THE BEST OF RUSKIN BOND

                    -  DELHI  IS  NOT FAR

Penguin Books India (p) Ltd 1994

11, Community Centre,

Panchsheel Park

New Delhi - 110017,

India

The title, according to the author, is a metamorphosed   comment of Nizzamudin  'Delhi is still far'  when he was informed about Tughlaq Shah's  march to Delhi'.

 This volume comprises of biographical glimpses of the author particularly his attachment to his father and his exhilaration for mountains - in Simla, Dehradun and Mussorie. This collection of essays, poems, short stories and short novels, written in a simple first person narration interlacing with philosophical tones,  make a compulsive reading. A sample....

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THUS SPOKE CROW ( page201) 

" You look worried today, chum. Anything I can do for you ?"  said the jungle crow with his head cocked to one side.

"I beg your pardon ?" I said politely. One must always be polite with strangers; nowadays some of them carry guns or knives.

"You're not your usual cheerful self," 

"No, I am not. But there's nothing I can do about it. And it's got nothing to do with you."

"You never can tell," said my visitor.  >>>>>

>>>" we can make a living almost anywhere- and that's more than what you've been able to do of late!"

He had me there. I'd been struggling for some time, trying to make ends meet;  but wasn't getting anywhere.

"I am doing my best," I said.

"That's your trouble," said the Crow, moving nearer along the window sill and looking between the eyes. "You do your best. You try too hard! That's fatal, friend. The secret of success lies in maximum achievement with minimum effort."

" But that's ridiculous," I  protested. "How am I to be a successful author if I don't write?"

" You must understand me. I am not recommending the idle life. Have you ever seen an idle crow? Most unlikely. And yet we have always got one eye open, and that eye's on the likeliest opportunity...... "  And sidling up to me, he filched the remains of my sandwich from my hand. "See that? Got what I wanted, didn't I? And with minimum effort. It's simply a question of being in the right place at the right time."

I was not amused.

"That's all very well if your ambition is to pinch someone else's lunch," I said.  Do I pinch other people's ideas?"

" Most people do but that's not the point. What I'm really advocating is pragmatism. The trouble with most people, and that includes writers, is that they want too much in the first place. A feast instead of a bite from a sandwich. And feasts are harder to come by and cost much more. So that's your first mistake- to be wanting too much, too soon.

And second mistake is to be pursuing things. What I am saying is not only to authorship but to almost everything under the sun. Success is what you are pursuing, isn't it? Success is what most of us are pursuing.

I am a successful crow, you must admit that. But I don't pursue. I wait, I watch, I collect. My motto is same that of any Boy Scout-" Be Prepared"

I am not a bird of prey. You are not a beast of prey. So it is not by pursuit  that we succeed. A victim's chief object is to getaway. And so it is with success. Pursue it too avidly it will elude you."

" So what am I supposed to do ? Write books and forget about them ?"

"Exactly. I don't mean tuck them away. Send them  where you will- send them to four corners of earth- but don't fret over them, don't expect too much. That's the third mistake- fretting. Because when you keep fretting about something you have done , you can't give your mind to anything else."  >>>>>>>>>>>>

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