Adolescence in Ruskin Bonds

The Room on the Roof

Ravi Jauhari

Ruskin Bonds major novels are about the adolescent. The first novel
The Room of the Roof is a novel by an adolescent about the adolescent.
In order to better analyse his novel, it is pertinent to understand the
nature and mind of the adolescent in the light of the findings of modern
psychologists. The term adolescent has a specific meaning in
psychology. It should not be confused with the word teenager,
although the periods of adolescence and teenage are almost the same.
Teenage is the period between thirteen and nineteen. When a boy or
girl enters the age of thirteen he or she is called a teenager and continues
to be called so till the age of nineteen. The period of adolescence covers
the years from thirteen to twenty and according to some psychologists
up to twenty-one. However the following chart made by Luella Cole
and Irma Nelson Hall is accepted by leading psychologists.1

Pre adolescence or late childhood 11-12 years (girls)

13-14 years (boys)
Early adolescence 12-14 years (girls)
15-16 years (boys)
Middle adolescence 15-17years (girls)
17-18 years (boys)
Late adolescence 18-20 years (girls)
19-20 years (boys)

Since adolescence is primarily the stage of development, psychologists

have specified the following areas:

1. Physical development
It consists of growth of tissue, muscle, bone and skeleton in totality.
Besides there is growth in strength and various skills and physical
development.
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2. Intellectual development
With the enlargement of the brain there is mental growth. The
adolescents begin to show their intellectual abilities and intellectual-
cultural interests.

3. Emotional development
Emotion is a response to some kind of stimulus. It is an experience that
affects an individuals vital processes, stimulating him to greater activity
than is normal. Emotional growth of an adolescent leads him to act
with greater drive. His self emerges and he begins to assert his
independence and thus there is the development of a personality.

4. Social development
The seeds of social development are sown in the family and the primary
school. But at a later stage, extracurricular activities lead the adolescent
to have contact with people of all age groups. It is at this stage that
boys and girls develop friendship and choose their future career.

5. Moral development
Children do not take religion seriously nor are they sufficiently
conscious of the feelings of others. In adolescence, young boys and
girls begin to think about religion seriously, the dos and donts of
society and ethical principles. They accept community influences,
sometimes without question and sometimes with a grain of salt.
It is at this stage that adolescents think about their goals in life.
According to Cole and Hall the main goals of adolescents are:
(a) Control of emotion by reason
(b) Social adjustment
(c) Independent adulthood
(d) Financial independence
(e) Choosing a career
While pursuing his/her goals, the adolescent faces a number of
problems. It is the responsibility of society to help the adolescent achieve
his/her goals and be a responsible citizen of his/her country.
We shall study Bonds novel in the light of the findings of eminent
psychologists and examine how far he has been able to depict the
emotional, moral and social development of his main characters.
If we look at the characters of Ruskin Bond, all the important
characters such as Rusty, Somi, Ranbir, Kishan, and Suri are in their
 ADOLESCENCE IN RUSKIN BONDS 59

early adolescence. Bond has chosen the young boys as the main
characters in the novel. The reason is obvious. A boy of seventeen
could not but write about him and his comrades. The novel is
autobiographical, hence true and sincere. While writing it Bond had
no need to read a book on adolescent psychology. All that he wrote is
largely a part of his own experience. Some of the characters have the
same name they had in actual life. Rusty is Ruskin and Somi is Somi.
Some critics may comment that it is not fiction; it is a life history. But
we have to remember that it is a novel by a seventeen year old boy,
still an apprentice.
Coming to the novel, Bond has put so much in it that we are
surprised by its wealth. Let us look at the characters. They are Rusty,
Ranbir, Somi, Kishen and his mother. Bond writes in his memoirs:
After Miss Kellner died there werent many old people to talk to (not for some
time anyway), because I suddenly acquired a number of young friends. There
was Ranbir and his super sister Raj; there was Bhim, already making little
business deals; and there were other families in the mohalla, such as the Lals
(who became the Kapoors in The Room on the Roof) and the Sikh boys Haripal,
Dipi, Somi and Chotu....2
The room is an actual room. Bond gives a detailed description in
his journals of the room and how he lived there. He says, I feel like a
monarch. (p. 583)
The novel is autobiographical, not a biography. Rusty is Ruskin to
a large extent but not his complete self. The imagined world of The
Room on the Roof is built on the world of Ruskin, the adolescent and
therefore we should analyse it as a novel, not a life-story. Ruskin Bond
has mixed facts and fiction, as his main aim is to present the emotional
life of the adolescent.3
It is the story of Rusty, a parentless Anglo-Indian boy in his teenage.
His guardian, Mr. John Harrison, is a strict Victorian guardian. Typically
imperialist in nature and having the pride of the white race superiority
over the Indians, he does not want Rusty to mix with them. But Rusty,
an adolescent that he is, wants to widen his horizon. An adolescent can
never remain confined to the precincts of a bungalow; he must go
beyond it and encounter the world outside. This also happens with
Rusty. He goes out and meets the Indian people. Being still innocent,
not coloured by the white mans prejudices, he makes other adolescents
his friends. Though the first encounter is unpleasant (Somi on his bicycle
collides with him while eschewing Maharani the ferocious cow) but
soon develops into friendship and he is invited to take chaat in the
bazaar. He takes it and returns home late. Later on he becomes a regular
visitor.
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The festival of Holi comes. Rustys friend Ranbir invites him to

