Ruskin Bond is an award winning Indian author of British descent, much renowned for his role in promoting children’s literature in India. A prolific writer, he has written over 500 short stories, essays and novels. His popular novel ‘The Blue Umbrella’ was made into a Hindi film of the same name which was awarded the National Film Award for Best Children's Film, in 2007. He is also the author of more than 50 books for children and two volumes of autobiography. Ruskin Bond was born on 19 May 1934 in Kasauli, Punjab, British India, to a British couple, Edith Clarke and Aubrey Bond. His father served with the Royal Air Force from 1939 to 1944. He went to the Bishop Cotton School in Shimla, from where he graduated in 1950. He loved reading and was especially influenced by the works of T. E. Lawrence, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Bronte and Rudyard Kipling. After graduating from high school he went to the U.K. in search of better prospects. While in London he began working on his first novel, ‘The Room on the Roof’. It won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize (1957), awarded to a British Commonwealth writer under 30.

In 1992, he received the Sahitya Akademi Award for his short story collection, Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra. Based on Bond's historical novel A Flight of Pigeons, Shyam Benegal made a critically well acclaimed Hindi movie with Shashi Kapoor in the main lead – Junoon. Vishal Bhardwaj's film 7 Khoon Maaf was based on his short story Susanna's Seven Husbands. Bond made a cameo appearance in the movie in the role of Bishop as well. Award winning movie, The Blue Umbrella was also based on his story.