Ruskin and RKN

Have been reading a lot of RK Narayan and Ruskin Bond these days. Maybe my next will be a mishmash of the two :-).

Apart from what these two gentlemen have written themselves, I have been on the net scouring for information on the two legends. Now comes the interesting part. One online critic comes down heavily on RKN (most of the stuff was borrowed from Shashi Tharoor's article on the Malgudi Man) criticizing his language, his lack of interest in the socio-political graph of India and compares him to Gandhi (this time the source is VS Naipaul's article). And guess what? The picture that he has used is of Mulk Raj Anand. Reminds me of Ainie Khala's obit on Ismat Chugtai where she said that while talking about her demise Doordarshan showed the picture of her mother. At least the pictorial error was well within the family.

Now read this: http://librarykvpattom.wordpress.com/2008/02/07/ Please pay attention to what is marked in bold.

1. He wrote his first novel named ‘Room On The Roof’ when he was all of 17 years. The book made him win prestigious ‘John Llewellyn Rhys’ Prize that is awarded to British Commonwealth Writers who are under the age of 30. The book was primarily based in and around Himalayas and was successful in capturing its beauty and ethos in a manner that was never tried before. Its sequel named ‘Vagrants in the Valley’ followed it. Riding on the success of these two novels, Ruskin took the journey back home.

2. Another less known novel named ‘The Room on the Roof’ has been adapted in to a BBC produced TV series.

Room on the Roof has been described as a success for which he won a prestigious award in an earlier paragraph and a little later it is said to be a "lesser known novel".

3. His novel named ‘The Flight of Pigeons’ has been adapted into the acclaimed Merchant Ivory film Junoon.

Poor Shashi Kapoor and Shyam Benegal.