Wknd exclusive: Meet a visitor from Finland in a pandemic-era tale by Ruskin Bond

As 2020 draws to a close, we asked the iconic writer and storyteller to tell us about the worlds he created in his mind in this shut-in year. Take a look at the story he spun.

“If you laugh too much your head will fall off!” My ayah used to warn me when I was very small. As a result, I never throw my head too far back when I laugh – just in case.

The trouble with these masks we’ve had to wear over the past nine months is that they prevent us from knowing if someone is smiling or frowning or gnashing his teeth. When my former bank manager called on me, I made a joke about him looking like a bank robber, and he laughed so much that he almost swallowed his mask.

Laughter is on hold these days. Small businesses are struggling, or have ceased to struggle. Many have lost their jobs. Migrant workers and their families go hungry. Planes are grounded. Travel is at a standstill. Things will soon be better, we are told, and we carry on in hope and expectation.

As a writer I’ve been lucky. Never one for the social scene or the party circuit, I’ve been quite happy to stock up on all the books I’ve been wanting to read, and many that I’ll read again, and they make a pretty temple of literature on my sitting-room floor. I hunker down behind these loaves of print, happy to spend two or three hours in their company before emerging in order to spend some time at my own writing desk.

And do I write anything?

Publishers may be slowing down, but this impatient writer is speeding up. After all, he’s 86, and he’d like to squeeze in a few more tales, tall or short, before joining the Great Librarian in the sky.

Where do these stories come from? Dreams, sometimes. And I feel that I have been dreaming more than usual during this stay-at-home period. Vivid dreams, that stay with me for some time. So I record them in my Dream Book, and sometimes they turn into stories. Two of the stories written this year were based upon dreams. The others were the result of encounters with birds or animals. An owl has taken up residence in my attic, and he has tales to tell. So has the cricket who has taken shelter in the folds of my rubber plant. He starts chirping in the middle of the night. I don’t mind; it’s good to have a little company.

But I am not lonely. I have a large and caring family who fuss over me a great deal but who leave me alone when I want to be with my books and writing-pad and the solitude of my room, with its window looking out over the hills and valleys.

The window!

That’s what has kept me going all these months.

Everyone needs a window; nobody likes to feel shut in and for writer a window is essential, even if it looks out on a railway yard, a bus stop, or a busy street. It gives you a feeling of belonging to the rest of the world, even if it’s only a broken world.

My window opens on to the clouds and the sky, and sometimes the clouds drift into the room. I’m up at six, eager to watch the dawn break over the mountains. There it is, a deep pomegranate pink stretching across the horizon. Soon it fades, and there is an interval before the sun comes up. That’s the most wonderful moment of the day — the sun coming up in all its glory, actually bursting through my window and lighting up the entire room, so welcome on these winter mornings.

From my window I see the valley stretching out below, small rivers feeding the Ganga to my left, and others feeding the Yamuna to my right. This is the perfect watershed. It ought to have some significance. It does for me. It has sustained me for the last 50 years of my life, and perhaps it will sustain me for a few more sunrises.

There’s a knock on the door. A gentleman from Finland wishes to see me. He’s a publisher and wants some of my stories. As no one else is clamouring for them, I give him my recent dream stories and childhood memories. He writes out a cheque for a fat advance, collects the stories, puts them into a large bag, wishes me a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year and makes his departure with a “Ho, ho, ho!”

I look at the cheque. It’s signed S Claus. Well, we can dream, can’t we?

(Ruskin Bond is best known for books such as The Blue Umbrella and The Room on the Roof)