The Room on the Roof (Rusty #1)

Hriday

Rating: really liked it
A fantastic book. Dehra - its hills, bazaars, street vendors, lakes and all the simple charms of a small town.

The best i have read of Ruskin Bond. It makes you rethink about your life, slow down and value the simple pleasures of life.

This book is simply profound and profoundly simple - one of the best i have read.

I wish i was Rusty, the protagonist :D

Apoorva

Rating: really liked it
“The Room on the Roof” is the coming-of-age story centered on a lonely, orphaned Anglo-Indian boy Rusty. At 17, he is living with his strict guardian on the outskirts of the town Dehra with the members of the British community. He is not allowed to travel outside and have any contact with the Indians living in the town.

One incident provokes him to rebel against the authority and venture into the mysterious town forbidden to him. The book describes his struggles to live on his own, his budding friendships, and the pain of falling in love for the first time.

The story deals with the themes of isolation, loneliness, identity crisis. It beautifully captures the joys and woes of a young heart searching for happiness and purpose in his life while being apprehensive about the future.

The book has charming descriptions of the natural beauty and also the exhilarating bustle of the city teeming with diverse people. It warms your heart and makes you nostalgic about your younger years. I enjoyed the book. I highly recommend it if you want to read a good coming of age story.

Reading_ Tamishly

Rating: really liked it
If I had written something like this when I was 17..... (my mind stopped working)

But yes, this book needs a proper review.

Coming soon...

Avani ✨

Rating: really liked it
WOW.
He wrote this when he was just 17 years old?

Brilliantly written.

Jarvis

Rating: really liked it
4 Stars Full Of Freedom!!!


This book is about Rusty who runs away from his guardian house to live with his Indian friends. His guardian hates Indian, considers them to be inferior but Rusty found true love and friendship with his friends.

This book shows a lot of different aspects of villages in India. From the described natural beauty of Dehra to those hospitable families, everything is shown so well! So part were funny when Rusty was with his friends and some parts where emotional (view spoiler)[like when Meena died and Mr. Kapoor married again. (hide spoiler)]

A great book , overall. Loved that feeling of freedom which is shown, hence 4 stars full of freedom :D
Thanks for the recommendation, Arpit :)

Archit

Rating: really liked it
Friendship. Love. Innocence.

Ruskin Bond at his best. The writing is fluent, mature and memorable. Such tenderness.

Prabhjot Kaur

Rating: really liked it
The Room on the Roof was written by Ruskin Bond when he was 17 and no wonder it struck such a chord with me when I read this as it beautifully captures the struggles of a young adult.

It is about an Anglo-Indian boy, Rusty who is not allowed to get in contact with other Indians and lives in a house with a guardian. Then one day Rusty runs away from his guardian house.

This is such a good story about finding your identity, your place and how to overcome loneliness and find happiness in the community and in life.

5 stars

Zoeb

Rating: really liked it
At the tender, still naive age of 13, I fell in love for the first time.

It was a year to remember. I remember seeing her, who would soon be the woman of my dreams, for the first time as I would always see her and come to love her - her beauty blossoming and blooming and filling my young heart with the promise of a happy life shared together with her.

It was also the year, when I read Ruskin Bond's "The Room On The Roof", a novel that, no matter whatever other great novels I have read and loved and admired, will always hold a special place in my heart.

As it happens, just as "The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer", "Billy Liar", "The Catcher In The Rye", "The Little Prince", "To Kill A Mockingbird", "Little Women" can be deemed as books that every young one should read, when just on the brink of coming of age and realising adolescence and adulthood with all its shades, for me, the book that really helped me navigate the newfound confusion of adolescence was this book, this simple, bittersweet, tragicomic, mesmerising and moving story about a boy escaping the strict discipline of his guardian and blending, dissolving and disappearing into the haze of freedom and frolic in post-colonial India.

Yes, there is something admirably Kipling-esque about this magical book, not least because Bond himself was largely influenced by Kipling, but also because, as in "Kim", "The Jungle Books" and "Captains Courageous", this is a story, at heart, about a boy abandoning his identity to discover a new self that he had never known to exist.

