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From the Chandigarh Tribune publication of 2nd April earlier this year:

I  am sending you a treasured letter from my friend Mike King whose Father Charles King (Ibbetson House, School Capt 1928) a Rector was taken in as POW in Nazi Germany during WWII.

((A very close and wonderful friend of mine based in Baumberg Germany translated the first page. I can also understand my friend’s emotions as she was not born during those days; she is truly a remarkable person Regine Ullrich Zollmarsch who walked the Camino Francis with me on the path to Santiago de Compostela in Spain)).

Many Thanks for your efforts in keeping our website in its finest…
Warmest Regards,

Vivek
[Vivek Bhasin – Lefroy 1961-1970]

Prisoner of War Post

To : Mrs Katherine King stamped: 4.12.44 (1944) after checking
Destination: Ideford Rectory
Community: Newton Abbot
Place: S. Devon
England

Checked with Camp Stamp: M-Stammlager

XX8  (5888) Passed  P.142
From: Rev. (Capt. ) C.J.W. KING  C.F.
Prisoner no: 1088
H. Stammlager XXB
Ld Prisoner of war camp
In Marienburg (Poland today), Danzig

My Dear Kate,
I was so pleased to hear from Vera that you and (dated  30.11.44) young Bill had gone to stay at the Rectory. I feel an awful responsibility towards you two now I’m the second head of the family, and wondered how I was going to fulfill my obligations. I don’t know how long you mean to stay with us but I feel that both sides would benefit if you made your home with us. We shall always have houses which will be too big for our needs, and you the problem of company for yourself and Bill while the lad is growing up. But you and Vera must decide that. Things happen Kate, to people big enough to carry them. That is the conclusion I have reached here, where I have had so much time in which to think. The loads are never more than one can bear, however heavy they may seem. Strangely enough too, the load becomes lighter with carrying and one becomes stronger. And don’t my dear, make young Bill into old Bill. You’ll never be able to make anything more than a good copy, and the child will be far more worth to you as just himself. Winter our greatest all round enemy comes and goes. To kill my disappointment I have dug myself into work and am trying hard to improve my own, and other people’s knowledge of French, German and English. I make some progress in each. My headaches fortunately have been very infrequent so far. They have in past captivity winters been my greatest curse. I did hope to be home this year! But I’ll see to it that the extra time is put to good use. Doing an hour’s Physical Training each day. At the moment I feel I am coming apart, but am, nevertheless. Much better for the exercise.
My love to you both, Charles.

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The original letter:

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Attached is a letter from Mike King’s father, Charles King, to his youngest brother Noel who left BCS in 1934 to move to England with his parents. He was a Captain in the British Airborne Forces and saw action at the Battle of Arnhem and was actually present at the Japanese surrender in Rangoon in 1945.

Love, terrible Wars…

and then Peace….

Finally a Servant of the Almighty

Amen

Vivek Bhasin

Lefroy 1961-1970

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Additional reading: Quoted from THIS webpage

In 1944, Khojak Brigade on Baluchistan frontier was disbanded.  In March 1945 Tal Brigade was disbanded and some of its units were assigned to Kohat Brigade.  In April 1946, Indian army Commander-in-Chief Field Marshal Claude Auckinleck presided a high-level conference at Peshawar.  It was attended by Governor NWFP, Agent to the Governor General Baluchistan, British counsel at Kabul and senior military and civil officers.  A unanimous decision was reached to replace regular troops in tribal areas with scouts and khassadars.  It was to be gradual withdrawal in five phases and to be completed in two years.  It was with this background that Pishin Scouts were raised and decision was made to raise Central Waziristan Scouts and retrain Malakand battalion.  Khyber Rifles was re-raised on 26 April 1946.  The nucleus was from war time raised Afridi battalion.  Lieutenant Colonel Muhammad Sharif Khan ‘Sharifo’ (5/10 Baluch Regiment) was appointed commandant of Khyber Rifles.  Khassadars were to be trained and disciplined to make it a reliable partner of scouts.  To achieve this objective, in 1946, a new position called district officer in charge of Khassadars was created.  In 1946, in North Waziristan about two thousand khassadars were put under the command of Frank Leeson.

