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Book Review: Bhabhiji’s House by Ruskin Bond

Bhabhji’s House is a short story by Ruskin Bond featured in the book ‘Rusty Comes Home’.  The story is set against the newly settling Delhi of 1950s post-independence, and focuses on the values and the chores that take place on a daily basis in a traditional joint family. Rusty is more of like a wanderer; he has no permanent place to live in Delhi; thus, one day he walks down from Connaught Place to Rajauri Garden, covering around eight miles, and reaches the home of his friend, Kamal. He begins living there with him, in his big home, and the family that live there is huge.


Through the story one point has been made clear that no one can live smoothly in a joint family where cots are snatched away at the crack of the day to place in the garden only to be re-laid at dusk; a number of children wailing and prancing around toughens the concentration on anything the person is doing, and above all women will never obey the senior lady and the senior lady will never cease to lament their loathsome and incapability. And it is the men who find it tough to support women, whether to go for wife or mother. A similar kind of commotion is featured in this story of a Punjabi family and Ruskin has captured the subtlest details and pretexts like an expert.

The grandmother, also known as the Bhabhiji, is the head of the family. She has three sons, a few daughters, and daughter-in-laws, and of course a dozen of children living pell-mell. No matter how hard and dedicatedly try the daughter-in-laws of the house to get up to prepare breakfast for their men but they are never before Bhabhiji. For this reason, she lampoons all of them and all the major decisions of the house are not passed until she consented.

Amidst such ruckus, Shobha – one of the daughter-in laws - finds it tough to cope up with the old lady and her husband cannot support her openly since he fears his mother. Thus, she finds some solace in interacting with Rusty who often carries out small favours for the couple.

Well, Rusty’s favourite person in the house is Madhu. She goes to school in the afternoon and performs all chores of the house silently without holding any grudges against any one. Bhabhiji resents the selection of the brides for his two married sons but she is determined to find a perfect bride for her youngest son, Kamal. For him she needs an educated as well as beautiful bride. The story underlines the unity of the family and the lineage of having joint family, a tradition that lasted for centuries in India but today it is on the verge of extinction because of urbanization and the need to have comfort and privacy in personal life.
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