Bond's world is the world of the poor and the middle class people. They are ordinary, simple, educated and uneducated men and women like house servants, shopkeepers, schoolboys, thieves, gardeners, beggars, wrestlers, schoolteachers, farmers, soldiers, drivers and so on. Bond's stories are peopled with big and small men and women. He is a master creator of characters and he has left behind a whole galaxy of characters. Ruskin Bond's great strength lies in his art of characterization. This paper proposes to study three representative short stories Most Beautiful, A Job Well Done and Home of Ruskin Bond to explore his vision of childhood within the framework of Maslow’s theory of hierarchical needs to explore how the dynamics of these needs impacts the personality of these characters Key words: Ruskin Bond, Child psychology, Theory of needs, Trauma His short stories amply reveal the fissures in this relationship which are detrimental to a child psychology. In his oeuvre he has taken up all aspects of parent-child relationship to argue for a flawless childhood for a harmonious individual. Ruskin Bond is an interpreter of human minds.
Any gap in this psychological bond between the parent and the child leads to an aberration of child’s personality and character. His psychological and physical dependence owes to one’s needs which can be fulfilled most reliably by the parents’ only.
A child is most closely attached to one’s parents emotionally and physiologically. Bond goes deep and deeper into the hidden and mysterious world of children to understand their peculiar sensibilityĪbstract: The personality of human beings is not only defined by the physical environment in which an individual is born and brought up, but, to a major extent it is determined by the psychological experientiality of one’s childhood. They are created with an awareness of self. The children are not treated as the ‘other’ but as matured and wiser. Ignoring the popular didactic mode of writing, he pays attention to the psychological and emotional needs of children. His exceptional knowledge of children and his own childhood helps him in authenticating his writing for children.
He weaves the fabric of his children’s world thread by thread, using his engrossing and evocative narrative technique, with the sole purpose to enthrall his young readers. He delineates his child protagonists with the deftness of a psychologist and mesmerizing story telling techniques. Bond has conjured up magical literary landscape where inquisitive, energetic and precocious children have an important role to play. He is crowned as the pioneer of modern children’s literature in India. Ruskin Bond secures an outstanding and a unique place among the array of children’s writers.
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