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Till the Clouds Roll By
A couple of years after his father's death, ten-year-old Ruskin travels to Dehradun to spend his holidays with his new family. As he reacquaints himself with his mother, now remarried and with a busy social life, his stepfather and new siblings, a pensive Ruskin longs for his father's company, his stamp collection and the old gramophone. Trying to escape this unfamiliar place, he immerses himself in books and explores the forest glades, canals and bazaars of the little town, forming some unlikely friendships on the way. After the much-loved Looking for the Rainbow, the master storyteller lends another backward glance at his boyhood years-a vacation that took place over seventy winters ago-remembering his days with rare humour, remarkable charm and twinges of heartache.
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The Chakrata Cat
As the light came on, I saw the cat standing at the foot of the bed, tail erect and hair on end. It was very angry. And then…its appearance changed and its head was that of a human—a woman, black-browed with flaring nostrils and large crooked ears, her lips full and drenched with blood—my blood!This is a collection of some of Ruskin Bond’s most pithy short stories ranging from eerie suspense to touching empathy. There’s a bloodthirsty cat in a colonial rest house; an uncle who carries a vial of deadly arsenic with him; a mysterious woman whose seven husbands have disappeared one after another; and the touching tales of animals in the wilderness and their lonely struggle for survival against humans.Captivating and addictive, The Chakrata Cat will keep you enthralled till the end.