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From Ruskin with love
By Karen Ann Monsy

Sixty years on and with pen firmly in hand, Ruskin Bond proves he’s still as capable of enchanting readers as he was when he first began.

Hundreds 
of screaming fans in a tent packed beyond seating capacity. That an audience could 
be just as captivated today by the man whose storytelling first fired up their imaginations as little children decades ago was a testament to just how popular an Indian author by the name of Bond — Ruskin Bond — could be.

With over 300 short stories, essays and novels to his name, it has been his irresistible signature of unassuming wit and simplicity more than anything else that has forged much of the bond between the Mussoorie-based novelist and his readers. Considered an icon in literary circles, the 77-year-old of British descent was recently declared due to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Delhi Government. To his cheering fans at the Sharjah International Book Fair last month, he stated simply: “Without readers, there cannot be writers. If I’m famous, it’s because of you.”

Bond, who was one of 10 eminent authors brought down by leading Indian publisher DC Books for the event, chatted with wknd. about going from a no-name teenager with big dreams to a much-loved children’s writer today — and everything in between. Here are some excerpts from the interview:

How does it feel to be getting the Lifetime Achievement Award?

It means I’m getting very old because when you get to a certain age, everyone gives you a pat on the back to say, “Well done — now go home and don’t bother us anymore!’ Seriously though, I’m very happy and honoured to be thought of in this regard.

Sixty years is a long time — almost a generation. You started out writing for kids and now you’re probably writing for their kids. What do you think has changed in this time?

I’ll tell you what has changed. Fifty, forty, even thirty years ago when I started writing, there wouldn’t have been a crowd like this, attending a book fair either in India or in Sharjah, because writing and publishing then was not really something that happened in the public domain. It wasn’t ‘fashionable’ in those days. When I set out to write, nobody encouraged me. My mother even said, “Why are you wasting your time? Why don’t you join the army?”

But today you have 
book fairs, readings and launches — none of this existed then. Writing was a very lonely art form. If you were lucky, you’d find a publisher and get published, and if you were very lucky, you might turn out to be a well-read author.

Writers were not celebrities but now thanks to visual media, they’re recognisable and therefore, the promotion of books and of writers takes place in the public today.

In all these years of writing, have you found reading habits to have changed?

I think the type of reader has changed. There are more young readers than there used to be. That’s because we now have more educated young people who’re attending schools and are literate. Although readers are a very small minority, that minority has grown over the years. And it’s a very large number in a country like India.

I look back on my 
own boyhood, and though I went to a good school that had a good library, 
in a class of 30 boys, there were just 2-3 of us who were fond of reading. There was no television, no Internet, no video games — none of these things that we blame for poor reading habits today.

So I think reading has always been a minority pastime; only a chosen few enjoy it as a hobby.

So you don’t blame technology then?

Not really, no. Technology might take away a certain amount of time [from reading] … but I think if one becomes a reader, then you don’t stop or give it up. You’re a reader for life.

Reading as a habit must be cultivated from a young age. Do you agree or disagree?

I agree. In fact, I think the younger the better. A lot depends on the parents, teachers and schools. I think many of them are aware of the importance of encouraging the reading habit — though not all … I once saw a mother discouraging her boy from buying a book saying, “We can’t waste Rs150 like that.”

On the other hand, there are many who insist on buying their kids books, even if those children aren’t interested. I guess you get all kinds.

Almost everyone today is writing a book. In your experience, what does it take to become a good writer?

I think you need to be sincere about wanting to write. I know many people who write books because they think it will bring them instant fame and success, but that’s not the case.

You must also have a good command of the language you’re trying to write in and then be able to express your thoughts in good words. That is just the beginning. Respect the language in which you write. Do your best to express yourself in such a way that will attract readers to you … and that will make people want to read you.

What’s your average day like? Do you have a set writing routine?

