Tales of Fosterganj

by Ruskin Bond

  About the book

  ‘I forget what took me to Fosterganj in the first place. Destiny, perhaps; although I’m not sure why destiny would have bothered to guide an itinerant writer to an obscure little hamlet in the hills. Chance would be a better word. For chance plays a great part in all our lives. And it was just by chance that I found myself in the Fosterganj bazaar one fine morning early in May…’

  About the author

  Ruskin Bond has been writing for over sixty years, and has now over 120 titles in print—novels, collections of stories, poetry, essays, anthologies and books for children. His first novel, The Room on the Roof, received the prestigious John Llewellyn Rhys award in 1957. He has also received the Padma Shri, and two awards from the Sahitya Akademi—one for his short stories and another for his writings for children. In 2012, the Delhi government gave him its Lifetime Achievement Award.

  Born in 1934, Ruskin Bond grew up in Jamnagar, Shimla, New Delhi and Dehradun. Apart from three years in the UK, he has spent all his life in India, and now lives in Mussoorie with his adopted family.

  A shy person, Ruskin says he likes being a writer because, ‘When I’m writing there’s nobody watching me. Today, it’s hard to find a profession where you’re not being watched!’

  Tales of Fosterganj

  RUSKIN BOND

  ALEPH BOOK COMPANY

  An independent publishing firm

  promoted by Rupa Publications India

  This digital edition published in 2013

  First published in India in 2013 by

  Aleph Book Company

  7/16 Ansari Road, Daryaganj

  New Delhi 110 002

  Copyright © Ruskin Bond 2013

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic, mechanical, print reproduction, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of Aleph Book Company. Any unauthorized distribution of this e-book may be considered a direct infringement of copyright and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  e-ISBN: 978-93-83064-63-2

  All rights reserved.

  This e-book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated, without the publisher’s prior consent, in any form or cover other than that in which it is published.

  The rain ceases, and a bird’s clear song suddenly announces the difference between Heaven and hell.

  —Thomas Merton

  ~

  A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small parcel.

  —John Ruskin

  Contents

  Foster of Fosterganj

  Bathroom with a View

  Late for a Funeral

  Enter a Man-Eater

  A Magic Oil

  Fairy Glen Palace

  A Big Black Bird

  The Street of Lost Homes

  Eye of the Leopard

  An Evening with Foster

  Who’s Been Sleeping in My Bed?

  On the Trail of the Lizard

  Companions of the Road

  Tail of the Lizard

  Tremors in the Night

  The Mountains Are Moving

  A Ghost Village

  Some People Don’t Age

  Morning at the Bank

  Morning at the Pool

  An Inspector Calls

  A Fire in the Night

  A Handful of Gems

  Foster Makes a Sale

  Treasure Hunt

  The Great Truck Ride

  Rubies in the Dust

  Sunil Is Back

  Sapphires Are Unlucky

  Ganga Takes All

  End of the Road

  Foster of Fosterganj

  Straddling a spur of the Mussoorie range, as it dips into the Doon valley, Fosterganj came into existence some two hundred years ago and was almost immediately forgotten. And today it is not very different from what it was in 1961, when I lived there briefly.

  A quiet corner, where I could live like a recluse and write my stories—that was what I was looking for. And in Fosterganj I thought I’d found my retreat: a cluster of modest cottages, a straggling little bazaar, a post office, a crumbling castle (supposedly haunted), a mountain stream at the bottom of the hill, a winding footpath that took you either uphill or down. What more could one ask for? It reminded me a little of an English village, and indeed that was what it had once been; a tiny settlement on the outskirts of the larger hill station. But the British had long since gone, and the residents were now a fairly mixed lot, as we shall see.