A new self...a new person, no longer a child, no more a boy to be put down upon by stifling social norms, an outcast, an English boy now surrendering gleefully to his primal yearning for the heat and dust, the colour and chaos of India. Isn't that a beautiful story?

Except that Bond surprises, amuses, moves and even saddens us by taking that moment of realisation into a beautifully woven narrative with endearingly believable characters, most of whom turn out to be this boy's new-found friends, from the wise and upbeat Somi to the devilish yet cowardly Suri, from the toughly built but warm Ranbir to the scrappy, reckless Kishen. These are all even more fascinating as characters because they will remind anybody of the friends that one had at this age.

Yes, a story of friendship, frolic, adventures, inevitable separation, the equally heart-breaking solitude that follows this separation, that aimless, drifting restlessness akin to the lonely, inconsequential trails of a pariah in the streets...but also a story of first love, love born from the first stolen glimpse, sealed by a stolen moment of intimacy and shattered like a dream too good to believe.

Reading_ Tamishly

Rating: really liked it
🌼 "...what is this one life in the whole pattern of life, what is this one death but a passing of time... And if I were to die now, suddenly and without cause, what would happen, would it matter...we live without knowing why or to what purpose."

🧡 "Madness and freedom and violence were new to him: loneliness was familiar, something he understood."

"He had seen and experienced life to the full, and life has bruised and scarred him but it had not crippled him."

"Not because I am unhappy - I have never been happier elsewhere - but because I am restless as I always have been. I don't suppose I'll anywhere be for long..."

"

This book broke my heart again yet it is one of the best coming of age stories. Part autobiographical, part fictional. I am so glad I reread the book after two years of reading it for the first time.

This book is so easy to read, so easy to remember everything, so easy for it to get to my heart and mind, so easy for it to make me wonder about my life all over again while going through its various lines which make me ask myself for whom I am living for.

The writing is flawless. One of the best books I have read till date. The characters are developed so well.

The book displays perfectly the pangs of first love, the joy of having a trusted friend out of nowhere, the bond of found families. Everything about this book is perfection for me.

And yes, the author wrote it when he was seventeen. Bless that one woman who believed in this book and finally let the book published after years of facing rejections.

Gorab

Rating: really liked it
3.5/5
My first Ruskin Bond book and I'm surely going to read more by him. Coming of age simple narration (semi-biographical) by an Anglo-Indian. Loved the stress on friendship and individuality.
Thanks for the reco Arpit.

Sherin Punnilath

Rating: really liked it
Coming to think about it, there was nothing much about the story :)
This could have happened in the next street (& gone unnoticed). And that’s the beauty of this novella.

I began, thinking it’s going to be boring, but found it quite interesting. Simple & Good.

Tusharika

Rating: really liked it
Unwavering 5 Stars to any Ruskin Bond book

Ruskin Bond's books and writings are little bundles of joys that you just can't help going back to. His writing is like a breath of fresh air. You cannot get enough of it.His description of the surroundings transport you to the the hilly regions,lush green forests,scent of flowers.It is like walking "The light spring rain rode on the wind, into the trees, down the road" bringing an exhilarating freshness to the air.Even when I had never been to Mussoorie or Dehra, I used to imagine being at those places, walking the hills like Rusty did.

This is a coming-of-age story of Rusty, a lonely anglo-indian boy,about friendship,love,innocence and growing up in the hills as he discovers life after stepping out of his cocoon.The story is inspired by Ruskin Bond's own adventures and much of its content is autobiographical.He weaves a charming tale with beautiful description of the lively bazaar.

I got a chance to meet him a few years back and got this book's copy autographed because it holds a special place in my heart. It was my first book by Ruskin Bond,my first novel/novella sort of, and it turned out to be the writer's first book too. He wrote it when he was 17.(I think I read it for the first time when I was 12 or 13). His writing mirrors his simplicity and humbleness. Despite being such an amazing and well recognized writer, he chooses to stay in a cute little cottage in the hills,writing stories about people from the hills and places nearby. He visits a bookstore nearby to meet his fans and autograph his books.

