The Role of Nature in Creating Mystery and Terror in the Short Stories of Ruskin Bond, with Special Reference to Listen to the Wind and the Wind on Haunted Hill

Nature and Ruskin Bond are inextricably bound. His st ories abound in the most adorable and charmingly, intriguingly memorable characters whose magic refuse to fade away with time. Yet, nature is what we always t alk of when we talk Bond. The aura that nature creates in hi s stories to take the narrative forward, the role it plays in shaping the lives and destinies of his characters, the shee r, mesmerizing beauty lying in it, or the ominous t errors in its darkest depths, nature is a dominant force, a powerful prese nc in his short stories. This paper reflects Bond’s love for the literary depiction of nature through two of his well known and widely read short stories: Listen to the Wi nd, and The Wind on Haunted Hill. And in these two stories, he r lates nature to one of the most talked about, read about and searched about interests of man, the supernatural, and through the use of supernatural elements keeps the attention of the reader revetted right till the end. The master of story-telling is at his best in these two tales, and none can match up to his kind of creative excellence and his passionate zeal for the myriad faces of nature.