India, June 6 -- Writers often worry about becoming irrelevant, but your books have been enjoyed by several generations. How does it feel to receive all this love? 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, 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. Life gives, and it takes, and then it gives again. That's what has happened to me. I have had the best and the worst of times. And I am having good times again, in that I have lots of readers now. I write so that people can read me, so I am pleased. But I am greedy for more and more readers. The fact that I enjoyed writing really helped. For the first 10 years, I wrote almost entirely for magazines and newspapers, as a freelancer, because India did not have many publishers at the time. The books that I wrote came much later. In the 1950s and early '60s, I had a Sunday column in the Hindustan Times. I used to drop in at the Delhi office with my column and hand it over to the features editor. We would sit over a cup of tea and gossip a bit. Those were the days when you had time to gossip. And he would show me the odd fan letter if there was one. But he didn't want the adulation to go to my head. So, he only showed me one or two. (Laughs) You were supposed to be modest in those days. And I am still pretty modest. I know that I am not a great writer. I am just a writer. Well, of course, in the beginning it was my father, Aubrey Alexander Bond. It is natural for a father to be kind but I think that my father went out of his way to spend time with me, and got me to take a keen interest in books and history. He used to take me around all the monuments in Delhi, and tell me about them. He worked was a flight lieutenant with the Royal Air Force, but he wasn't flying planes. He was in the section they called Codes and Cyphers. He did a lot of useful work during World War 2, without getting much credit for it because it was a secret. My friends Somi and Kishen, and their mothers, were very kind to me. And there was Miss Kellner, an old woman who was my grandmother's tenant. She used to keep a big tin with different kinds of biscuits in it. Whenever I went to see her, she would bring out the biscuit tin, and I could have as many as I wanted. So obviously my visits were pretty frequent! But she used to tell me stories too, and I liked them. My grandchildren Siddharth and Shrishti, and their parents Rakesh and Beena, take good care of me. Siddharth has been working hard to put together the Ruskin Bond Literature Festival. Shrishti has been helping me with my writing. I cannot write or read as I used to because my eyesight has grown weak. But it is very hard to stop myself from writing in my head. I tell Shrishti the stories I've cooked up, and she takes down my dictation very sweetly. Children have always been affected by wars. In earlier times, they were more localised than they are now, unless they were what we call world wars. I was a child during World War 2. My father was serving with the Royal Air Force. Much of the actual fighting was taking place in Burma, the Middle-East, North Africa and Europe, and later on in the Pacific, when America got involved. India was not isolated; everybody got affected in some way or the other. I did not have actual bombs dropping on me or guns being pointed at me. But that is happening to children nowadays. What is happening in Gaza and the Middle-East is beyond horrible. The war with Iran is unnecessary. There have always been mad men who love war, and who take pleasure in creating wars. We must protect children from them as much as we can, and teach them the wonderful advantages of peace over war to ensure that they do not lose sight of these advantages as they turn into adults. Literature festivals have always had a political dimension. I remember that politicians used to come and inaugurate the Jaipur Literature Festival. I have been out of touch with them. But I must say that writers who feel strongly must speak up. I hate conflicts of any kind, and I think that this one should not have started in the first place. Hill stations have become targets of tourism. Tourists bring money. Who doesn't want money? We all do. But this has led to a lot of construction, and the valley has changed over the years. Humans have done their best to destroy the mountains, and the mountains seem to have decided that they have had enough of our stupidity....