MFS | Entertainment

The title 'Secrets' that too by Ruskin Bond catches you on a back foot and makes you wonder what the sublime storyteller who always lead a quiet life in the hills had to spill. 

Through seven inter-connected tales, Bond weaves nostalgia for the Dehradun of the 40s complete with its quaint cinema halls, crumbling villas, modest chaat shops, bustling casinos, within which thrived some not-so-straight characters. 

The author breaks free from his trademark happy-inquisitive style to capture the 'spook' factor that pervades even in the seemingly mundane lives. And with it establishes that you do not need squalid lanes, murderous criminals and looming shadows to depict horror; a simple plot with some extraordinary storytelling suffices to give the creeps. The colourful characters that people the book from the old spinster Miss Gamla, the mysterious Mr Johnson, the extravagant Captain Ramesh, to the girl-next-door Gracie, are unmistakably everyday, albeit with an air of mystery. Looking back upon his boyhood days, Bond writes, without regrets, on the years just before and after India's Independence, living with his mother in financial difficulties in a small hotel in a small town. 

Secrets stands out for its treatment of the 'occasional spook', never falling into a pattern and sending a shiver up your spine each time with its sheer unpredictability. There is something sinister in the chase Miss Gamla in 'The Canal' puts up with the local boys bathing in the nude in the canal passing by her house. While the story's happy narrative makes for a joyful tribute to adolescent mischief and adult resolve, in which a group of roguish boys must face the consequences of provoking a lonely old woman. Most of the yarn spinning by Bond in Secrets happens in his winter holidays when he is back from boarding school in Simla to stay with his mum at Green's Hotel in Dehradun. Experiencing through a young boy's eyes the changing social setup of pre and post Independence Dehradun, its changing economy, the motley characters that inhabited the old, rundown hotel that'd seen better days, fondly remind you of the pilgrims in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. 

But Bond can't seem get over his nostalgia for Green's Hotel where he nursed dreams of becoming a detective and engaged in some serious mystery solving with intelligence from the dhobis and the local barman. He also mentions in passing the books and movies that influenced his growing up years and how they gave him ideas to write. All is not as it seems in this sleepy town as the dapper young army captain in 'At Green's Hotel' might be the gruesome serial killer or a thorough gentleman. Else what explains his going missing from late night movies to return only after the show has ended? Another of young Bond's exploits come from going to the cinemas at night where he encounters Hook Nose, a drug peddler or perhaps a cold-blooded murderer. Being trailed by the man on the streets and into the very bar of Green's Hotel, Bond realises he has trouble on his hands. 

That the lepers were allowed to enter the town to beg on a certain day of the week is not common knowledge, and where they retreated to on being chased down by dogs. Leprosy gets a humane perspective in 'Over the wall' where Mr Johnson, a promising young Brit, contracts leprosy, slowly dissolving into just half a person while he considers throwing in his lot with the native leper community. In 'Gracie', Bond is the awkward young man of 18 desperate to prove his manhood, and his fateful meeting with his childhood crush, Gracie, on a dingy street in London. A poignant tale of love that takes the form of compassion, Gracie brings out a pensive Bond far removed from his usual controlled self. 

If you have grown up reading the likes of Ruskin Bond, Ogden Nash, H.H Munro aka Saki, and wish to evoke memories of some witty, macabre, satirical writing, don't miss Secrets.