I get up fairly early and write a few pages. After breakfast, the kids in the house go off to school (I have a large adopted family) and there is a hush then, so I sit down to do some real work … feel drowsy and go to sleep again. I come to life about an hour later and do some correspondence or routine work. Perhaps when evening comes around, I’ll be in a creative mood and get down to some actual writing. So that’s the kind of lazy writer I am!

I write in spurts but I like to do something every day. That’s important. It’s not the amount of time you spend but the amount of writing that you get done.

Do you enjoy writing novels more or poetry?

I enjoy writing poetry but no one wants to publish poetry today because it’s so hard to sell. So that’s just something I do for my own pleasure. Otherwise publishers would rather have me write novels, a collection of stories or non-fiction books.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? How do you deal with it?

We all get writer’s block. When you’re in school and have to write an essay, sometimes you’re going to get stuck halfway through. It’s easier for me because my solution for writer’s block is to keep a waste paper basket next to me so that all my unfinished stories or essays can go straight into that.

Seriously though, I think the way to combat a block is to go on to something else. If you’re stuck with a particular piece of writing, leave it for some time, write something else and come back to it later. Of course, that doesn’t apply in an exam hall…

You’re not a big fan 
of large cities and prefer the quiet of the hills 
instead. Is it because you find them less 
inspiring?

I grew up in small towns. It’s true I’m not a fan of large cities but not necessarily because they’re ‘less inspiring’. As a writer, one should be able to write anywhere. Perhaps smaller towns are just easier to live in. They’re not always as quiet as they used to be though — there’s a lot more traffic, people, congestion and noise. It’s not easy to find a quiet corner.

You left for London soon after your schooling but were quite homesick for India during your stay there. What made you leave in the first place?

When I finished school in 1950 — a long time ago — my mother packed me off to England. Right from the start, I was homesick for India. I took a job in London because I couldn’t really afford college. During the day, I did various jobs (working at a travel agency and photo shop) and did my writing at night.

I wrote my first book, Room on the Roof, there when I was about 17. It took me a year to find a publisher and when I did, I got an advance of 50 pounds. Now in those days, 50 pounds was enough to get back to India. And that’s exactly what I did. I went back as soon as I could because I missed my friends and the place I’d grown up in, and a part of me was from India.

How difficult was it becoming a published author?

It was about 1960 and I’d just had one or two books published. Like any author, I wanted to see my book in stores. I went into a small shop and hunted around but couldn’t any of my books anywhere.

I finally spotted one — right underneath a pile of books by popular authors like Khushwant Singh. So I quietly took it out from under the pile when I thought no one was looking and put it on top. But the shopkeeper saw me. He looked at the book and put it back underneath the pile, saying, “Nobody wants this one.” So just to teach him a lesson, I bought it!

Do you have a book 
that hasn’t been published yet?

Everything of mine has been published except one that I wrote in school. I was in Class 8 or 9 when I set out to write what I thought would be a great novel. But I made the great mistake of putting my teachers into it. I wrote a funny story in my exercise book about the principal’s wife who fell down the stairs (among other things).

Unfortunately, my class teacher found it in my desk and I got punished (in those days, you got flogged with a cane). Not only that, but he also tore the book up and threw it into the waste paper bin. That was the end of my first book. So if you’re a young reader thinking of writing a book, just make sure you don’t put your teachers in it.

7 Khoon Maaf saw your debut in Bollywood. What was it like being on the big screen?

Three of my stories 
were turned into films. The most recent was 7 Khoon Maaf, adapted from Susanna’s Seven Husbands and directed by my friend, Vishal Bhardwaj, who 
gave me a small guest 
role in the film. I had to play an elderly gentleman who gives advice to the heroine, played by Priyanka Chopra.

There was this one scene in a café where I was to give her an affectionate kiss on the cheek. The first time I attempted it, I was so clumsy I knocked her glasses off. The second take was a little better but it wasn’t perfect. In the end, we did 12 takes, meaning, on 12 occasions I had to kiss her on the cheek, after which the director said, “Mr Bond, you’re doing this on purpose!” It was a very short role and I haven’t had any more offers from the film industry since.

