Ruskin Bond,a prolific writer, drawing inspiration from energizing and perennially fresh nature is immensely loved by millions of his readers.He  writes as enthusiastically and simply at the age of eighty eight as when he started to pen at the adolescent age of only seventeen.He is an Indian author of British descent and is considered to be an icon among Indian writers and children's authors.He writes about real people from real places that are common place across regions.That is why all his readers find something or other of their lives in his writings. The Room on the Roof is the first literary venture of Ruskin Bond.He wrote the novel when he was only seventeen and won the John Llewelly Rhys Prize in 1957.Since then he has written several novels,over 500 short stories as well as various essays and poems. These creations have established him as one of the best loved and most admired chroniclers of contemporary India.
The Indian council for Child Education recognised his pioneering role in the growth of children's literature in India and awarded him the Sahitya Academy Award in 1992 for Our Trees Still grow in Dehra  by the Sahitya Academe.He was honoured by the Padma Shri in 1999 and Padma Bhusan in 2014.At present he lives with his adopted family in Landour in Mussoorie. The Indian council for Child Education recognised his pioneering role in the growth of children's literature in India and awarded him the Sahitya Academy Award in 1992 for Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra  by the Sahitya Academy.He was honoured by the Padma Shri in 1999 and Padma Bhusan in 2014.At present he lives with his adopted family in Landour in Mussoorie.
Ruskin Bond'fiction consists of various themes from autobiographical experiences to myths, legends,gossips of markets and villages, travelling, adventure, alienation, loneliness, homelessness, running away from home, friendship,family, love, separation and so on.His most interesting stories are based on various moods of love_ from euphoria of new love to nostalgia of lost love. Bond writes about the innocent love which brings in the life comfort and not any kind of compromise or sacrifice. it never demands any commitment or promise It stays and flourishes in the minds and hearts of characters.
The Room on the Roof by Ruskin bond is one of his wonderful novels where in he describes the story of an orphan of sixteen years old boy named Rusty who lived with his Anglo-indian guardianMr John Harrison in Dehradun.He had lost his parents when he was very young. He wanted to break free from the strict rules of his guardian and leaves the safety of his home to explore the outside world. Rusty now starts  his journey of life like a free bird and is introduced to a new and lively way of living by his friends Somi and Ranbir.He enjoys the friendship and hospitality of Somi who finds a job of tutor for Kapoor' son Kishen. During his stay,Rusty develops a liking for Mrs Kapoor. All his dreams of love and romance gain life in the form of Meena. She is the first beautiful and motherly lady he had come in contact with in his lifetime.He derives tremendous joy in the company of the lady and her closeness always gives him ecstatic delight He reveals his love for her and she also reciprocates.Rusty's mind is full of passionate thoughts and a certain restlessness which is symbolic of euphoria of new love.
"Rusty was concious of a wild urge,a desire to escape from town and its people,and live in a forest and Meena with no one but Meena…”1
Rusty has never experienced  love and affection from the childhood due to the early demise of his parents.The  restrictions and strict ways of his guardian have closed the passage of the tender feelings to Rusty'heart. But now for the first time Rusty's hidden feelings of love and tenderness find response in the beautiful mother figure of MRS Kapoo Rusty is so much awestruck by her beauty that he directly falls in love with her. The deserted, lonely and bruised life of Rusty gets the fresh showers of balmy love and affection of Meena who is leading and emotionally vacuous life with her drunkard husband enjoys the adoration of a teenaged boy.They are kindred souls they find relief in each.They find relief in other's company and arms.
"Rusty puts his arms around Meena.....and she made no effort to free herself.She laughed into his face and her eyes danced in the shadow and he stlfled her laughter with his lips…   "2
The love that is presented in the present novel is away from practicality and reality of life.It is a love affair between a matured married woman and an inexperienced adolescent boy His love brings with it resurgence of Oedipal feelings that prompt him "to ldolize his mother  (or a mother figure ) and to believe that she is more appropriative to him or she responds to him in a more ap propriate manner than(to) his father ..."3 The writer has very clearly expressed the relation of Rusty with Meena in these lines...
"For one year, he had led an idyllic life, he had loved,almost worshipped,Kishen's mother,Meena_loved her with all the mute and helpless fervour of a sixteen year old_and she had loved him too but only as a woman loves a homeless child…"4
But love of Rusty cannot be complete without experiencing the pangs of separation.Rusty is forced soon enough to realise the reality.Mrs Kapoor dies in a car accident.He is left alone with only the memories of the time he has spent with her. Faced with the dark reality of life, the young adolescent is dumbfounded.
"Rusty is overcome by a feeling of impotence and futility of life,every moment, he told himself, someone is born and someone dies....."5
Thus the euphoria of new love gets transformed into the nostalgia of lost love.
Meena is dead, he told himself Meena is dead,if there is god,then God will look after her,if God is love, then my love will be with her.She loved me.I can see her so clearly,her face speckled with sun and shadow when we kissed in the forest,the black waterfall of her hair, her tired eyes,her feet like jade in the lamp light,she she loved me, she was mine..."6