FRIENDS OF MY YOUTH (PB)

‘I needed a friend but it was
not easy to find one among a horde of rowdy, pea-shooting fourth formers, who
carved their names on desks and stuck chewing gum on the class teacher’s
chair. Had I grown up with other children, I might have developed a taste for
schoolboy anarchy; but, in sharing my father’s loneliness after his
separation from my mother, I had turned into a premature adult.’  There is no telling where friendships might
be made and how. Friends of My Youth is a collection of short stories by
Ruskin Bond on how little and almost seemingly insignificant incidents of
life can lead us to the person in whom we may find a companion, a comrade.
These are the stories of how unknowingly, at times, friends are found and how
they help eliminate our loneliness or become partners in crime in our
personal missions. Narrated with utter simplicity, the tales make for a
delightful remembrance of the friends made in the early years of life.