Ruskin Bond wrote his first short story; 'Untouchable'; at the age of sixteen over hundred stories; including the classics 'A Face in Dark'; 'The Kitemaker'; 'The Tunnel'; 'The Room if many Colours'; 'Dust on the Mountain'; and 'Times Stops at Shamli'. This volume brings together the best of all the short fiction Ruskin Bond has ever written. '[Ruskin Bond's stories]' brings to life the special flavours of life in the hills...strengthen[s] the "Rudyardian thesis" that the smell of the Himalayas; if it once creeps into the blood of a man; he will return to the hills again and again and will love to live and lie among them.'-Tribune '[Ruskin Bond]' is a writer who has; with intense depth and sensitivity; absorbed the essence of the culturally syncretic Indian society.'-Telegraph