by Ruskin Bond
Some seventeen or eighteen years later I did get news of Omar, but in an entirely different context. India and Pakistan were at war and in a bombing raid over Ambala, not far from Simla, a Pakistani plane was shot down. Its crew died in the crash. One of them, I learnt later, was Omar.
Did he, I wonder, get a glimpse of the playing fields we knew so well as boys?
Perhaps memories of his schooldays flooded back as he flew over the foothills. Perhaps he remembered the tunnel through which we were able to make our little escape to freedom.
But there are no tunnels in the sky.
Gone Fishing
THE HOUSE WAS called ‘undercliff’, because that’s where it stood—under a cliff. The man who went away—the owner of the house—was Robert Astley. And the man who stayed behind—the old family retainer—was Prem Bahadur.
Astley had been gone many years. He was still a bachelor in his late thirties when he’d suddenly decided that he wanted adventure, romance, faraway places; and he’d given the keys of the house to Prem Bahadur—who’d served the family for thirty years—and had set off on his travels.
Someone saw him in Sri Lanka. He’d been heard of in Burma, around the ruby mines at Mogok. Then he turned up in Java, seeking a passage through the Sunda Straits. After that the trail petered out. Years passed. The house in the hill-station remained empty.
But Prem Bahadur was still there, living in an outhouse.
Every day he opened up Undercliff, dusted the furniture in all the rooms, made sure that the bedsheets and pillowcases were clean, and set out Astley’s dressing-gown and slippers.
In the old days, whenever Astley had come home after a journey or a long tramp in the hills, he had liked to bathe and change into his gown and slippers, no matter what the hour. Prem Bahadur still kept them ready. He was convinced that Robert would return one day.
Astley himself had said so.
‘Keep everything ready for me, Prem, old chap. I may be back after a year, or two years, or even longer, but I’ll be back, I promise you. On the first of every month I want you to go to my lawyer, Mr Kapoor. He’ll give you your salary and any money that’s needed for the rates and repairs. I want you to keep the house tip-top!’
‘Will you bring back a wife, Sahib?’
‘Lord, no! Whatever put that idea in your head?’
‘I thought, perhaps—because you wanted the house kept ready….’
‘Ready for me, Prem. I don’t want to come home and find the old place falling down.’
And so Prem had taken care of the house—although there was no news from Astley. What had happened to him? The mystery provided a talking-point whenever local people met on the Mall. And in the bazaar the shopkeepers missed Astley because he was a man who spent freely.
His relatives still believed him to be alive. Only a few months back a brother had turned up—a brother who had a farm in Canada and could not stay in India for long. He had deposited a further sum with the lawyer and told Prem to carry on as before. The salary provided Prem with his few needs. Moreover, he was convinced that Robert would return.
Another man might have neglected the house and grounds, but not Prem Bahadur. He had a genuine regard for the absent owner. Prem was much older—now almost sixty and none too strong, suffering from pleurisy and other chest troubles—but he remembered Robert as both a boy and a young man. They had been together on numerous hunting and fishing trips in the mountains. They had slept out under the stars, bathed in icy mountain streams, and eaten from the same cooking-pot. Once, when crossing a small river, they had been swept downstream by a flash-flood, a wall of water that came thundering down the gorges without any warning during the rainy season. Together they had struggled back to safety. Back in the hill-station, Astley told everyone that Prem had saved his life; while Prem was equally insistent that he owed his life to Robert.
This year the monsoon had begun early and ended late. It dragged on through most of September, and Prem Bahadur’s cough grew worse and his breathing more difficult.
He lay on his charpai on the veranda, staring out at the garden, which was beginning to get out of hand, a tangle of dahlias, snake-lilies and convolvulus. The sun finally came out. The wind shifted from the southwest to the northwest, and swept the clouds away.
Prem Bahadur had taken his charpai into the garden, and was lying in the sun, puffing at his small hookah, when he saw Robert Astley at the gate.
