Tales of Fosterganj Quotes

“The first condition of happiness is that a man must find joy in his work. Unless the work brings joy, the tedium of an aimless life can be soul-destroying. Something”
― Ruskin Bond, Tales of Fosterganj

“All I wanted was a quiet life, a writing pad, books to read, flowers to gaze upon, and sometimes a little love, a little kiss…”
― Ruskin Bond, Tales of Fosterganj

“Puffed up with self-importance, we are in fact the most dispensable of all his creatures.”
― Ruskin Bond, Tales of Fosterganj

“The first condition of happiness is that a man must find joy in his work. Unless the work brings joy, the tedium of an aimless life can be soul-destroying.”
― Ruskin Bond, Tales of Fosterganj

“So on we tramped, three small dots on a big mountain, mere specks, beings of no importance. In creating this world, God showed that he was a great mathematician; but in creating man, he got his algebra wrong. Puffed up with self-importance, we are in fact the most dispensable of all his creatures.”
― Ruskin Bond, Tales of Fosterganj

“In creating this world, God showed that he was a great mathematician; but in creating man, he got his algebra wrong. Puffed up with self-importance, we are in fact the most dispensable of all his creatures.”
― Ruskin Bond, Tales of Fosterganj

“In due course, life returned to normal, as it always does in India, post earthquakes, cyclones, riots, epidemics and cricket controversies. Apathy, or lethargy, or a combination of the two, soon casts a spell over everything and the most traumatic events are quickly forgotten.”
― Ruskin Bond, Tales of Fosterganj

“Those were the days of simple living. You don’t see two-rupee notes any more. You don’t see walking sticks either. Hardly anyone walks.”
― Ruskin Bond, Tales of Fosterganj

“The outskirts of an Indian village are a great place for birds. You will see twenty to thirty species in the course of a day. Bluejays doing their acrobatics, sky-diving high above the open fields; cheeky bulbuls in the courtyard; seven sisters everywhere; mynas quarrelling on the verandah steps; scarlet minivets and rosy pastors in the banyan tree; and at night, the hawk cuckoo or brain fever bird shouting at us from the mango-tope.”
― Ruskin Bond, Tales of Fosterganj

“The nettles stung me viciously on the hands and face, and I cursed in my best Hindustani. The European languages have their strengths, but for the purposes of cursing out loud you can’t beat some of the Indian languages for range and originality.”
― Ruskin Bond, Tales of Fosterganj

“On my way back to the town I took a short cut through the forest. A swarm of yellow butterflies drifted across the path. A woodpecker pecked industriously on the bark of a tree, searching for young cicadas. Overhead, wild duck flew north, on their way across Central Asia, all traveling without passports. Birds and butterflies recognize no borders.”
― Ruskin Bond, Tales of Fosterganj

“A small bathroom was attached to the room. Hassan was very proud of it, because he had recently installed a flush tank and western-style potty. I complimented him on the potty and said it looked very comfortable. But what really took my fancy was the bathroom window. It hadn’t been opened for some time, and the glass panes were caked with dirt. But when finally we got it open, the view was remarkable. Below the window was a sheer drop of two or three hundred feet. Ahead, an open vista, a wide valley, and then the mountains striding away towards the horizon. I don’t think any hotel in town had such a splendid view. And this little bathroom had it all. I could see myself sitting for hours on that potty, enraptured, enchanted, having the valley and the mountains all to myself. Almost certain constipation of course, but I would take that risk.”
― Ruskin Bond, Tales of Fosterganj

“I sat in a teashop, tasted my teeth on an old bun, and washed it down with milky tea. The bun had been around for some time, but so had I, so we were quits. At the age of forty I could digest almost anything.”
― Ruskin Bond, Tales of Fosterganj

“Pari Tibba.’ I was charmed by the name—Fairy Hill.”
― Ruskin Bond, Tales of Fosterganj

“history shows human beings to be the most dangerous of nature’s show-offs. Inimical to each other, given over to greed and insatiable appetites. Nature strikes when roused; man, out of habit and a perverse nature. The”
― Ruskin Bond, Tales of Fosterganj

“When God, the great mathematician, discovered that in making man he had overdone things a bit, he created the bedbug to even things out. Soon”
― Ruskin Bond, Tales of Fosterganj

“Apathy, or lethargy, or a combination of the two, soon casts a spell over everything and the most traumatic events are quickly forgotten.”
― Ruskin Bond, Tales of Fosterganj

“I have written about moonlight bathing the Taj and the sun beating down on the Coromandel coast—and so have others—but who will celebrate little Fosterganj? And so I decided to write this account of the friends I made there—a baker, a banker, a pickpocket, a hare-lipped youth, an old boozer of royal descent, and a few others—to remind myself that there had been such a place, and that it had once been a part of my life.”
― Ruskin Bond, Tales of Fosterganj

“He called me ‘Uncle’, although I was only some fifteen or sixteen years older than him. Call a tiger ‘Uncle’, and he won’t harm you; or so the forest-dwellers say. Not quite how it works out with people approaching middle age. Being addressed as ‘Uncle’ didn’t make me very fond of Sunil.”
― Ruskin Bond, Tales of Fosterganj