White Clouds, Green Mountains

by Ruskin Bond

  White Clouds, Green Mountains

  Ruskin Bond has been writing for over sixty years, and now has over 120 titles in print—novels, collections of short 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 (1999), the Padma Bhushan (2014) and two awards from 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.

  RUSKIN

  BOND

  White Clouds, Green Mountains

  Published by

  Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd 2016

  7/16, Ansari Road, Daryaganj

  New Delhi 110002

  Copyright © Ruskin Bond 2016

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-81-291-4233-7

  First impression 2016

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  This 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 of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.

  Contents

  Introduction

  Mother Hill

  Song of the Whistling Thrush

  Visitors from the Forest

  Monkey on the Roof

  Travels with my Bank Manager

  A Long Story

  Binya Passes By

  The Kipling Road

  Trees by my Window

  Road to Badrinath

  In Search of Sweet Peas

  The Wind on Haunted Hill

  The Night the Roof Blew Off

  The Last Truck Ride

  And Now We Are Twelve

  The School among the Pines

  White Clouds, Green Mountains

  Introduction

  I came to live in the mountains almost three decades back. I had been working as a writer and journalist in the cities and towns in the plains. Recently returned from England where I had gone in my late teenage years, I was sure that all I wanted to do was write. I lived in the cities of north India, particularly Delhi, but something was always amiss. When I was a boy, I had spent some years in the Doon valley and in school in Simla. And now, as a man, I found I was increasingly drawn back to life in the mountains.

  I finally moved to Mussoorie and became a writer by profession. The mountains that were rooted, unmoving and only slowly changing, welcomed me as though I was now truly back home. For one who had drifted a fair bit they were the anchors who allowed me to set down roots, find my home, a family and also my writing voice. Here, away from the commotion and dust of the plains, in the company of great trees, birds, the fogs, the long winding walks, I was able to imagine ever new places, people and stories.

  Yet no one should imagine that life in the mountains is devoid of drama. The pace may be slower here, and the priorities a bit different, but there is no dearth of the stories that one can unearth here. Take for example, my numerous visitors from the forests. There was once a bat who had adopted, what seemed to me, an odd style of flying. Like a dive bomber it flew into my room after dark, looking for tasty moths to snap up. I wondered what was wrong with it, till I found that this indeed was a kind of bat that had been written about earlier—much earlier, in 1884. It pleased me that something that was rare even then had chosen to present itself into my home. Other times, I’ve had squirrels and praying mantis and birds of various kinds sit at the window or sometimes drop in, take a look and then go their way. We take a good close look at each other when we meet, and I flatter myself to think that perhaps they like what they see—as much as I like having these little guests.

  Over these years I have also traipsed a fair bit around these hills and mountains, exploring forests and foothills and hamlets. Some of them have been to the holy spots that dot the high reaches—Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangotri. Here, the sight of the dramatic sceneries and the high majestic peaks remain etched in the mind long after one has returned home. The moment, in Badrinath, when I opened my eyes one morning and looked out of the window to see the magnificent Nilkantha peak bathed in the light of the rising sun is as astonishing and spectacular in my mind’s eye even now.

  Living among the mountains also means that I get a front row seat when nature decides to put up some of her more spectacular productions. There have been storms that have blown away the roof or mist that has creeped up and engulfed us all leaving us as white shrouded vague shapes. The trees that grow by my window provide their own daily drama. There are the langurs that leap from the walnut tree right outside the window on to the roof and make so much noise that the birds are frightened away. But it’s not just langurs, I have also found little boys and on occasion a sprightly granny who have climbed these trees for the fruits. I feel that these trees can do with a reassuring touch now and then from a friendly neighbour, and when I walk among them I make sure I acknowledge their great and stately presence gratefully.

  Now, when I go down to Dehra Dun, the crowds and the traffic, the press of people and the commotion make the town nothing like what it was when I was a boy. But there are some things that still remain. There is the old tamarind tree that stood next to the bank where my grandmother kept her money. The tree still stands, a familiar and comforting presence. For now, the sight of the river in the valley is the same, though I wonder when it might decide to change course or even worse, dry up. And all around the valley remain the green mountains. The mangoes and banyans of the foothills give way to oaks and pines and deodars as the eyes travel up. And finally my eyes rest on the white clouds in the sky above. They will remain as well, even as life changes in the land far below them.

  Ruskin Bond

  Mother Hill

  It is hard to realize that I’ve been here all these years—twenty-five summers, winters and Himalayan springs. When I look back to the time of my first coming here, it does seem like yesterday.