play Holi when he is relishing chaat in the shop.
Rusty was enjoying the chaat. He ate gol-guppa after gol-guppa,
until his throat was almost aflame and his stomach burning itself out.
He was not very concerned about Holi. He was content with the present,
content to enjoy the new-found pleasures of the chaat shop, and said:
well, Ill see ........if my guardian doesnt come back tomorrow, Ill
play Holi with you, all right? (p. 561)
Rusty goes to play holi with his friends. Had he known the UP
style of holi, he would not have gone. The treatment he receives there
is almost like ragging in a college in a civilized way. He is thoroughly
soaked with coloured water and his whole body is smeared with different
colours.
Gently, they rubbed dust on the boys cheeks, and embraced him;
they were like many flaming demons that Rusty could not distinguish
between this gentle greeting coming so soon after the stormy bicycle
pump attack, bewildered Rusty even more.
Ranbir said: Now you are one of us, come; and Rusty went with
him and the others. (p. 568)
This experience of unlimited joy of playing holi changes the whole
course of Rustys life. He feels for the first time, the pleasure of
independence. Up till now he had been shackled by the discipline of
his guardian, Mr. Harrison.
He was exhausted now, but he was happy. He wanted this to go
for ever, this day of feverish emotion, this life in another world. ...He
did not want to go home. (p. 569)
This mingling of Rusty with the Indian boys can be interpreted in
many ways. We all agree with Meena Khuranas interpretation.
Set in 1950, The Room on the Roof is a coming of age novel that
explores the typically adolescent concern of identity formation,
alienation, rebellion against adult restrictions, personal autonomy,
emerging sexuality, choosing a career and financial independence.4
Khurana is right in saying that Rusty is in search of an identity. In
support of her argument she quotes the famous psychologists Judith
R. Harris and Robert M. Lie Bert:
Adolescence is the transitional period from the dependency of
childhood to the independence and responsibility of being an adult. At
this point in their lives, young people struggle with two fundamental
problems: to redefine their relationship with parents and other adults
and to establish themselves as individiuals.5
But Harris and Lie Bert are American psychologists and their
observation may not be true in the Indian context. Why does the author
 ADOLESCENCE IN RUSKIN BONDS 61

choose Holi? The answer is that Holi is a festival when all barriers are
brokencaste, religion, region and class. People mix freely. They all
become alike when smeared with colour. There are neither white people
nor black people. They are all coloured. Right from the beginning of
his life Ruskin Bond loved Indiaher mountains, rivers, forests and
the sunny climate.
Harrisons racist attitude was a great barrier for the growing boy.
There are two worlds: the Civil Lines and the bazaar, the first is inhabited
by the former rulers and the second by the native Indians. The bazaar
is a prohibited place for the Anglo-Indians. Rusty is warned by his
guardian of the consequences of mixing with the Indians, especially
the people in the bazaar. But adolescents always want to break barriers.
They have keen curiosity to see the unknown, experience things that
are novel. Rusty, in his teens, is free from racial prejudices. He does
not know why he should remain cut off from the people who inhabit
the same land he himself is a part of. Holi is a festival when people
forget their caste and class. Colour is thrown on everybody. Everybody
is equal on this day. Rustys playing Holi is symbolical. It breaks the
racial barrier. Now he is an Indian.
This mixing with the people of the bazaar leads him to love India
and Indian people. Somi, Ranbir, Kishen, Chotu, Harpal and other
youngsters carve a permanent niche in his mind and heart.This Holi
festival releases him from the bondage of Mr. Harrison. Rusty finds his
own self. On his return he finds his guardian terribly angry. He is badly
beaten for his escapade.
Rusty stared fascinated at the deep yellow nicotine stains on the
fingers of his guardians hand. Then the wrist moved suddenly and the
cane cut across the boys face like a knife, stabbing and burning into
his cheek.
Rusty cried and cowered against the wall; Rustys guardian could
feel the blood tricking across his mouth. He looked around desperately
for a means of escape, but the man was in front of him, over him, and
the wall was behind him. (p. 571)
Not satisfied with inflicting physical pain, he begins to insult him
by means of words. The boy listens to him silently in the beginning but
soon bursts into anger. He pulls Harrisons legs. Harrison falls down.
Then he strikes him in the face with a vase. The target is missed but the
water and flower cover his face and he is hit. Not content with this,
Rusty holds his collar and slaps his face on both sides. Harrison is
injured badly.
This incident, which follows the Holi festival, is a sequel of the
former. Rusty mixes with the Indian people and with their help can
62 SHSS NO. 2, 2007 SPECIAL ISSUE

