Friends of my Youth

“I needed a friend, but it was not easy to find one among a horde of rowdy, pea-shooting fourth formers who carved their names on desks and stuck chewing gum on the class teacher’s chair. Had I grown up with other children, I might have developed a taste for schoolboy anarchy; but in sharing my father’s loneliness after his separation from my mother, I had turned into a premature adult.”

There is no telling where friendships begin or how they take shape. Friends of My Youth is a collection of short stories by Ruskin Bond that explores how small, seemingly insignificant moments in life can lead us to meaningful companionship.

These stories capture the quiet, often unexpected ways in which friendships are formed―how, at times unknowingly, we find people who ease our loneliness or become partners in our small adventures. Told with characteristic simplicity and warmth, the tales offer a charming and nostalgic reflection on the friendships of early life.

Ruskin Bond is known for his signature simplistic and witty writing style. He is the author of several bestselling short stories, novellas, collections, essays and children’ s books; and has contributed a number of poems and articles to various magazines and anthologies. At the age of 23, he won the prestigious John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for his first novel, The Room on the Roof. He was also the recipient of the Padma Shri in 1999, Lifetime Achievement Award by the Delhi Government in 2012 and the Padma Bhushan in 2014. Born in 1934, Ruskin Bond grew up in Jamnagar, Shimla, New Delhi and Dehradun. Apart from three years in the UK, he has spent all his life in India, and now lives in Landour, Mussoorie, with his adopted family.