What can fans expect in the near future?

More stories and books! The Kashmiri Storyteller is a children’s book that has just been published by Penguin. I’ve also just completed another novel called Maharani — let’s see who publishes it. I write for multiple publishers because over the years in India you couldn’t do with writing for just one publisher, especially if you were trying to make a living out of it. Of course, nowadays things are better. Publishing is having a bit of a boom in India… Maybe now would be a good time to ask for better terms and rights…

Have you had any memorable responses from readers so far?

Oh yes, I get some very interesting responses, especially from young readers, because young people are frank and they don’t try to flatter you unnecessarily. There was a young girl of about 10 who I once met. Her teacher asked her (in front of me), “So what do you think of Ruskin Bond as a writer?” She thought about it hard, looked me up and down and said, “Sir, you’re not a bad writer.” I thought that was a very good assessment of me.

September 18, 2011
Five months ago, I was surprised to receive an email from Sukhinder Singh and Vijay Khurana to attend the 50th class reunion. I apologize for taking so long to reply. Firstly, I was in the process of moving. Secondly, since I could not attend, I did not feel I could contribute anything.

Upper II Class Photograph:
I have included the 1956 Upper II photograph originally sent by Brandy Gill. If my memory is correct, the person in the second row behind the 7th person from the left in the front row (the person with eye glasses) is  Bentick ( I don’t know if I am spelling the name correctly; I don’t know if that is his first or last name). Minor correction to Sukhinder Singh’s  message “we were together in the III form” It should read Upper II and not III Form. I left after completing Upper II, the year this photograph was taken. I joined BCS in 1952 when I was 8 years old and I was expelled from BCS in 1956 when I was 12 years old.

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[EDITOR: This is the listing we had earlier from Vijay Khurana when this picture was circulated in April 2011] –
Vijay said: “I can recognise the following :
Sitting first row: (left to right) Gurdial Singh, Brandy Gill, KS Dugal, Sabharwal (Rivaz, left to join Doon), RLV Nath (second from right same row). . . but none of the others .
Standing second row( left to right) Rupinder Singh, Rakesh Sawhney, unknown and Ramesh Suthoo.
Standing third row (left to right) unknown, unknown, Ashok Anand, Ashok Mulchandani, unknown, SM Nanda, Himmat Singh,  AK Stokes, unknown, Inderjit Singh (Badal).
Standing last row(left to right): Preharan Singh, JS Rarewala, Hundal, GS Anand, unknown, unknown,  A Motwane].”

Graduated Senior Cambridge in 1960:
I considered Upper II as the 7th grade and VI Form as the 12th grade. After leaving BCS, I joined Modern School, New Delhi, in the 7th grade. This did not work out and I did not cooperate. I was in the boarding school. My parents then put me in day school. I was staying with my father’s friend. They thought that perhaps I was afraid of girls as Modern School is coeducational or perhaps I did not like the Hindi medium of instruction. Little did anyone know what upset me. I was only 12 years old and kept everything to myself. What bothered me was why they put me in the 7th grade when I had already completed the 7th grade in BCS. If you remember, I use to be on the top or near the top of my class. To make a long story short, I lost one year doing nothing. In 1958, my father put me in Hyderabad Public School. I insisted that I join the 7th grade which the school accepted. Luck would have it, their grading system was different. Their highest grade was not 12th grade but 10th grade. (On the first day of my class I had my Geometry class. I started with the 49th theorem. Within a few days I started to learn Algebra, Trigonometry and Calculus!)  So I gained two years and lost one year. That is why I graduated one year before my classmates in BCS. This is not the end of the story. My father and my elder brother both graduated in Engineering from Benares Hindu University. The only college that I applied to was Benares Hindu University. The university was prejudiced against Senior Cambridge students as it was a foreign examination. I was told I did not qualify for admission. My elder brother told me that I was foolish in applying to one college only. Once again, luck was on my side. The son of the Vice Chancellor of Benares Hindu University was in the same predicament that I was. Finally, the university admitted Senior Cambridge students. In the first year of college I stood first in my class. From then on my mother had complete faith in me. This experience had a profound effect on me. We are taught to think within a box. This taught me to think outside the box.