break away from the dying Anglo-Indian society and live independently.
The beating of Harrison gives him the confidence that he can act
independently.
Mad with the pain in his own face, Rusty hit the man again and
again, wildly and awkwardly, but with the giddy thrill of knowing he
could do it; he was a child no longer, he was nearly seventeen, he was
a man. He could inflict pain, that was a wonderful discovery; there was
a power in his bodya devil or a godand he gained confidence in
his power; and he was a man! (p. 572)
Thus Rustys departure from Harrisons house can be interpreted
on two levels; the leaving of the emaciated Anglo- Indian society for
the healthier Indian society and the departure from the stage of
helplessness of a small boy to the stage of strong and energetic
manhood.
Rustys new world is free from the oppression of the colonial world;
it is a world of freedom, of untrammelled joy and trustful camaraderie.
This is where adolescents can develop their faculties in the desired
way. The people he meets are all simple and sympathetic. Rusty, as
said earlier, is partly Bond himself. It was the love of Dehraduns people
that brought him back from England and he decided to live in India for
ever and write about the people here. The sunny atmosphere gives
vigour and energy to Rusty. He revives his true spirit.
Leaving his guardians house, Rusty moves in the street of the
bazaar for a shelter. He sees a house with light. He goes upstairs where
he is received well. The woman in the room considers him to be a
customer. Her amorous advances trouble him and he leaves the place
and sleeps in the open uncomfortably. Next day, it is Somi who takes
him home. There he meets his family. After bath and meal, he discusses
the future plans. Somi has a mother and two sisters. Though a Sikh by
religion, he considers Rusty to be a member of his family and no one
looks at him as a stranger. The plan is chalked out. Rusty will teach
Kishen, the son of Mr. Kapoor, a well-off person in the area. Rusty is
diffident about his ability as a teacher of English.
Rusty felt very sceptical about the proposal; he was not sure he
could teach English or anything else to the wilful son of a rich man.
But he was not in a position to pick and choose. Somi mounted his
bicycle and rode off to see Mr. Kapoor to secure for Rusty the post of
Professor of English. When he returned, he seemed pleased with
himself, and Rustys heart sank with the knowledge that he had to go.
(p. 582)
Rusty goes to Kapoors house. Mr. Kapoor, in his own words, .....
was a nice Big Man himself, and every one knew this; but he had
 ADOLESCENCE IN RUSKIN BONDS 63