  I forget what took me to Fosterganj in the first place. Destiny, perhaps; although I’m not sure why destiny would have bothered to guide an itinerant writer to an obscure hamlet in the hills. Chance would be a better word. For chance plays a great part in all our lives. And it was just by chance that I found myself in the Fosterganj bazaar one fine morning early in May. The oaks and maples were in new leaf; geraniums flourished on sunny balconies; a boy delivering milk whistled a catchy Dev Anand song; a mule train clattered down the street. The chill of winter had gone and there was warmth in the sunshine that played upon old walls.

  I sat in a teashop, tasted my teeth on an old bun, and washed it down with milky tea. The bun had been around for some time, but so had I, so we were quits. At the age of forty I could digest almost anything.

  The teashop owner, Melaram, was a friendly sort, as are most teashop owners. He told me that not many tourists made their way down to Fosterganj. The only attraction was the waterfall, and you had to be fairly fit in order to scramble down the steep and narrow path that led to the ravine where a little stream came tumbling over the rocks. I would visit it one day, I told him.

  ‘Then you should stay here a day or two,’ said Melaram. ‘Explore the stream. Walk down to Rajpur. You’ll need a good walking stick. Look, I have several in my shop. Cherry wood, walnut wood, oak.’ He saw me wavering. ‘You’ll also need one to climb the next hill—it’s called Pari Tibba.’ I was charmed by the name—Fairy Hill.

  I hadn’t planned on doing much walking that day—the walk down to Fosterganj from Mussoorie had already taken almost an hour—but I liked the look of a sturdy cherry-wood walking stick, and I bought one for two rupees. Those were the days of simple living. You don’t see two-rupee notes any more. You don’t see walking sticks either. Hardly anyone walks.

  I strolled down the small bazaar, without having to worry about passing cars and lorries or a crush of people. Two or three schoolchildren were sauntering home, burdened by their school bags bursting with homework. A cow and a couple of stray dogs examined the contents of an overflowing dustbin. A policeman sitting on a stool outside a tiny police outpost yawned, stretched, stood up, looked up and down the street in anticipation of crimes to come, scratched himself in the anal region and sank back upon his stool.

  A man in a crumpled shirt and threadbare trousers came up to me, looked me over with his watery grey eyes, and said, ‘Sir, would you like to buy some gladioli bulbs?’ He held up a basket full of bulbs which might have been onions. His chin was covered with a grey stubble, some of his teeth were missing, the remaining ones yellow with neglect.

  ‘No, thanks,’ I said. ‘I live in a tiny flat in Delhi. No room for flowers.’

  ‘A world without flowers,’ he shook his head. ‘That’s what it’s coming to.’

  ‘And where do you plant your bulbs?’

  ‘I grow gladioli, sir, and sell the bulbs to good people like you. My name’s Foster. I own the lands all the way down to the waterfall.’

  For a landowner he did not look very prosperous. But his name intrigued me. ‘Isn’t this area called Fosterganj?’
I asked.

  ‘That’s right. My grandfather was the first to settle here. He was a grandson of Bonnie Prince Charlie who fought the British at Bannockburn. I’m the last Foster of Fosterganj. Are you sure you won’t buy my daffodil bulbs?’

  ‘I thought you said they were gladioli.’

  ‘Some gladioli, some daffodils.’

  They looked like onions to me, but to make him happy I parted with two rupees (which seemed the going rate in Fosterganj) and relieved him of his basket of bulbs. Foster shuffled off, looking a bit like Chaplin’s tramp but not half as dapper. He clearly needed the two rupees. Which made me feel less foolish about spending money that I should have held on to. Writers were poor in those days. Though I didn’t feel poor.

  Back at the teashop I asked Melaram if Foster really owned a lot of land.

  ‘He has a broken-down cottage and the right-of-way. He charges people who pass through his property. Spends all the money on booze. No one owns the hillside, it’s government land. Reserved forest. But everyone builds on it.’

  Just as well, I thought, as I returned to town with my basket of onions. Who wanted another noisy hill station? One Mall Road was more than enough. Back in my hotel room, I was about to throw the bulbs away, but on second thoughts decided to keep them. After all, even an onion makes a handsome plant.

