INFLUENCE OF THE HIMALAYN HILLS ON HUMAN BEHAVIOUR: A CRITICAL STUDY OF SELECT SHORT STORIES OF RUSKIN BOND

Ruskin Bond is a prominent Indian writer of English who has always preferred to live by hills as he has a special fascination for hills. Whether it is nature, people, places, or animals, he is keenly observant of all forms of life and activities in the hills. As he mentions his preference for hills in ‘The Leopard', I had lived in cities too long and had returned to the hills to renew myself, both physically and mentally. Once you have lived with mountains for any length of time you belong to them, and must return again and again. (147-48) Bond is such a writer who prefers solitude of hills that is suitable to his profession, rather than social life of big cities. The company of hills and his writing is enough for him. He can write almost everywhere and he chooses hills for the purpose of living rather as affable place for writing. He expresses this feeling in ‘The story of Madhu' as, I preferred the solitude of the small district town to the kind of social life I might have found in the cities; and in my books, my writing and the surrounding hills, there was enough for my pleasure and occupation. (99) The current research paper aims at exploring critically how Bond has delineated in his short stories the influence of Himalayan hills on human behavior and how hills transform human beings.