fallen from the heights; and until he gave up the bottle, was not likely
to reach them again. Everyone felt sorry for his wife, including
herself.(p. 583)
He is introduced to Meena, Kapoors wife and his pupils mother,
Rusty describes her: Meena, Kapoors wife ..... was a capable person,
still young, charming hostess; and in her red sari and white silk jacket,
her hair plaited and scented with Jasmine, she looked beautiful. (p.
584)
The first meeting is rather dry, mechanical and business like. Meena
Kapoor introduces her son Kishen, tells him the terms and conditions
of tuition and shows the room on the roof where he was to live. The
room is not at all attractive. The author describes it: It was a small
room, but this did not matter much as there was very little in it: only a
string bed, a table, a shelf and a few nails in the wall. In comparison to
Rustys room in his guardians house, it wasnt even a room: it was
four walls, a door and a window. (p. 596) But the room makes Rusty
happy. When Meena says that she will change the room if he did not
like it, he replies: But I like it. This is the room I want to live in. And
do you know why, Meena? Because it isnt a real room, thats why!
(p. 596)
The room, though very ordinary, is Rustys citadel. The first reason
for liking it is Meena Kapoor. An adolescent, he, has fallen in love
with her. It is very difficult for us to explain why he falls in love with
an elderly lady. As a rule, he should have been in love with a girl of his
own age or slightly elder. It is equally enigmatic that Meena responds
to his love. Strange are the ways of love. But the second reason for his
liking the room is that he has got freedom from his guardian. The room
is his own and like Shelley, he surveys everything with the pride of a
monarch. The room is a symbol of the adolescents ideal worldgood
company of friends and love of a beautiful woman. Its symbolic
meaning is revealed slowly and convincingly.
Rusty begins a new life in Kapoors house; it is a life of fun and
frolic and, later on of growing up. His task is to teach Kishen, who is
full of mischief and who does not consider Rusty to be his teacher or,
at least, does not have the image that most children have in their mind
of a teacher. For him, Rusty is a friend.
Although Rusty is still a boy in the eyes of Somi, Kishen, Chotu
and Haripal, he, in fact, has grown up physically and mentally. This
growth of an adolescent can be easily seen in the relationship between
Meena and Rusty. Married in her early teens, Meenas husband was
twenty years older than her. In other words, when she was thirteen, her
husband was thirty three, the age of her uncle, if not her father. The
64 SHSS NO. 2, 2007 SPECIAL ISSUE

future events mingled with her husbands indifference and indolence,

induce her to lean towards the young English boy of sixteen or
seventeen. An adolescent is hungry for everythingfood, company,
love, sex, adventure, play and reading. Meenas beauty attracts him
strongly.
Mr. Kapoor decides to have a picnic. The summer season was
approaching. The litchis were almost ready to eat and the mangoes
had ripened. Kishen liked mangoes very much. In the afternoons, the
rays of the sun stole through the branches and leaves of the big Banyan
trees and made a pattern of light and shade on the ground and Kapoors
house walls. The birds knew and so they twittered and chirped in the
morning and a lot of noise in the evening when they came home to the
tree. In this lusty season, the picnic was arranged.
During the picnic, Rusty and Meena walked into the thicket. Rusty
expressed his love to Meena by holding her hand tightly and kissing
her as well. It was a clumsy and awkward kiss but fiercely passionate
and Meena responded, tightening the embrace, returning the fervour
of the kiss. They stood together in the shadows. Rusty intoxicated
with beauty and sweetness, Meena with freedom and the comfort of
being loved.
This puppy love does not continue for a long time. Meena is killed
in a car accident. Kapoor gets an appointment at Delhi. He takes his
old car. Meena accompanies him and leaves Kishen in Rustys custody.
But she never reaches Delhi. She is killed in the car accident. Meenas
premature death in the car accident is a turning point in the life of
Rusty and Kishen. It creates a wide chasm between the lovely past and
the ugly present. The stern reality of Meena Kapoors death changes
Rusty in a moment; he becomes an adult at once, a guardian to advise
Kishan, a child. The situation is aggravated by the indifferent attitude
of Kishens father; he shirks his responsibility. The first three pages of
chapter sixteen aptly describe the mental condition of the adolescent
and the child. Kishen wanders here and there the whole day and Rusty
waits anxiously for him till the evening sets in and stars begin to shine
in the sky. He sees the silhouette of Kishen and asks him where he
was. Kishen tells him the truth. Rusty is more grieved.
Kishen slept. He was exhaustedhe had been walking all evening,
crying his heart out. Rusty laid awake his eyes wide open, brimming
with tears. He did not know if the tears were for himself or for Meena
or for Kishen, but they were for some one.
Next morning a tonga comes to take Kishen to his aunt as instructed
by his father. As Rusty himself is without support, he cannot retain
him. The tonga takes Kishen away. The separation is the cutting of the
 ADOLESCENCE IN RUSKIN BONDS 65