  That probably sums it all up. Time passes, and yet it doesn’t pass; people come and go, the mountains remain. Mountains are permanent things. They are stubborn, they refuse to move. You can blast holes out of them for their mineral wealth, strip them of their trees and foliage, or dam their streams and divert their currents. You can make tunnels and roads and bridges; but no matter how hard they try, humans cannot actually get rid of the mountains. That’s what I like about them; they are here to stay.

  I like to think that I have become a part of these mountains, this particular range, and that by living here for so long, I am able to claim a relationship with the trees, wild flowers, and even the rocks that are an integral part of it.

  Yesterday at twilight, when I passed beneath a canopy of oak leaves, I felt that I was a part of the forest. I put out my hand and touched the bark of an old tree, and as I turned away, its leaves brushed against my face as if to acknowledge me.

  One day, I thought, if we trouble these great creatures too much, and hack away at them
and destroy their young, they will simply uproot themselves and march away, whole forests on the move, over the next range and next, far from the haunts of man. I have seen many forests and green places dwindle and disappear. Now there is an outcry. It is suddenly fashionable to be an environmentalist. That’s all right. Perhaps, it is not too late to save the little that is left.

  By and large, writers have to stay in the plains to make a living. Hill people have their work cut out trying to wrest a livelihood from their thin, calcinated soil. And as for mountaineers, they climb their peaks and move on in search of other peaks.

  But to me, as a writer, mountains have been kind. They were kind from the beginning, when I left a job in Delhi and rented a small cottage on the outskirts of the hill station. Today, most hill stations are rich men’s playgrounds, but years ago they were places where people of modest means would live quite cheaply. There were few cars and everyone walked about.

  The cottage was on the edge of an oak and maple forest and I spent eight or nine years in it, most of them happy, writing stories, essays, poems and books for children. I think this had something to do with Prem’s children. He and his wife had taken on the job of looking after the house and all practical matters (I remain helpless with fuses, clogged cisterns, leaking gas cylinders, ruptured water pipes, tin roofs that blow away when there is a storm, and the do-it-yourself world of small-town India).

  Naturally, I grew attached to them and became a part of the family, an adopted grandfather. For Rakesh, I wrote a story about a cherry tree that had difficulty in growing up. For Mukesh, who liked upheavals, I wrote a story about an earthquake and put him in it, and for Dolly I wrote rhymes.

  ‘Who goes to the Hills, goes to his Mother’, wrote Kipling, and he seldom wrote truer words. For living in the hills was like living in the bosom of a strong, sometimes proud, but always a comforting mother. And every time I went away, the homecoming would be tender and precious. It became increasingly difficult for me to go away.

  It has not always been happiness and light though. There were times when money ran out. Editorial doors sometimes close; but when one door closes another has, for me, almost immediately, miraculously opened.

  When you have received love from people and the freedom that only mountains can give, then you have come very near the borders of Heaven.

  Song of the Whistling Thrush

  I had been in the hills for a few days when I heard the song of the Himalayan whistling thrush. I did not see the bird that day. It kept to the deep shadows of the ravine below the old stone cottage. I was sitting at the window, gazing out at the new leaves on the walnut and wild pear trees. All was still; the wind was at peace with itself, the mountains brooded massively under the darkening sky. Then, emerging from the depths of the forest like a dark, sweet secret, came the indescribably beautiful call of the whistling thrush.

  It is a song that never fails to thrill me. The bird starts with a hesitant schoolboy whistle, as though trying out the melody; then, confident of the time, it bursts into full song, a crescendo of sweet notes and variations that ring clearly across the hillside. Then suddenly the song breaks off, right in the middle of a cadenza, and the enchanted listener is left wondering what happened to the bird to make it stop so suddenly. Nothing really, because a few moments later the song is taken up again.

  At first the bird was heard but never seen. Then one day I found the whistling thrush perched on the garden fence. He was a deep, glistening purple, his shoulders flecked with white; he had sturdy black legs and a strong yellow beak; rather a dapper fellow, who could have looked well in a top hat dancing with Fred Astaire. When he saw me coming down the path he uttered a sharp kree-ee—unexpectedly harsh when one remembered his singing—and flew away into the shadowed ravine.

  But as the months passed he grew used to my presence and became less shy. One of my rainwater pipes had blocked, resulting in an overflow and a small permanent puddle under the stone steps. This became the thrush’s favourite bathing place. On sultry summer afternoons, while I was taking a siesta upstairs, I would hear the bird flapping about in the rainwater pool. A little later, refreshed and sunning himself on the tin roof, he would treat me to a little concert, performed, I cannot help feeling, especially for my benefit.