I am a fangirl,through and through.

Kakashi Hatake

Rating: really liked it
For my friends :
"when we met for the first time,it was a sunny day .
the heaven smiling and spreading the warmth.
The warmth of our smile .The warmth of our heart.

when we will be separated ,let it rain.
let the heaven cry .let it be damp and cold .
let it reflect the moods our hearts, that will never beat in a rhythm again.
mine will always miss a beat for you and your's a couple for me. because my friend, God knows you have always loved me more than I could love you back."

for the book:
I loved the words ..so simple and powerful
I loved the lines..most beautiful I have ever read
I loved the paragraphs..they spoke to my heart
I loved the chapters.they stirred memories of a beautiful village , an innocent childhood and of friendships you can trade a kingdom for
But I didn't like the story

for Rusty:

The story is about Rusty
He thinks beautifully about friendship
He speaks beautifully about friendship
yet he doesn't know friendship
This story is about him
I didn't like him
I didn't like his story
(view spoiler)[
it's about Meena and Rusty .I could not feel right about it just because you could write it with beautiful words .. and when he described to Suri that meena and I made love all the time with mr. kapoor only a 100 yards away ,I can't help but think of a 17 year old taking pleasure at accomplishing something forbidden .next chapter Rusty calling Kishen(Meena's son) again Bhaiya .when you call someone brother you play the part

Ok Mr. Kapoor is a drunkard and doesn't deserve Meena .but just because he is wrong doesn't make Rusty right . how beautifully he may try to described it as love ,I could see nothing but a lusty 17 year old Rusty .where is the love sir?

And words like freedom ,liberty to justify things is just oversimplification of things . sometimes restraint can be liberty and to surrender is freedom .

I appreciate the fact that Bond never agreed to change that part in further editions stating that this book was by an adolescent about adolescence and he don't want to change it .A brave an honest decision considering the char is based on Bond himself .but how much I love Ruskin sir ,I can't bring myself to like Rusty or justify that single action and those couple of paragraphs .except that single part, this book was one of the finest of Bond ,I have read till date (hide spoiler)]

for Ruskin Bond:

Giving two star to this book is heart breaking
But nobody dies out of heart break
so,I will survive
To read another book by Bond
To again fall in love with his work
To again visit that beautiful Room on the roof
In some other story ..in some other book
when there is no Rusty in that room but only Bond..Ruskin bond ,my favorite author :)

Anurag Kumar

Rating: really liked it
A Little about the Writer

Ruskin Bond is one of the most celebrated children’s authors in India. He has been actively writing since 1951. In his five decades of writing career Ruskin Bond has lost track of number of books he has written, and he is still active in the literary field enriching them with the tales from Himalayas where he has spent most of his life. Ruskin Bond has been felicitated by Sahitya Akademi Award and Padma Shri.

The Book

The Room on the Roof is Ruskin Bonds first novel, written at the age of seventeen. This novel is winner of 1957 John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize and is a delight to read.

It is story of an Anglo-Indian, 16 year old boy, named Rusty from Dehra. After his parents’ death, Rusty had to live with his English guardian, who wants to turn Rusty into a complete Englishmen, and is very Victorian when it came to discipline. Rusty on the other hand, fascinated by the colours of India, the Bazaar near their home (needless to say, where he is never allowed to go) and colourful festivals, decided to break free.

With his newly found friends, who come from all walks of life, Rusty embarks on an adventure of lifetime.

This book is about the friendship, caring, the youth- when anything is possible, and a sense of loneliness, as Rusty puts it “Inside of me … I am all lonely”. This book portrays Indian in its true bright colours, may it be a bazaar, fields, people bathing at a well, or a railway compartment.

This is the first of many adolescent novels featuring Rusty.

Bookishbong Moumita

Rating: really liked it
If you are a Ruskin Fan just like me , you definately need to read his first book. If you want to judge it as a strict reviewer you will not give it more than 3 star I guess. But if you a teenager and reading a book that you can connect with to much , you will love it . Read this one ! And don't forget to discus your thoughts with me. Thank you