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<\/div>\nConversation with Ruskin Bond<\/h3>\n
A Special Tree<\/span><\/p>\n One day, when Rakesh was six, he walked home from the Mussoorie bazaar eating cherries. They were a little sweet, a little sour; small, bright red cherries, which had come all the way from the Kashmir Valley.<\/p>\n Here in the Himalayan foothills where Rakesh lived, there were not many fruit trees. The soil was stony, and the dry cold winds stunted the growth of most plants. But on the more sheltered slopes there were forests of oak and deodar.<\/p>\n Rakesh lived with his grandfather on the outskirts of Mussoorie, just where the forest began. His father and mother lived in a small village fifty miles away, where they grew maize and rice and barley in narrow terraced fields on the lower slopes of the mountain. But there were no schools in the village, and Rakesh\u2019s parents were keen that he should go to school. As soon as he was of school-going age, they sent him to stay with his grandfather in Mussoorie. He had a little cottage outside the town.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Rakesh was on his way home from school when he bought the cherries. He paid fifty paise for the bunch. It took him about half-an-hour to walk home, and by the time he reached the cottage there were only three cherries left.<\/p>\n \u2018Have a cherry, Grandfather,\u2019 he said, as soon as he saw his grandfather in the garden. Grandfather took one cherry and Rakesh promptly ate the other two. He kept the last seed in his mouth for some time, rolling it round and round on his tongue until all the tang had gone. Then he placed the seed on the palm of his hand and studied it.<\/p>\n \u2018Are cherry seeds lucky?\u2019 asked Rakesh.<\/p>\n \u2018Of course.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Then I\u2019ll keep it.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u2018Nothing is lucky if you put it away. If you want luck, you must put it to some use.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018What can I do with a seed?\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Plant it.\u2019<\/p>\n So Rakesh found a small space and began to dig up a flowerbed.<\/p>\n \u2018Hey, not there,\u2019 said Grandfather, \u2018I\u2019ve sown mustard in that bed. Plant it in that shady corner, where it won\u2019t be disturbed.\u2019<\/p>\n Rakesh went to a corner of the garden where the earth was soft and yielding. He did not have to dig.<\/p>\n He pressed the seed into the soil with his thumb and it went right in.<\/p>\n Then he had his lunch, and ran off to play cricket with his friends, and forgot all about the cherry seed.<\/p>\n When it was winter in the hills, a cold wind blew down from the snows and went whoo-whoo-whoo in the deodar trees, and the garden was dry and bare.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In the evenings Grandfather and Rakesh sat over a charcoal fire, and Grandfather told Rakesh stories \u2013 stories about people who turned into animals, and ghosts who lived in trees, and beans that jumped and stones that wept \u2013 and in turn Rakesh would read to him from the newspaper, Grandfather\u2019s eyesight being rather weak. Rakesh found the newspaper very dull \u2013 especially after the stories \u2013 but Grandfather wanted all the news\u2026<\/p>\n They knew it was spring when the wild duck flew north again, to Siberia. Early in the morning, when he got up to chop wood and light a fire, Rakesh saw the V\u2013shaped formation streaming northward, the calls of the birds carrying clearly through the thin mountain air. One morning in the garden he bent to pick up what he thought was a small twig and found to his surprise that it was well rooted. He stared at it for a moment, then ran to fetch Grandfather, calling, \u2018Dada, come and look, the cherry tree has come up!\u2019 \u2018What cherry tree?\u2019 asked Grandfather, who had forgotten about it. \u2018The seed we planted last year \u2013 look, it\u2019s come up!\u2019 Rakesh went down on his haunches, while Grandfather bent almost double and peered down at the tiny tree. It was about four inches high. \u2018Yes, it\u2019s a cherry tree,\u2019 said Grandfather. \u2018You should water it now and then.\u2019 Rakesh ran indoors and came back with a bucket of water. \u2018Don\u2019t drown it!\u2019 said Grandfather. Rakesh gave it a sprinkling and circled it with pebbles.<\/p>\n \u2018What are the pebbles for?\u2019 asked Grandfather. \u2018For privacy,\u2019 said Rakesh.<\/p>\n He looked at the tree every morning but it did not seem to be growing very fast, so he stopped looking at it except quickly, out of the corner of his eye. And, after a week or two, when he allowed himself to look at it properly, he found that it had grown \u2013 at least an inch!<\/p>\n That year the monsoon rains came early and Rakesh plodded to and from school in raincoat and chappals. Ferns sprang from the trunks of trees, strange-looking lilies came up in the long grass, and even when it wasn\u2019t raining the trees dripped and mist came curling up the valley. The cherry tree grew quickly in this season.<\/p>\n It was about two feet high when a goat entered the garden and ate all the leaves. Only the main<\/p>\n stem and two thin branches remained. \u2018Never mind,\u2019 said Grandfather, seeing that Rakesh was upset. \u2018It will grow again, cherry trees are tough.\u2019<\/p>\n Towards the end of the rainy season new leaves appeared on the tree. Then a woman cutting grass scrambled down the hillside, her scythe swishing through the heavy monsoon foliage. She did not try to avoid the tree: one sweep, and the cherry tree was cut in two.When Grandfather saw what had happened\u2026\u2026\u2026.Read on to find what happens next.<\/span><\/p>\n Other stories included in the book,<\/span><\/p>\n The School Among the Pines, The Wind on Haunted Hill, Romi and the Wildfire, Tiger My Friend, Monkey Trouble, Snake Trouble, Those Three Bears, The Coral Tree, The Thief\u2019s Story, When the Trees Walked, Goodbye, Miss Mackenzie, Pret in the House, The Overcoat, The Tunnel, Wild Fruit, The Night the Roof Blew Off, And Now We are Twelve and A Traveller\u2019s Tale.<\/p>\n Ruskin Bond is the author of several bestselling novels and collections of short stories, essays and poems. These include The Room on the Roof (winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize), A Flight of Pigeons, The Night Train at Deoli, Time Stops at Shamli, Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra (winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award), Angry River, The Blue Umbrella, Rain in the Mountains, Roads to Mussoorie, A Little Night Music, Tigers for Dinner, Tales of Fosterganj, and A Gathering of Friends.<\/p>\n Ruskin Bond was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India in 1999, a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Delhi government in 2012 and the Padma Bhushan in 2014.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Great Stories for Children: (World’s Best Collection of 19+ most-loved stories by award-winning Author, A must-read fiction short stories for kids)<\/p>\n Great Stories for Children is a collection of some of Ruskin Bond’s most delightful children’s stories.<\/p>\n![\"Indian](\"https:\/\/m.media-amazon.com\/images\/W\/MEDIAX_792452-T1\/images\/S\/aplus-media\/vc\/95bdc970-536f-4a0d-8052-09e73725030d.__CR0,0,4774,4774_PT0_SX300_V1___.jpg\")
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\u00a0Ruskin Bond<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nProduct details<\/h2>\n
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