  It was Prakash, the man who brought my milk, who told me the story of the whistling thrush, or the Irstura or Kaljit, as the hillmen called the bird. According to legend, the god Krishna fell asleep near a mountain stream, and while he slept, a small boy made off with his famous flute. On waking up and finding his flute gone, Krishna was so angry that he changed the culprit into a bird; but the boy had played on the flute and learned some of Krishna’s wonderful music, and even as a bird he continued, in his disrespectful fashion, to whistle the music of the gods, only stopping now and then (as the whistling thrush does) when he couldn’t remember the right time.

  It wasn’t long before my thrush was joined by a female, who was exactly like him (in fact, I have never been able to tell one from the other). The pair did not sing duets, like Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald,* but preferred to give solo performances, waiting for each other to finish before bursting into song. When, as sometimes happened, they started off together, the effect was not so pleasing to my human ear.

  These were love calls, no doubt, and it wasn’t long before the pair were making forays into the rocky ledges of the ravine, looking for a suitable nesting site; but a couple of years were to pass before I saw any of their young.

  After almost two years in the hills, I came to realise that these were birds ‘for all seasons’. They were liveliest in midsummer, but even in the depths of winter, with snow lying on the ground, they would suddenly start singing as they flitted from pine to oak to naked chestnut.

  As I write, there is a strong wind rushing through the trees and bustling in the chimney, while distant thunder threatens a summer storm. Undismayed, the whistling thrushes are calling to each other as they roam the wind-threshed forest.

  At other times I have heard them clearly above the sound of rushing water. And sometimes they leave the vicinity of the cottage and fly down to the stream, half a mile away, sending me little messages on the wind. Down there, they are busy snapping up snails and insects, the chief items on their menu.

  Whistling thrushes usually nest on rocky ledges, near water, but my overtures of friendship may have given my visitors other ideas. Recently I was away from Mussoorie for about a fortnight. When I returned I was about to open the window when I noticed a large bundle of ferns, lichen, grass, mud and moss balanced outside on the window ledge. Peering through the glass, I was able to recognise this untidy basket as a nest. Could such tidy birds make such untidy nests? Indeed they could, because they arrived and proved their ownership a few minutes later.

  Well, of course that meant I couldn’t open the window any more—the nest would have gone over the ledge if I had. Fortunately, the room has another window and I kept this one open to let in sunshine, fresh air, and the music of birds, cicadas, and the ever welcome postman.

  And now, three pink, freckled eggs lie in the cup of moss that forms the nursery in this jumble of a nest. The parent birds, both male and female, come and go, bustling about very efficiently, fully prepared for the great day that’s coming about a fortnight hence.

  One small thought occurs to me. The song of one thrush was bright and cheerful. The song of two thrushes was loud and joyful. But won’t a choir of five whistling thrushes be a little too much for a solitary writer trying to concentrate at his typewriter? Will I have to make a choice between writing or listening to the birds? Will I have to hand the cottage to other denizens of the forest? Well, we shall have to wait and see. If readers do not hear from me again, they will know who to blame!

  *Famous singers from my boyhood.

  Visitors from the Forest

  When mist fills the Himalayan valleys, and heavy monsoon rain sweeps across the hills, it is natural for wild creatures to seek shelter. And s
ometimes my cottage in the forest is the most convenient refuge.

  There is no doubt I make things easier for all concerned by leaving most of my windows open. I like plenty of fresh air indoors, and if a few birds, beasts and insects come in too, they’re welcome, provided they don’t make too much of a nuisance of themselves.

  I must confess, I did lose patience with a bamboo beetle who blundered in the other night and fell into the water jug. I rescued him and pushed him out of the window. A few seconds later he came whirring in again, and with unerring accuracy landed with a plop in the same jug. I fished him out once more and offered him the freedom of the night. But attracted no doubt by the light and warmth of my small sitting-room, he came buzzing back, circling the room like a helicopter looking for a place to land. Quickly I covered the water jug. He landed in a bowl of wild dahlias, and I allowed him to remain there, comfortably curled up in the hollow of a flower.

  Sometimes during the day a bird visits me—a deep blue whistling thrush, hopping about on long, dainty legs, too nervous to sing. She perches on the window sill, looking out at the rain. She does not permit any familiarity. But if I sit quietly in my chair she will sit quietly on my window sill, glancing quickly at me now and then to make sure I am keeping my distance. When the rain stops, she glides away, and it is only then, confident in her freedom, that she bursts into full-throated song, her broken but haunting melody echoing down the ravine.

  A squirrel comes sometimes, when his home in the oak tree gets water-logged. Apparently he is a bachelor; anyway, he lives alone. He knows me well, this squirrel, and is bold enough to climb on to the dining table looking for titbits which he always finds because I leave them there deliberately. Had I met him when he was a youngster, he would have learnt to eat from my hand; but I have only been here for a few months. I like it this way. I am not looking for pets; these are simply guests.