Uncles, Aunts and Elephants

by Ruskin Bond

  Uncle Ken’s Rumble in the Jungle

  Uncle Ken drove Grandfather’s old Fiat along the forest road at an incredible 30 mph, scattering pheasants, partridges and junglefowl as he clattered along. He had come in search of the disappearing red junglefowl, and I could see why the bird had disappeared. Too many noisy human beings had invaded its habitat.

  By the time we reached the forest rest house, one of the car doors had fallen off its hinges, and a large lantana bush had got entwined in the bumper.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Uncle Ken. ‘It’s all part of the adventure!’

  The rest house had been reserved for Uncle Ken, thanks to Grandfather’s good relations with the forest department. But I was the only other person in the car. No one else would trust himself or herself to Uncle Ken’s driving. He treated a car as though it were a low-flying aircraft having some difficulty in getting off the runway.

  As we arrived at the rest house, a number of hens made a dash for safety.

  ‘Look, junglefowl!’ exclaimed Uncle Ken.

  ‘Domestic fowl,’ I said. ‘They must belong to the forest guards.’

  I was right, of course. One of the hens was destined to be served up as chicken curry later that day. The jungle birds avoided the neighbourhood of the rest house, just in case they were mistaken for poultry and went into the cooking pot.

  Uncle Ken was all for starting his search right away, and after a brief interval during which we were served with tea and pakoras (prepared by a forest guard, who it turned out was also a good cook) we set off on foot into the jungle in search of the elusive red junglefowl.

  ‘No tigers around here, are there?’ asked Uncle Ken, just to be on the safe side.

  ‘No tigers on this range,’ said the guard. ‘Just elephants.’

  Uncle Ken wasn’t afraid of elephants. He’d been for numerous elephant rides at the Lucknow zoo. He’d also seen Sabu in Elephant Boy.

  A small wooden bridge took us across a little river, and then we were in thick jungle, following the forest guard who led us along a path that was frequently blocked by broken tree branches and pieces of bamboo.

  ‘Why all these broken branches?’ asked Uncle Ken.

  ‘The elephants, sir,’ replied our guard. ‘They passed through last night. They like certain leaves, as well as young bamboo shoots.’

  We saw a number of spotted deer and several pheasants, but no red junglefowl. That evening we sat out on the veranda of the rest house. All was silent, except for the distant trumpeting of elephants. Then, from the stream, came the chanting of hundreds of frogs.

  There were tenors and baritones, sopranos and contraltos, and occasionally a bass deep enough to have pleased the great Chaliapin. They sang duets and quartets from La Boheme and other Italian operas, drowning out all other jungle sounds except for the occasional cry of a jackal doing his best to join in.

  ‘We might as well sing,’ said Uncle Ken, and began singing the ‘Indian Love Call’ in his best Nelson Eddy manner.

  The frogs fell silent, obviously awestruck; but instead of receiving an answering love call, Uncle Ken was answered by even more strident jackal calls — not one, but several — with the result that all self-respecting denizens of the forest fled from the vicinity, and we saw no wildlife that night apart from a frightened rabbit that sped across the clearing and vanished into the darkness.

  Early next morning we renewed our efforts to track down the red junglefowl, but it remained elusive. Returning to the rest house dusty and weary, Uncle Ken exclaimed: ‘There it is — a red junglefowl!’

  But it turned out to be the caretaker’s cock-bird, a handsome fellow all red and gold, but not the jungle variety.

  Disappointed, Uncle Ken decided to return to civilization. Another night in the rest house did not appeal to him. He had run out of songs to sing.

  In any case, the weather had changed overnight and a light drizzle was falling as we started out. This had turned to a steady downpour by the time we reached the bridge across the Suswa river. And standing in the middle of the bridge was an elephant.

  He was a lone tusker and didn’t look too friendly.

  Uncle Ken blew his horn, and that was a mistake.

  It was a strident, penetrating horn, highly effective on city roads but out of place in the forest. The elephant took it as a challenge, and returned the blast of the horn with a shrill trumpeting of its own. It took a few steps forward. Uncle Ken put the car into reverse.

  ‘Is there another way out of here?’ he asked.