Uranium Enrichment by Gaseous Centrifugation 1970-1985:
I had proposed to the Government of India for providing nuclear fuel two times in 1970 and 1985. Enclosed is a 1984 article from The Tribune, Chandigarh. Both my attempts were unsuccessful and I gave up on this good idea.

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Toastmasters International 1994-Present:
Toastmasters International is a nonprofit organization that teaches public speaking, communication and leadership skills. It has 270,000 members; 13,000 clubs in 116 countries. I have been a member for 17 years. We practice original speeches that last between 5 to 7 minutes.From time to time, I have given speeches on energy in general and nuclear energy in particular. The purpose is to explain in a non-technical the various facets and aspects of energy. I had stated earlier that I felt I could not contribute anything. Then, it occurred to me that this information would be educational to the students at Bishop Cotton School. I have introduced several new terms  such as Nugami (portmanteau of Nu for new or Nu from Nuclear and gami from origami) and Hatt (portmanteau of H from Heat and att from Watt). My proposal was based on providing 100% Nuclear Energy. This included both generating electricity and providing hydrogen fuel for automobiles by the electrolysis of water. France has come close to providing 100% electrical energy though they have not gone as far as using hydrogen fuel. They closed the last coal mine a few years ago. So far only Iceland and a few other countries have experimented with hydrogen as a fuel. I had proposed one 1 Gigawatt Electrical / 3 Gigawatt Thermal (in my terminology 1 Gigawatt  / 3 Gigahatt) Nuclear reactor for every 100,000 (one lakh) population. The title of my paper is: Energy is almost God… and God said “Numbers do not lie”. I had hoped to complete this paper by now but it has taken longer than I had estimated. Firstly, I had changed from a Microsoft PC to an Apple Mac and had minor software issues in producing the documents. Secondly, some of the documents were done on a phototypeset over 40 years ago. I want to convert these documents into digital format instead of just scanning the documents. As a sneak preview I have included a document “Nugami.pdf“. When you print this, make sure the “Page Scaling” is set to “None” so that you get a full size of the drawing. If printed correctly, the 32 x 32 grid should measure 6.375 inches by 8.25 inches (75% of 8.5 inches x 11.0 inches sheet of paper).

Hope to send the complete article as soon possible. Maybe the students at BCS will find it useful educationally.

Regards,
Al (Ashok) K. Stokes

EDITOR: Here is an email from Vijay Khurana to Ashok [published online with permission from all concerned!]

Dear Ashok,
Thank you for your mail. My persistence eventually paid off. I had kept you on the mailing list even though there was never a response until now. When you did not respond to our first set of mails, I tried locating your physical address/phone number from the net, discovering a small bit of litigation as plaintiff to your account with the Township of Piscataway NJ and an obit for David Freedman. I knew you were close to New York or in its surroundings and felt for no good reason that you lived somewhere near Battery Park. I was in New York earlier this year when I made another attempt to contact you. Alas, no success. So, your mail is actually very welcome. It will bring back to your class mates some very happy memories and the emotions that accompany them. Thank you, again.

While you may not be able to attend the reunion, this bunch here would like to catch up with you, whenever the occasion offers itself only to relive those wonderful years and know the direction that your lives took. There is no expectation of any contribution but an exchange of tales and a warm hug.

I was two years your junior and in school that was a huge difference. It seemed bigger then. One generally kept away from your senior and your position was defined. This older person, however small the difference,was different in the mind and looked upon with a bit of awe because he was bigger and better at most things!! Try proximity and you were surely told to go where he thought you belonged, almost near the nether world ! Such was the belief.

The only time this body descended to your level was when he dropped a year. Little opprobrium was attached to the event and it was dusted off like any sporting event. After all sportmanship had to be practiced both on and off the field, and a further afar into the class room!! So, for the first few weeks he was a novelty that you looked at with some deference, bigger, but now not better. Then as the weeks passed you discovered that he invariably knew less than you despite repeating the curriculum !!. That only confirmed his need to be there in your midst. Over time, if he did not threaten you and let an arm rest on his shoulder, you had finally levelled out with this senior. Camaraderie had been secured.That was the levelling moment when your awe of him finally disappeared. He also became the valuable link to the senior class to which he once belonged. A caste system was in operation except that penance through failure did erase the dividing line.

