COPPERFIELD IN THE JUNGLE
[By- RUSKIN BOND]
RUSKIN BOND [1939]
Ruskin Bond is a long time resident of Landour and Mussuoorie ,a beautiful hill station in Uttar Pradesh of India.He is a prolicfic writer of poetry ,fiction and non-fictional essays,and has published some 70 odd books to date.He has weekly English language columns in leading Indian newspapers. Ruskin Bond was born in 1939. As he lost his father at an early age and had to grow up up in his step-father’s house.Ruskin Bond started writing at the age of ten. His novel The Room on the roof won him prestigious John Llewell Rhys Prize when he was only 18.In 1992 his colletion of stories Trees Still Grow in Dehradun got him the Sahitya Akdemi Award.
Ruskin Bond’s works mainly depict children growing up and maturing through adversity and experience. The natural scenic hills of Dehradun and Mussoorie almost in variably form the setting of his works and reflect his ardent faith in the healing powers of nature. He said in a recent interview, "I don’t always write professionally or for money. It is something I feel I have to do to relate my impression in the day to day life that I see around me.
Major works of Ruskin Bond:
1999 A Season of Ghosts.
1994 Delhi is not far: the best of Ruskin Bond.
1994 Quakes and flames Bond.
1992 An island of trees: nature stories and po Bond.
1992 Mussoorie and Landour : days of wine and R Bond.
1991 Snake trouble.
1989 Time stops at Shamli and other stories.
1988 Beautiful Garhwal : Heaven in Himalayas.
1988 The night train at deoli and other stories.
1986 The adventures of Rusty.
1985 To live in magic: a book of nature poems.
1980 A flight of pigeons.
1977 A girl from Copenhagen.
1975 Lone fox dancing: Lyric poems.
1972 An axe for Rani.
1972 It isn’t time that’s passing.
1969 Strange men. Strange places.
1968 My first love and other stories.
1967 The neighbor’s wife and other stories.
1957 The room on the roof.


CHARACTERISTIC FORMS
In "Copperfield in the Jungle" again,all that we know is
that the protagonist is twelve years of age ,dislikes hunting and loves reading.Why he has to accompany Uncle Henry
and his sporting friends almost against his wishes is not known. Nor are we told anything about the shikaris except that despite their tall claims they managed to shoot only two miserable, underweight wild fowls at the end of the week. And they blamed it on the beastly weather. Of course, they use typical hunters vocabulary. They constantly talk of bagging a tiger –that is,killing or catching a tiger, beating the jungle –that is,going into drive out game for sport or shooting usually accompanied by drum – beaters and camp fire boasting –that is boasting of their past exploits, often imagenary ,sitting around the fire made with logs in the open air at night.
SUMMARY OF THE STORY
This story was first published in TIGERS FOR EVER in 1996. It is an autobiographical story.It tells us how the young Ruskin Bond could never get interested in the hunting expeditions of his Uncle Henry and some of his sporting friends. Perhaps he had inherited this from his grandfather who never understood the pleasure some people obtained from killing the creatures of our forests. Killing for food –most animals die that could be an justified to an extent but killing just for the fun of it could not be justified or understood.
Even at the tender age of twelve Ruskin disliked anything to do with shikar or hunting. He also found it terribly boring. To illustrate this point he narrates an experience. Uncle Henry and some of his sporting friends once took him on a shikar expedition into the Terai forests of the Siwalik hills. The prospect of spending one whole week in the jungle with several adults with guns only filled him with dismay.They would all the time be thinking and talking of hunting a tiger or an elephant and he did not all the look forward to it. So,on their second day in the jungle, he managed to be left behind at the rest house.And in a corner of the back verandah of that old bunglow he discovered a shelf of books –some thirty volumes, obviously untouched for many years. Much too young to know what was good and what was not. He would have read any thing and every thing with pleasure. However much to his delight the book shelf contained among others. P.G. Wode house’s LOVE among the chickens.
M.R. James’s ghost stories of an antiquary, Edward Hamilton Aikten’s A Naturalist on the Prowl and Charles Dicken’s David Copperfield. This chance acquaintance with M.Micawber and family. Aunt Betsy Trowood . Mr.Dick, Peggoty and many other characters in Dickens’s novel seemed to set him off on the road to literature.
At the and of the week the four men guns could only see a spotted deer and shoot two miserable, underweight wild fowls. Sitting in the rest house with his treasure of books Ruskin bond saw not only the spotted deer crossing the open clearing in front of the bungalow but also large leopard had done it only to help it’s self to a meal, it did not disturb young Ruskin beyond a point and he returned to his reading. The hunting party however refused to believe this attributing this bit of information to his over active imagination under the immediate influence of Dickens’s vivid portrayal of Master Copperfield. Ruskin brings them half –finished novel back with him.
THEME OF THE STORY.
"Copperfield In The Jungle" also reconstructs the jungle atmosphere. The young protatogonist accompanies his Uncle Henry and some of his sporting friends for on a shikar expedition in to the Terai forests of the Siwaliks. We are not told his name but we know that his 12 years age and has in herited his deep of hunting and killing for the fun of it from his grandfather.