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Book Review: From Small Beginnings by Ruskin Bond

Uncle Ken inherits a home in the hills of Mussoorie for Rusty. Thus, Rusty still struggling as a writer goes there to check the home and liking it he settles down there. One morning he sees Prem Singh uphill spreading mattresses; upon recognizing him he recollects the old days when they were together for eight years, then Prem was an innocent sixteen-year-old hilly boy.


Prem’s tidy appearance and clean behavior sets him apart from the other working boys that impress Rusty; thus, he promises to find a job for him. Since Prem’s uncle was working in his house so he said that he cannot take him by firing his uncle. After a week or so when he happens to meet Prem, he is working for survey tents and soon to go to Rajasthan, a hot and unlikely place for the people from hills. But he is in great need of money. He needs it for marriage and is hopeful that his wife will support his family that consists of an ill mother and a younger brother.

In this story Ruskin Bond has tried to express the predicament of poor hilly men who for the sake of sustaining their family come out of their villages to work either in the popular hill stations like Mussoorie or got to plains and return as dark-complexioned men. Options for them are limited, lucky ones get recruited in the army while most of them engaged themselves in the domestic services. Prem could not get into the army since he has a deformity in his leg: he got that during a landslide.

Prem appears after a year or so, again hunting for a job. This time Rusty appoints him in a school as a cook. Headmaster’s wife likes his cooking as well as his clean behavior. But she fails to develop any sort of intimacy with him; as a result he is fired on some false accusations.

Other than Prem’s misery, Ruskin Bond also talks about the loneliness that fills the life of a writer. To support this he often throws references of the night’s silence in a hilly place, nocturnal sounds, howling of foxes and wolves; and chirping of the birds in the day and sunshine and so on.

Prem has been disappeared for longer time than Rusty had thought. According to his uncle’s words, Prem’s whereabouts are to be found in Lucknow. One summer Rusty goes to Lucknow for some work but he also tries to find him but to no avail. Soon his uncle leaving Rusty’s home goes down to work in Dehradun. Rusty lives alone and manages all his household chores by himself.

In November Rusty goes for a long walk through the Landour Bazaar and up the Tehri Road. It is dark by the time he returns to the outskirts of the town. A stranger was waiting for him on the road. When Rusty walks past him, he hears the following lines:

If I am not for myself,
Who will be for me?
And if I am not for others,
What am I?
And if not now, when?

Rusty startles with the memory of these words of Hillel, the ancient Hebrew sage. He walks back to the youth and found that it is Prem. Together they walk home in the bright moonlight.
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