  ‘There’s a side road,’ I said recalling an earlier trip with Grandfather. ‘It will take us to the Kansrao railway station.’

  ‘What ho!’ cried Uncle Ken. ‘To the station we go!’

  And he turned the car and drove back until we came to the turning.

  The narrow road was now a rushing torrent of rain water and all Uncle Ken’s driving skills were put to the test. He had on one occasion driven through a brick wall, so he knew all about obstacles; but they were normally stationary ones.

  ‘More elephants,’ I said, as two large pachyderms loomed out of the rain-drenched forest.

  ‘Elephants to the right of us, elephants to the left of us!’ chanted Uncle Ken, misquoting Tennysons’s Charge of the Light Brigade. ‘Into the valley of death rode the six hundred!’

  ‘There are now three of them,’ I observed.

  ‘Not my lucky number,’ said Uncle Ken and pressed hard on the accelerator. We lurched forward, almost running over a terrified barking deer.

  ‘Is four your lucky number, Uncle Ken?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Well, there are now four of them behind us. And they are catching up quite fast!’

  ‘I see the station ahead,’ cried Uncle Ken, as we drove into a clearing where a tiny railway station stood like a beacon of safety in the wilderness.

  The car came to a grinding halt. We abandoned it and ran for the building.

  The stationmaster, seeing our predicament, beckoned to us to enter the station building, which was little more than a two-room shed and platform. He took us inside his tiny control room and shut the steel gate behind us.

  ‘The elephants won’t bother you here,’ he said. ‘But say goodbye to your car.’

  We looked out of the window and were horrified to see Grandfather’s Fiat overturned by one of the elephants, while another proceeded to trample it underfoot. The other elephants joined in the mayhem and soon the car was a flattened piece of junk.

  ‘I’m Stationmaster Abdul Rauf,’ the friendly stationmaster introduced himself. ‘I know a good scrap dealer in Doiwala. I’ll give you his address.’

  ‘But how do we get out of here?’ asked Uncle Ken.

  ‘Well, it’s only an hour’s walk to Doiwala,’ said our benefactor. ‘But I wouldn’t advise walking, not with those elephants around. Stay and have a cup of tea. The Dehra Express will pass through shortly. It stops for a few minutes. And it’s only half an hour to Dehra from here.’

  He punched out a couple of rail tickets. ‘Here you are, my friends. Just two rupees each. The cheapest rail journey in India. And those tickets carry an insurance value of two lakh rupees each, should an accident befall you between here and Dehradun.’

  Uncle Ken’s eyes lit up. ‘You mean, if one of us falls out of the train?’ he asked.

  ‘Out of the moving train,’ clarified the stationmaster. ‘There will be an enquiry, of course. Some people try to fake an accident.’

  But Uncle Ken decided against falling out of the train and making a fortune. He’d had enough excitement for the day. We got home safely enough, taking a pony-cart from the Dehra station to our house.

  ‘Where’s my car?’ asked Grandfather, as we staggered up the veranda steps.

  ‘It had a small accident,’ said Uncle Ken. ‘We left it outside the Kansrao railway station. I’ll collect it later.’

  ‘I’m starving,’ I said. ‘Haven’t eaten since morning.’

  ‘Well,
come and have your dinner,’ said Granny. ‘I’ve made something special for you. One of your Grandfather’s hunting friends sent us a junglefowl. I’ve made a nice roast. Try it with apple sauce.’

  Uncle Ken did not ask if the junglefowl was red, grey or technicoloured. He was first to the dining table.

  Granny had anticipated this, and served me with a chicken leg, giving the other leg to Grandfather.

  ‘I rather fancy the breast myself,’ she said, and this left Uncle Ken with a long and scrawny neck — which was rather like his own neck, and definitely more than he deserved.

  Monkey Trouble

  Grandfather bought Tutu from a street entertainer for the sum of ten rupees. The man had three monkeys. Tutu was the smallest but the most mischievous. She was tied up most of the time. The little monkey looked so miserable with a collar and chain that Grandfather decided she would be much happier in our home. He had a weakness for keeping unusual pets. It was a habit that I, at the age of eight or nine, used to encourage.

