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Bond was born on 19 May, 1934 in Kasauli, Punjab States Agency, British India. His father, Aubrey Alexander Bond, who was British, was born in a military camp in Shahjahanpur, a small town in north India. His mother, Edith Clarke, was Anglo-Indian.

His father taught English to the princesses of Jamnagar palace, and Bond and his sister Ellen lived there till he was six. Later, his father joined the Royal Air Force in 1939 and Bond, along with his mother and sister, went to live at his mother's maternal home in Dehradun. Shortly after that, he was sent to a boarding school in Mussoorie.

When Bond was eight years old, his mother separated from his father and married a Punjabi Hindu, Hari. His father arranged for Bond to be brought to New Delhi where he was posted. Bond was very close to his father and describes this period (1942–1944) with his father as one of the happiest times of his life. When he was ten, however, his father died of malaria while posted in Calcutta and was buried in the Bhowanipore War Cemetery in Calcutta. At the time, Bond was at his boarding school in Shimla and when informed about this tragedy by his teacher, he was thoroughly heartbroken. Later, he was raised in Dehradun.