I am perhaps the only Indian college student who cannot recall reading Ruskin Bond during school days. By reading, I mean books from curriculum and not novels. Since I have read only one novel in my whole school life, you can easily interpret that I wasn't much into reading back in those days. My teachers can testify this statement as well.
Anyway, three days back I found this book in a nook of a local library which I am a member of. I came back home and started reading it. The very name of the character, I realised was hidden somewhere in my memories. My rusted brains recalled the name Rusty, about whom I have heard a lot but never read any story. Finally i was reading one.
The Room on the Roof' starts with his usual cravng for adventures in the street of Dehradun, which consequently gets him caned from his guardian. Very soon he realises the futility of his life and runs away to his local friends Somi and Rajbir. From this point his actual adventure starts as he joins a job of a home tutor for a spoilt kid Kishen.
The beauty of the story lies in the similarities between Kishen and Rusty, there friendship and drooling for aloo-chaat. The story finally ends with a tragical twist and an obvious happy ending. Yet the book was really worth reading.
