A Challenge to Stereotypes and Biases of Society in Select Short Stories of Ruskin Bond

The present paper mainly focuses on Ruskin Bond's two short stories, “The Woman on Platform 8” and “The Night Train at Deoli,” from the perspective of stereotypes and biases found in society and how the characters oppose or challenge them. Both short stories, with the railway stations as their settings, are from the same collection of the writer entitled The Night Train at Deoli and Other Stories (1988). It is a qualitative study of Ruskin Bond's these two selected short stories. Here the researcher attempts to textually analyze them and see how the main characters challenge stereotypes and biases of society. A study of these short stories clarifies that major characters are against the social stereotypes and biases. The middle-aged woman in the first short story “The Woman on Platform 8” strongly contradicts people's belief that strangers on the railway stations are always harmful for them. In the same way, Arun also dislikes the suggestion of his friend's mother to not talk with those people who are strange or unknown. Moreover, the eighteen-year-old college student not only behaves kindly and politely with the poor basket seller girl at Deoli Railway station in the short story “The Night Train at Deoli,” but also falls in love despite her low social status, which is usually unacceptable in Indian society.