  Grandmother at first objected to having a monkey in the house. ‘You have enough pets as it is,’ she said, referring to Grandfather’s goat, several white mice and a small tortoise.

  ‘But I don’t have any,’ I said.

  ‘You’re wicked enough for two monkeys. One boy in the house is all I can take.’

  ‘Ah, but Tutu isn’t a boy,’ said Grandfather triumphantly. ‘This is a little girl monkey!’

  Grandmother gave in. She had always wanted a little girl in the house. She believed girls were less troublesome than boys. Tutu was to prove her wrong.

  Tutu was a pretty little monkey. Her bright eyes sparkled with mischief beneath deep-set eyebrows. And her teeth, which were a pearly white, were often revealed in a grin that frightened the wits out of Aunt Ruby, whose nerves had already suffered from the presence of Grandfather’s pet python in the house at Lucknow. But this was Dehra, my grandparents’ house, and aunts and uncles had to put up with our pets.

  Tutu’s hands had a dried-up look, as though they had been pickled in the sun for many years. One of the first things I taught her was to shake hands, and this she insisted on doing with all who visited the house. Peppery Major Malik would have to stoop and shake hands with Tutu before he could enter the drawing room, otherwise Tutu would climb on his shoulder and stay there, roughing up his hair and playing with his moustache.

  Uncle Ken couldn’t stand any of our pets and took a particular dislike to Tutu, who was always making faces at him. But as Uncle Ken was never in a job for long, and depended on Grandfather’s good-natured generosity, he had to shake hands with Tutu like everyone else.

  Tutu’s fingers were quick and wicked. And her tail, while adding to her good looks (Grandfather believed a tail would add to anyone’s good looks), also served as a third hand. She could use it to hang from a branch, and it was capable of scooping up any delicacy that might be out of reach of her hands.

  Aunt Ruby had not been informed of Tutu’s arrival. Loud shrieks from her bedroom brought us running to see what was wrong. It was only Tutu trying on Aunt Ruby’s petticoats! They were much too large, of course, and when Aunt Ruby entered the room all she saw was a faceless, white blob jumping up and down on the bed.

  We disentangled Tutu and soothed Aunt Ruby. I gave Tutu a bunch of sweet peas to make her happy. Granny didn’t like anyone plucking her sweet peas, so I took some from Major Malik’s garden while he was having his afternoon siesta.

  Then Uncle Ken complained that his hairbrush was missing. We found Tutu sunning herself on the back verandah, using the hairbrush to scratch her armpits. I took it from her and handed it back to Uncle Ken with an apology; but he flung the brush away with an oath.

  ‘Such a fuss about nothing,’ I said. ‘Tutu doesn’t have fleas!’

  ‘No, and she bathes more often than Ken,’ said Grandfather, who had borrowed Aunt Ruby’s shampoo for giving Tutu a bath.

  All the same, Grandmother objected to Tutu being given the run of the house. Tutu had to spend her nights in the outhouse, in the company of the goat. They got on quite well, and it was not long before Tutu was seen sitting comfortably on the back of the goat, while the goat roamed the back garden in search of its favourite grass.

  The day Grandfather had to visit Meerut to collect his railway pension, he decided to take Tutu and me along — to keep us both out of mischief, he said. To prevent Tutu from wandering about on the train, causing inconvenience to passengers, she was provided with a large, black travelling bag. This, with some straw at the bottom, became her compartment. Grandfather and I paid for our seats, and we took Tutu along as hand baggage.

  There was enough space for Tutu to look out of the bag occasionally, and to be fed with bananas and biscuits, but she could not get her hands through the opening and the canvas was too strong for her to bite her way through.

  Tutu’s efforts to get out only had the effect of making the bag roll about on the floor or occasionally jump into the air — an exhibition that attracted a curious crowd of onlookers both at Dehra and Meerut railway stations.

  Anyway, Tutu remained in the bag as far as Meerut, but while Grandfather was producing our tickets at the turnstile, she suddenly poked her head out of the bag and gave the ticket collector a wide grin.

  The poor man was taken aback. But, with great presence of mind and much to Grandfather’s annoyance, he said, ‘Sir, you have a dog with you. You’ll have to buy a ticket for it.’

