Small Town Savoury

Around this unlikely family the author paints, with a miniaturist’s skill, the townsfolk of Pipalnagar: paan-chewing Deep Chand, the barber; Seth Govind Ram, landlord to half the town; Aziz, the junk shop owner, who, at 18, is already collecting dust, age and disease; Goonga, the village idiot; and the beggars who rebel against the new taxes threatening to destroy their livelihood.

When Arun wonders "why God ever bothered to make men, when he had the whole wide beautiful world to himself?", Suraj answers, "Perhaps he felt lonely." Or perhaps he just wanted to give Ruskin Bond a chance to create this small gem of a book, with its perfect picture of small town life.