  Bathroom with a View

  Next morning I found myself trudging down from Mussoorie to Fosterganj again. I didn’t quite know why I was attracted to the place—but it was quaint, isolated, a forgotten corner of an otherwise changing hill town; and I had always been attracted to forgotten corners.

  There was no hotel or guesthouse in the area, which in itself was a blessing; but I needed somewhere to stay, if I was going to spend some time there.

  Melaram directed me to the local bakery. Hassan, the baker, had a room above his shop that had lain vacant since he built it a few years ago. An affable man, Hassan was the proud father of a dozen children; I say dozen at random, because I never did get to ascertain the exact number as they were never in one place at the same time. They did not live in the room above the bakery, which was much too small, but in a rambling old building below the bazaar, which housed a number of large families—the baker’s, the tailor’s, the postman’s, among others.

  I was shown the room. It was scantily furnished, the bed taking up almost half the space. A small table and chair stood near the window. Windows are important. I find it impossible to live in a room without a window. This one provided a view of the street and the buildings on the other side. Nothing very inspiring, but at least it wouldn’t be dull.

  A small bathroom was attached to the room. Hassan was very proud of it, because he had recently installed a flush tank and western-style potty. I complimented him on the potty and said it looked very comfortable. But what really took my fancy was the bathroom window. It hadn’t been opened for some time, and the glass panes were caked with dirt. But when finally we got it open, the view was remarkable. Below the window was a sheer drop of two or three hundred feet. Ahead, an open vista, a wide valley, and then the mountains striding away towards the horizon. I don’t think any hotel in town had such a splendid view. And this little bathroom had it all. I could see myself sitting for hours on that potty, enraptured, enchanted, having the valley and the mountains all to myself. Almost certain constipation of course, but I would take that risk.

  ‘Forty rupees a month,’ said Hassan, and I gave him two month’s rent on the spot.

  ‘I’ll move in next week,’ I said. ‘First I have to bring my books from Delhi.’

  On my way back to the town I took a short cut through the forest. A swarm of yellow butterflies drifted across the path. A woodpecker pecked industriously on the bark of a tree, searching for young cicadas. Overhead, wild duck flew north, on their way across Central Asia, all traveling without passports. Birds and butterflies recognize no borders.

  I hadn’t been this way before, and I was soon lost. Two village boys returning from town with their milk cans gave me the wrong directions. I was put on the right path by a girl who was guiding a cow home. There was something about her fresh face and bright smile that I found tremendously appealing. She was less than beautiful but more than pretty, if you know what I mean. A face to remember.

  A little later I found myself in an open clearing, with a large pool in the middle. Its still waters looked very deep. At one end there were steps, apparently for bathers. But the water did not look very inviting. It was a sunless place, several old oaks shutting out the light. Fallen off leaves floated on the surface. No birds sang. It was a strange, haunted sort of place. I hurried on.

  Late for a Funeral

  When I said that Fosterganj appeared to be the sort of sleepy hollow where nothing ever happened, it only served to show that appearances can be deceptive. When I returned that summer, carrying books and writing materials, I found the little hamlet in a state of turmoil.

  There was a rabies scare.

  On my earlier visit I had noticed the presence of a number of stray dogs. The jackal population must have been fairly large too. And jackals are carriers of the rabies virus.

  I had barely alighted from the town’s only Ambassador taxi when I had to jump in again. Down the road came some ten to fifteen dogs, of no particular breed but running with the urgency of greyhounds, ears flattened, tails between their legs, teeth bared in terror, for close behind them came the dog-catchers, three or four men carrying staves and what appeared to be huge butterfly nets. Even as I gaped in astonishment one of the dogs took a tumble and, howling with fright, was scooped up and dumped in a metal cage on wheels which stood at the side of the road.

  The dog chase swept past me, one young man staying behind to secure the trapped canine. Some people have faces that bear an uncanny resemblance to the features of different animals. This particular youth had something of the wolf in his countenance. The dog obviously thought so too, for it whimpered and cowered in a corner of its rusty cage. I am not a great dog-lover but I felt sorry for this frightened creature and put my hand through the bars to try and pat it. Immediately it bared its teeth and lunged at my hand. I withdrew it in a hurry.