He tried to get up but his legs would not oblige him. The hookah slipped from his hand.
Astley came walking down the garden path and stopped in front of the old retainer, smiling down at him. He did not look a day older than when Prem Bahadur had last seen him.
‘So you have come at last,’ said Prem.
‘I told you I’d return.’
‘It has been many years. But you have not changed.’
‘Nor have you, old chap.’
‘I have grown old and sick and feeble.’
‘You’ll be fine now. That’s why I’ve come.’
‘I’ll open the house,’ said Prem, and this time he found himself getting up quite easily.
‘It isn’t necessary,’ said Astley.
‘But all is ready for you!’
‘I know. I have heard of how well you have looked after everything. Come then, let’s take a last look round. We cannot stay, you know.’
Prem was a little mystified but he opened the front door and took Robert through the drawing-room and up the stairs to the bedroom. Robert saw the dressing-gown and the slippers, and he placed his hand gently on the old man’s shoulder.
When they returned downstairs and emerged into the sunlight, Prem was surprised to see himself—or rather his skinny body—stretched out on the charpai. The hookah lay on the ground, where it had fallen.
Prem looked at Astley in bewilderment.
‘But who is that—lying there?’
‘It was you. Only the husk now, the empty shell. This is the real you, standing here beside me.’
‘You came for me?’
‘I couldn’t come until you were ready. As for me, I left my shell a long time ago. But you were determined to hang on, keeping this house together. Are you ready now?’
‘And the house?’
‘Others will live in it. Nothing is lost for ever, everything begins again. … But come, it’s time to go fishing….’
Astley took Prem by the arm, and they walked through the dappled sunlight under the deodars and finally left that place for another.
Binya Passes By
WHILE I WAS walking home one day, along the path through the pines, I heard a girl singing.
It was summer in the hills, and the trees were in new leaf. The walnuts and cherries were just beginning to form between the leaves.
The wind was still and the trees were hushed, and the song came to me clearly; but it was not the words—which I could not follow—or the rise and fall of the melody which held me in thrall, but the voice itself, which was a young and tender voice.
I left the path and scrambled down the slope, slipping on fallen pine needles. But when I came to the bottom of the slope, the singing had stopped and no one was there. ‘I’m sure I heard someone singing,’ I said to myself; but I may have been wrong. In the hills it is always possible to be wrong.
So I walked on home, and presently I heard another song, but this time it was the whistling thrush rendering a broken melody, singing of dark, sweet secrets in the depths of the forest.
I had little to sing about myself, as the electricity bill hadn’t been paid, and there was nothing in the bank, and my second novel had just been turned down by another publisher. Still, it was summer, and men and animals were drowsy, and so too were my creditors. The distant mountains loomed purple in the shimmering dust-haze.
I walked through the pines again, but I did not hear the singing. And then for a week I did not leave the cottage, as the novel had to be rewritten, and I worked hard at it, pausing only to eat and sleep a
nd take note of the leaves turning a darker green.
The window opened on to the forest. Trees reached up to the window. Oak, maple, walnut. Higher up the hill, the pines started, and further on, armies of deodars marched over the mountains. And the mountains rose higher, and the trees grew stunted until they finally disappeared and only the black spirit-haunted rocks rose up to meet the everlasting snows. Those peaks cradled the sky. I could not see them from my windows. But on clear mornings they could be seen from the pass on the Tehri road.
There was a stream at the bottom of the hill. One morning, quite early, I went down to the stream, and using the boulders as stepping stones, moved downstream for about half a mile. Then I lay down to rest on a flat rock, in the shade of a wild cherry tree, and watched the sun shifting through the branches as it rose over the hill called Pari Tibba (Fairy Hill) and slid down the steep slope into the valley. The air was very still and already the birds were silent. The only sound came from the water running over the stony bed of the stream. I had lain there ten, perhaps fifteen, minutes when I began to feel that someone was watching me.
