Delhi Is Not Far

Well this is a short novella, simply written, pleasant enough reading... but what is it about? Well as best I can summarise it is a snapshot of village life - the protagonist, Arun, is an author trying to write, but not trying very hard. He spends time will a collection of friends and we learn their stories though his interactions with them.

There is a student, who sells odds and ends house by house to earn a living; a young prostitute, with an aged and unintelligent husband; a barber with ambitions to the city. Arun also who figures he should move to Delhi to make his living. However he enjoys the gentle pace of life in the dull and dusty village of Pipalnagar.

Written in 1960, but published much later for the first time the reader can judge whether this short story is an important work or not - for me it is perhaps just a bit too gentle...

There is plenty of Ruskin Bond's worthy prose, but the story is very slow to roll out and ends as gently as it begins.

3 stars.