Ashok Stokes, in my mind, was the guy who was bright academically and he had an excellent pair of hands. He could turn out lovely stuff that drew admiration. He also played a decent game of hockey and football.  Generally, the name Stokes conjured the picture of the chap whose name in his class would be announced last (remember names at the bottom of the heap were announced first, and the merit list moved in an ascendant manner) after each form order because he would be the one to have to walk up to collect a certificate of merit. However, on several such occasions, in that distant past, A K Stokes’s name would be announced but he was never there to receive the certificate. It happened time and again.His frequent absence from these formal and important town hall meetings remained unexplained.Consequently, after such meetings in the Irwin Hall, Stokes would be located and taken to the Heady’s office for canning. He was bright and he was incorrigible.

The second picture is the June of that famous year when the quiet summer break was disturbed in an empty school. I saw S S Sondhi, a prefect, walk with the chowkidar to the class near the Box Room and have it opened. Sondhi had, by chance, been walking past that locked class room when he saw a wooden plank from the floor move up and then drop down again. Something was amiss. What transpired I did not see but by the evening we knew that Stokes was the boy who had burrowed a tunnel. His ambition, we heard, was to take this tunnel all the way to the School Office. Quite some distance and had it continued that might have seen him eventually finish school in the Senior Cambridge class of Form VI.!!  The tunnel was a superb job which had been electrified. It had drawn supply from the school mains and was the cause of the fluctuating electric supply to our dorms. Also what tumbled out was a whole lot of carpentry tools, counter panes and an assortment of goods that seem to explain the large amount of missing stuff that had disappeared during that time.

The story then gathered steam. Stokes was provoked into this bizarre project by Mr Johnson, the carpentry teacher, who persistently accused him of stealing tools from the carpentry shop. Stokes was originally innocent of that accusation but since Mr Johnson stayed with that belief, AK Stokes felt he might as well prove the guy right since he was already damned and labelled a thief. He had been hounded and branded for no good reason. An inflicted insult provoked a cheeky and dangerous endeavour.However, this tunnel (I believe you called it your duplex apartment!) was no Great Escape that led anywhere. It was an audacious exercise of pounding under the floor board between two class rooms (III Form & IV Form) in an act of defiance against an accusation that initially had no merit.

Mr Johnson was an assured man with a loud and firm voice. His lessons in carpentry remain with me as I hold a saw at a tilted angle or use a hammer around the house. Most of the time I use the saw technique he taught us, to cut a bread loaf, tilting the knife at a 30 degree angle and then bringing it to a horizontal position as I reach the bottom of the slice!! So, when his tools were discovered, Mr Johnson felt vindicated. Stokes stood expelled and carpentry as subject was never resumed. It was a tearful departure. What now seems amazing is that this was a feat by a mere 12 year old who was self assured, confident and precocious. Also a boy who kept so much within himself that a true discovery of character could take a while – and it did.

I recall you returned to School again some time later, maybe a year or more, and that is the last time I saw you. A junior saw his seniors reunite. I can still see you standing near the Tuck Shop (almost in line with the IV Form class room) meeting your old class mates quickly identifying each one, first by his name and then his house and roll number.  You got them all right, without exception, reminding me of the intelligent boy who had left school under unhappy circumstances. However, we all knew that this was a boy with huge intelligence and the proverbial surname that spelt only but success. It is wonderful to know he is still there and brilliant as ever. !

You may correct and, perhaps, update my narration of this event and the perspective of the principal character would lend this story a more wholesome angle !!

We look forward to adding you to a class that has sadly diminished numbers than usual. A welcome addition.

Warm regards
Sincerely
Vijay

Old Cottonian, Bishop Cotton School, Simla.
News article: The Times of London