Someone in the trees, in the shadows, still and watchful. Nothing moved; not a stone shifted, not a twig broke; but someone was watching me. I felt terribly exposed; not to danger, but to the scrutiny of unknown eyes. So I left the rock and, finding a path through the trees, began climbing the hill again.
It was warm work. The sun was up, and there was no breeze. I was perspiring profusely by the time I got to the top of the hill. There was no sign of my unseen watcher. Two lean cows grazed on the short grass; the tinkling of their bells was the only sound in the sultry summer air.
That song again! The same song, the same singer. I heard her from my window. And putting aside the book I was reading, I leant out of the window and started down through the trees. But the foliage was too heavy, and the singer too far away for me to be able to make her out. ‘Should I go and look for her?’ I wondered. Or is it better this way—heard but not seen? For having fallen in love with a song, must it follow that I will fall in love with the singer? No. But surely it is the voice, and not the song that has touched me… Presently the singing ended, and I turned away from the window.
♦
A girl was gathering bilberries on the hillside. She was fresh-faced, honey-coloured; her lips were stained with purple juice. She smiled at me. ‘Are they good to eat?’ I asked.
She opened her fist and thrust out her hand, which was full of berries, bruised and crushed. I took one and put it in my mouth. It had a sharp, sour taste. ‘It is good,’ I said. Finding that I could speak haltingly in her language, she came nearer, said, ‘Take more then,’ and filled my hand with bilberries. Her fingers touched mine. The sensation was almost unique; for it was nine or ten years since my hand had touched a girl’s.
‘Where do you live?’ I asked. She pointed across the valley to where a small village straddled the slopes of a terraced hill.
‘It’s quite far,’ I said. ‘Do you always come so far from home?’
‘I go further than this,’ she said. ‘The cows must find fresh grass. And there is wood to gather and grass to cut.’ She showed me the sickle held by the cloth tied firmly about her waist. ‘Sometimes I go to the top of Pari Tibba, sometimes to the valley beyond. Have you been there?’
‘No. But I will go some day.’
‘It is always windy on Pari Tibba.’
‘Is it true that there are fairies there?’
She laughed. ‘That is what people say. But those are people who have never been there. I do not see fairies on Pari Tibba. It is said that there are ghosts in the ruins on the hill. But I do not see any ghosts.’
‘I have heard of the ghosts,’ I said. ‘Two lovers who ran away and took shelter in a ruined cottage. At night there was a storm, and they were killed by lightning. Is it true, this story?’
‘It happened many years ago, before I was born. I have heard the story. But there are no ghosts on Pari Tibba.’
‘How old are you?’ I asked.
‘Fifteen, sixteen, I do not know for sure.’
‘Doesn’t your mother know?’
‘She is dead. And my grandmother has forgotten. And my brother, he is younger than me and he’s forgotten his own age. Is it important to remember?’
‘No, it is not important. Not here, anyway. Not in the hills. To a mountain, a hundred years are but as a day.’
‘Are you very old?’ she asked.
‘I hope not. Do I look very old?’
‘Only a hundred,’ she said, and laughed, and the silver bangles on her wrists tinkled as she put her hand up to her laughing face.
‘Why do you laugh?’ I asked.
‘Because you looked as though you believed me. How old are you?’
‘Thirty-five, thirty-six, I do not remember.’
‘Ah, it is better to forget!’
‘That’s true,’ I said, ‘but sometimes one has to fill in forms and things like that, and then one has to state one’s age.’
‘I have never filled a form. I have never seen one.’
‘And I hope you never will. It is a piece of paper covered with useless information. It is all a part of human progress.’
‘Progress?’
‘Yes. Are you unhappy?’
‘No.’
‘Do you go hungry?’
‘No.’
‘Then you don’t need progress. Wild bilberries are better.’
She went away without saying goodbye. The cows had strayed and she ran after them, calling them by name: ‘Neelu, Neelu!’ (Blue) and ‘Bhuri!’ (Old One). Her bare feet moved swiftly over the rocks and dry grass.