  The young man laughed at my discomfiture.

  ‘Mad dog,’ he said. ‘All the dogs are going mad. Biting people. Running all over the place and biting people. We have to round them up.’

  ‘And then what will you do? Shoot them?’

  ‘Not allowed to kill them. Cruelty to animals.’

  ‘So then?’

  ‘We’ll let them loose in the jungle—down near Rajpur.’

  ‘But they’ll start biting people there.’

  ‘Problem for Rajpur.’ He smiled disarmingly—canines like a wolf’s.

  ‘If they are mad they’ll die anyway,’ I said. ‘But don’t you have a vet—an animal doctor—in this place?’

  ‘Not in Fosterganj. Only in Rajpur. That’s why we leave them there.’

  Defeated by this logic, I picked up my two suitcases and crossed the empty street to Hassan’s bakery. The taxi sped away; no business in Fosterganj.

  ~

  Over the next few days, several people were bitten and had to go down to Dehra for anti-rabies treatment. The cobbler’s wife refused to go, and was dead within the month. There were several cases in Rajpur, due no doubt to the sudden influx of mad dogs expelled from Fosterganj.

  In due course, life returned to normal, as it always does in India, post earthquakes, cyclones, riots, epidemics and cricket controversies. Apathy, or lethargy, or a combination of the two, soon casts a spell over everything and the most traumatic events are quickly forgotten.

  ‘Sab chalta hai,’ Hassan, my philosophical landlord, would say, speaking for everyone.

  It did not take me long to settle down in my little room above the bakery. Recent showers had brought out the sheen on new leaves, transformed the grass on the hillside from a faded yellow to an emerald green. A barbet atop a spruce tree was in full cry. It wo
uld keep up its monotonous chant all summer. And early morning, a whistling-thrush would render its interrupted melody, never quite finishing what it had to say.

  It was good to hear the birds and laughing schoolchildren through my open window. But I soon learnt to shut it whenever I went out. Late one morning, on returning from one of my walks, I found a large rhesus monkey sitting on my bed, tearing up a loaf of bread that Hassan had baked for me. I tried to drive the fellow away, but he seemed reluctant to leave. He bared his teeth and swore at me in monkey language. Then he stuffed a large piece of bread into his mouth and glared at me, daring me to do my worst. I recalled that monkeys carry rabies, and not wanting to join those who had recently been bitten by rabid dogs, I backed out of the room and called for help. One of Hassan’s brood came running up the steps with a hockey stick, and chased the invader away.

  ‘Always keep a mug of water handy,’ he told me. ‘Throw the water on him and he’ll be off. They hate cold water.’

  ‘You may be right,’ I said. ‘I’ve never seen a monkey taking a bath.’

  ‘See how miserable they are when it rains,’ said my rescuer. ‘They huddle together as though it’s the end of the world.’

  ‘Strange, isn’t it? Birds like bathing in the rain.’

  ‘So do I. Wait till the monsoon comes. You can join me then.’

  ‘Perhaps I will.’

  On this friendly note we parted, and I cleaned up the mess made by my simian visitor, and then settled down to do some writing.

  But there was something about the atmosphere of Fosterganj that discouraged any kind of serious work or effort. Tucked away in a fold of the hills, its inhabitants had begun to resemble their surroundings: one old man resembled a willow bent by rain and wind; an elderly lady with her umbrella reminded me of a colourful mushroom, quite possibly poisonous; my good baker-cum-landlord looked like a bit of the hillside, scarred and uneven but stable. The children were like young grass, coming up all over the place; but the adolescents were like nettles, you never knew if they would sting when touched. There was a young Tibetan lady whose smile was like the blue sky opening up. And there was no brighter blue than the sky as seen from Fosterganj on a clear day.