Wilderness in Ruskin Bond’s Dust on the Mountains

Abstract

Throughout reading short stories one realizes how the most fundamental stories of Indian culture also narrate tales of human existence. The Pañcatantra fables written in Sanskrit have also originated in India addressed to children that have stories that have been tailored distinctively to the evident needs of the child. Most of these stories are immersed in the Indian culture in which children grow up. Interestingly, Ruskin Bond as a story writer focuses on the epistemological foundation of the stories while incorporating fiction and personal experiences and, at the same time, with ecological concerns. His stories then become an assortment of experiences and anecdotes to understand the postulate in the story of humanity and the wilderness. This research paper is a study of Bond’s Dust on the Mountains that examines the stories as an expression of the narratives of civilization and wilderness. The aim of this paper is not only to read the book of stories that bridge different interdisciplinary subjects defining and describing wilderness but also to explore how the narrative speaks to readers with a wide range of backgrounds and interests. The study incorporates an ecocritical perspective to examine the metanarrative that frames both author’s and readers’ imagination, perception, and way of life.