♦
Early May. The cicadas were singing in the forests; or rather, orchestrating, since they make the sound with their legs. The whistling thrushes pursued each other over the treetops, in acrobatic love-flights. Sometimes the langoors visited the oak trees, to feed on the leaves. As I moved down the path to the stream, I heard the same singing; and coming suddenly upon the clearing near the water’s edge, I saw the girl sitting on a rock, her feet in the rushing water—the same girl who had given me bilberries. Strangely enough, I had not guessed that she was the singer. Unseen voices conjure up fanciful images. I had imagined a woodland nymph, a graceful, delicate, beautiful, goddess-like creature; not a mischievous-eyed, round-faced, juice-stained, slightly ragged pixie. Her dhoti—a rough, homespun sari—faded and torn; an impractical garment, I thought, for running about on the hillside, but the village folk put their girls into dhotis before they are twelve. She’d compromised by hitching it up, and by strengthening the waist with a length of cloth bound tightly about her, but she’d have been more at ease in the long, flounced skirt worn in the further hills.
But I was not disillusioned. I had clearly taken a fancy to her cherubic, open countenance; and the sweetness of her voice added to her charms.
I watched her from the banks of the stream, and presently she looked up, grinned, and stuck her tongue out at me.
‘That’s a nice way to greet me,’ I said. ‘Have I offended you?’
‘You surprised me. Why did you not call out?’
‘Because I was listening to your singing. I did not wish to speak until you had finished.’
‘It was only a song.’
‘But you sang it sweetly.’
She smiled. ‘Have you brought anything to eat?’
‘No. Are you hungry?’
‘At this time I get hungry. When you come to meet me you must always bring something to eat.’
‘But I didn’t come to meet you. I didn’t know you would be here.’
‘You do not wish to meet me?’
‘I didn’t mean that. It is nice to meet you.’
‘You will meet me if you keep coming into the forest. So always bring something to eat.’
‘I will do so next time. Shall I pick you some berries?’
‘You will have to go to the top of the hill again to find the Kingor
a bushes.’
‘I don’t mind. If you are hungry, I will bring some.’
‘All right,’ she said, and looked down at her feet, which were still in the water.
Like some knight-errant of old, I toiled up the hill again until I found the bilberry bushes; and stuffing my pockets with berries, I returned to the stream. But when I got there I found she’d slipped away. The cowbells tinkled on the far hill.
♦
Glow-worms shone fitfully in the dark. The night was full of sounds—the tonk-tonk of a nightjar, the cry of a barking deer, the shuffling of porcupines, the soft flip-flop of moths beating against the windowpanes. On the hill across the valley, lights flickered in the small village—the dim lights of kerosene lamps swinging in the dark.
‘What is your name?’ I asked, when we met again on the path through the pine forest.
‘Binya,’ she said. ‘What is yours?’
‘I’ve no name.’
‘All right, Mr No-name.’
‘I mean, I haven’t made a name for myself. We must make our own names, don’t you think?’
‘Binya is my name. I do not wish to have any other. Where are you going?’
‘Nowhere.’
‘No-name goes nowhere! Then you cannot come with me, because I am going home and my grandmother will set the village dogs on you if you follow me.’ And laughing, she ran down the path to the stream; she knew I could not catch up with her.
♦
Her face streamed summer rain as she climbed the steep hill, calling the white cow home. She seemed very tiny on the windswept mountainside; a twist of hair lay flat against her forehead, and her torn blue dhoti clung to her firm round thighs. I went to her with an umbrella to give her shelter. She stood with me beneath the umbrella and let me put my arm around her. Then she turned her face up to mine, wonderingly, and I kissed her quickly, softly on the lips. Her lips tasted of raindrops and mint. And then she left me there, so gallant in the blistering rain. She ran home laughing. But it was worth the drenching.