  ‘It’s not a dog!’ said Grandfather indignantly. ‘This is a baby monkey of the species macacus-mischievous, closely related to the human species homus-horriblis! And there is no charge for babies!’

  ‘It’s as big as a cat,’ said the ticket collector.

  ‘Next you’ll be asking to see her mother,’ snapped Grandfather.’

  In vain did he take Tutu out of the bag. In vain did he try to prove that a young monkey did not qualify as a dog or a cat or even as a quadruped. Tutu was classified as a dog by the ticket collector, and five rupees were handed over as her fare.

  Then Grandfather, just to get his own back, took from his pocket the small tortoise that he sometimes carried about, and asked, ‘And what must I pay for this, since you charge for all creatures great and small?’

  The ticket collector looked closely at the tortoise, prodded it with his forefinger, gave Grandfather a triumphant look, and announced, ‘No charge, sir. It is not a dog!’

  Winters in north India can be very cold. A great treat for Tutu on winter evenings was the large bowl of hot water given to her by Grandmother for a bath. Tutu would cunningly test the temperature with her hand, then gradually step into the bath, first one foot, then the other (as she had seen me doing) until she was in the water up to her neck.

  Once comfortable, she would take the soap in her hands or feet and rub herself all over. When the water became cold she would get out and run as quickly as she could to the kitchen fire in order to dry herself. If anyone laughed at her during this performance, Tutu’s feelings would be hurt and she would refuse to go on with the bath.

  One day Tutu almost succeeded in boiling herself alive. Grandmother had left a large kettle on the fire for tea. And Tutu, all by herself and with nothing better to do, decided to remove the lid. Finding the water just warm enough for a bath, she got in, with her head sticking out from the open kettle.

  This was fine for a while, until the water began to get heated. Tutu raised herself a little out of the kettle. But finding it cold outside, she sat down again. She continued hopping up and down for some time until Grandmother returned and hauled her, half-boiled, out of the kettle.

  ‘What’s for tea today?’ asked Uncle Ken gleefully. ‘Boiled eggs and a half-boiled monkey?’

  But Tutu was none the worse for the adventure and continued to bathe more regularly than Uncle Ken.

  Aunt Ruby was a frequent taker of baths. This met with Tutu’s approval — so much so, that one day, when Aunt Ruby had finished shampooing her hair she looked up th
rough a lather of bubbles and soapsuds to see Tutu sitting opposite her in the bath, following her example.

  One day Aunt Ruby took us all by surprise. She announced that she had become engaged. We had always thought Aunt Ruby would never marry — she had often said so herself — but it appeared that the right man had now come along in the person of Rocky Fernandes, a schoolteacher from Goa.

  Rocky was a tall, firm-jawed, good-natured man, a couple of years younger than Aunt Ruby. He had a fine baritone voice and sang in the manner of the great Nelson Eddy. As Grandmother liked baritone singers, Rocky was soon in her good books.

  ‘But what on earth does he see in her?’ Uncle Ken wanted to know.

  ‘More than any girl has seen in you!’ snapped Grandmother. ‘Ruby’s a fine girl. And they’re both teachers. Maybe they can start a school of their own.’

  Rocky visited the house quite often and brought me chocolates and cashewnuts, of which he seemed to have an unlimited supply. He also taught me several marching songs. Naturally I approved of Rocky. Aunt Ruby won my grudging admiration for having made such a wise choice.

  One day I overheard them talking of going to the bazaar to buy an engagement ring. I decided I would go along too. But as Aunt Ruby had made it clear that she did not want me around I decided that I had better follow at a discreet distance. Tutu, becoming aware that a mission of some importance was under way, decided to follow me. But as I had not invited her along, she too decided to keep out of sight.

  Once in the crowded bazaar, I was able to get quite close to Aunt Ruby and Rocky without being spotted. I waited until they had settled down in a large jewellery shop before sauntering past and spotting them as though by accident. Aunt Ruby wasn’t too pleased at seeing me, but Rocky waved and called out, ‘Come and join us! Help your aunt choose a beautiful ring!’

  The whole thing seemed to be a waste of good money, but I did not say so — Aunt Ruby was giving me one of her more unloving looks.