India, June 6 -- Writers often worry about being forgotten or becoming irrelevant, but your books have been enjoyed by several generations. Penguin is celebrating your 92nd birthday by publishing The Treasury of Ruskin Bond: A Lifetime of Writing and All-Time Favourite Friendship Stories. How do you feel when you look back at all the love you have received?

I look back with a lot of gratitude because I wasn't always a popular writer. In the early years of my writing career, the books didn't sell very well. You could pick them off the pavement for one rupee or two rupees back in the 1960s and '70s when I brought out small collections of stories that are now in books that are selling very well. Life is just a game of chance, I feel. Life g...