book Fair in New Delhi. His new book “Till the Clouds Roll By”, published by the Penguin India, was launched at the event with a small tête-e-tête and a conclusive excerpt reading of the same book in the author’s corner at Pragati Maidan.

Though a massive crowd gathered to listen to the author speak, but the conversation was a private reuniting with Mr Bond’s early days and childhood. On being asked, if it gets difficult being recognised all the time?

The prolific writer said  that being recognised was a recent phenomena. “In the 50s, 60s, 70s, before television became easily accessible, even the most well-known writers were not recognised. The writers remained mostly an anonymous lot then. They moved without being observed and observe and write about people more intimately.”

His response to the question of writing being a very lonely exercise, or writers being lonely people was, “Well, loneliness is something that is thrust upon you. You may not enjoy loneliness because loneliness is sad. But solitude is something else; solitude is what you look forward to, when you want to be alone, when you want to be with yourself. So, solitude is something we all need from time to time,” Mr Bond added

He had something to say about the new breed of authors, who call themselves ‘cavalier’. “It is okay to experiment with language, writers sucxh as James Joyce, Virginia Woolf experimented with writing, but basically one must have a familiarity with the language. And to have that, one must respect it. After all, when you write a story or a poem or a book, you want to put the words in the most attractive manner you can and you don’t want to write unnecessary slang, except in dialogues,” Mr Bonds said

A voice of one’s own, an original way of portraying what one has absorbed through education. One needs to have something to write about all the time. A giggling Mr Bond said, “When I run out of people, I write about animals, when I run out of animals, I write about ghosts.”

After the book reading session, there were some interesting questions.

One such question was “What is your inspiration for writing all your stories?” and his answer was, “The stories have to be about people and unless you’re interested about people, their problems ewtc, you won’t be able to write about them.”

To another question as to “who has is biggest role model?” he replied, “My biggest role model was my father, who taught me a lot  when I was your age, he taught me a lot.”

His stories are popular among kids, but his own reading list includes poetry, poets, fiction writers such as Walter De La Mare Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, comics etc,  he spends more time reading than writing.

The event concluded with a queue for the signing of books by Mr Bond at the Penguin stall inb Pragati Maidan.