I went to the bookstore to buy something special. I ended up getting a book about comfort. Comforting book is a special book.
It is a small book with around 50–60 collated by Ruskin Bond (some sourced, some written by RB) on life written in beautiful calligraphy. My favourites include:
- Go outside, it is better to hear the bulbul sing than the mouse squeak.
- For any beauty you possess at sixteen, be very grateful. Of the beauty you have at sixty, you may be proud — it is your own achievement.
- Consider yourself dead, and that you have completed your life upto the present time, then start living as though your life has been gifted to you again.
- Your room must have a window — look at the clouds, look at the stars, look at the good brown earth
- Grandfather said, ‘if you cannot win, make the fellow ahead of you exert himself to the utmost.’
- Every day, not christmas, and not every day not a rainy day.
- Almost anyone can do the first half of anything; only those who do the second half arrive.
- ‘How shall we hoodwink them?’ Asked the young demon of the old story. ‘Tell them there’s plenty of time’ said the old demon of experience. ‘ Lots of time. They always fall for that.’
- You will sometimes be punished when you do not deserve it. Before giving vent to your indignation, reflect on how often you have deserved punishment without receiving it.
- If you can smile when you feel hurt, the hurt is half cured.
- Bad times are good times to prepare for better times.
- If you are capable of smiling, no one will bother whether you are good looking or not.
- Some people are always complaining that roses have thorns. Let us be grateful that thorns have roses.
