'The Castaway' is a famous short story written by which of the following…

Concept

Attributing a short story to its author rests on matching the title against that author's catalogued body of published work — literary anthologies, publisher records, and bibliographies fix a story under its actual writer at the point of publication, not by thematic guesswork or association with a similar-sounding plot.

Application

'The Castaway' is one of Rabindranath Tagore's short stories rendered into English; it is catalogued among his English-translated fiction in early anthologies of his work (such as the widely circulated 'Stories from Tagore' collection) and is consistently listed under his name in subsequent literary anthologies and library catalogues.

Cross-check

Checking against each distractor's own catalogued work confirms none of them authored this title:

• Ruskin Bond's catalogued stories (e.g., 'The Kite Maker', 'A Face in the Dark', 'Time Stops at Shamli') are set in the Himalayan hill towns he is known for — this title does not appear in his bibliography.

• Khushwant Singh's body of work is anchored in partition-era fiction and satirical essays; this title is not part of his published corpus.

• E.V. Lucas is known primarily as an essayist and anthology editor rather than as the author of this story.

This confirms Rabindranath Tagore as the author among the options offered.