bond between Rusty and Kishen. For adults, it is the routine of the
world but for the nascent and sensitive mind of the adolescent it is the
parting of the body into two. Even the presence of Kishens aunt fails
to give him any kind of solace that Kishen is now in protective hands.
Rusty decides to leave Dehradun to go to Delhi and then to London.
On his way to Delhi, he stops at Hardwar to meet Kishen. He meets
Mr. Kapoor who is a changed man and has married again. Through
Mr. Kapoor, he comes to know that Kishen has run away and become
a thief. He take great pains to find Kishen and in the process, loses his
clothes while taking bath in the Ganga. He persuades Kishen to leave
this profession and takes him back to Dehradun.
The mention of Dehradun indicates that Kishen wants to leave
Hardwar and give up the profession of stealing and robbing. Further, it
also indicates that he wants to be in the company of Rusty. Rusty asks
him what they will do at Dehra.
Oh, we will find someone for you to give English lessons. Not
one, but many. And I will start a chaat shop. (p. 656)
Hearing these words of Kishen, Rusty forgets everything- England,
fame and riches and asks, When do we go? Kishens reply is quicker.
He says that they will leave Hardwar the next day.
The story of the novel practically ends here. The next chapter
narrates their journey in the boat that takes them to the other side of the
river.
The novel as we see it is simple in narration and very much oral in
technique. The development of the story is in chronological order.
There is little flashback and most of the characters excepting Meena
Kapoor and Kishen are typecast; They remain the same throughout
whether Mr. Harrison or Somi or Ranbir or Suri or Mr. Kapoor.
But behind this simplicity of plot and narration there is the complex
world of the adolescent, symbolized by The Room on the Roof. The
period of adolescence as discussed earlier is the most crucial in mans
life. Ruskin Bond writes in Scenes from a Writers Life:
......... these [years] are not years of great achievement, they are the formative
years, and the most emotional, impressionable, vulnerable years. There are
struggles, setbacks, failures, but hope and optimism have not been blighted,
and the cynicism of middle age is yet far distant.6
The plot of the novel is concerned with Rusty and his friends, all
between ten and sixteen. They are carefree adolescents, free from the
restraints of the adult world and are on the verge of the world of
experience. Rusty is a complex character. Born in India of a middle
class Britisher, he loses his parents during early childhood. He is under
66 SHSS NO. 2, 2007 SPECIAL ISSUE

the guardianship of Mr. Harrison who has inherited all the colonial
ideas. The author makes a contrast between Civil Lines, inhabited by
the whites and the bazaar owned by the common people. The adolescent
Rusty does not know the reason why he is prohibited by his guardian
from going to the bazaar. For Harrison, it is not proper for a British to
mix with the common Indian people. But for Rusty, the world of the
Civil Lines is a kind of jail where Harrison is the jailor and he must
obtain freedom from him and this he does by going to the bazaar and
eating samosa and golguppa at the chaat shop with Harpal, Somi and
Ranbir. Unable to bear the tyranny of Harrison, he leaves his house
and goes to Somi for shelter and enters a new free world. This new
world is symbolized by the room on the roof, an ordinary place, not
comfortable, but built by Meena Kapoor, and renovated by Somi, Chotu
and Kishen, a world where he is independent of his guardians sickening
influence and where he can dream of his future of becoming a writer
of eminence.
His friends encourage him, without knowing the hard path of a
successful writer. But this happy room cannot remain happy if its people
leave it. It happens. Ranbir and Suri go away from Dehra. Meena
Kapoor dies, Somi and Chotu go to Amritsar for a long period and
Kishen is sent to his aunt. The room is inhabited by lonely Rusty. He
decides to go to London.
But when he meets Kishen again and Kishen asks him to return to
Dehradun, he forgets his previous decision of going to England. Once
his people are with him, he goes back to his world of freedomthe
room. Towards the end of the novel, when Rusty and Kishen have
crossed the river and entered the forest, Rusty remembers the forest of
the day of the picnic, when he had kissed Meena and held her hand
and felt the magic of the forest and the magic of Meena. He
unconsciously says, One day we must live in the jungle, (p. 660) to
which Kishen replies with a happy laugh, One day. But now we walk
back. We walk back to the room on the roof! It is our room, we have to
go back. (p. 660)
This is the world of the adolescent, a world of untrammelled
freedom when they dream of the future and make preparations for
adult life.

NOTES
1. Luella Cole and Irma Helen Hall (1966), Psychology of Adolescence, New York: Holt
Dinechart & Winston Inc.
2. Ruskin Bond (1997), Scenes from a Writers Life, Delhi: Penguin Books, p. 4
 ADOLESCENCE IN RUSKIN BONDS 67

3. Ruskin Bond (1987), Collected Fiction, The Room on the Roof, New York: Penguin
Books, p. 583
4. Meena G. Khurana (1975), The Search for an Identity: Journey as Metaphor in The
Room on The Roof in The Creative Contours of Ruskin Bond, P.K. Singh (ed.), Delhi:
Pencraft Publications. p.72.
5. Ibid., p. 73.
6. Ruskin Bond (1997), Scenes from a Writers Life, Delhi: Penguin Books, p. 90.