Uncles, Aunts and Elephants

by Ruskin Bond

  After fourteen days it was found that the ‘blessed’ seeds grew slightly better than the ones which received no thoughts at all. The most remarkable thing, however, was that the seeds which were ‘cursed’ grew only half the size of the others and 62 per cent did not even germinate.

  Before scoffing at the power of the evil eye, ponder upon the feats of hypnotism. A powerful mind, using the intensifying apparatus of the eye, is able to influence a mind open to suggestion.

  Surely the best way to deal with a baleful glance or negative thought is to reverse the roles, and draw upon one’s own latent powers of suggestion, challenge the evil eye, stare it down, set it at naught. Meet it with a steadfast eye!

  And should you find a staring match too much of a strain, here’s a trick my magic-making grandmother taught me: Don’t stare the other person in the eye. Fix your gaze on a point between the eyes, on the bridge of the nose, and keep it there. Your opponent will look away.

  April in Landour

  Swifts are busy nesting in the roof and performing acrobatics outside my window. They do everything on the wing, it seems, including feeding and making love.

  The wind in the pines and deodars hums and moans, but in the chestnut it rustles and chatters and makes cheerful conversation. The horse chestnut in full leaf is a magnificent sight.

  *

  Amongst the current fraternity of writers, I must be that very rare person, an author who actually writes by hand.

  Soon after the invention of the typewriter, most editors and publishers understandably refused to look at any manuscript that was handwritten. A few years earlier, when Dickens and Balzac had submitted their hefty manuscripts in longhand, no one had objected. Had their handwriting been awful, their manuscripts would still have been read. Fortunately for all concerned, these and other famous writers took pains over their handwriting.

  Both Dickens and Thackeray had clear, flourishing handwriting. Somerset Maugham had an upright, legible hand, Tagore, a fine flourish. Churchill’s neat handwriting never wavered, even when he was under stress. I like the bold, clear, straightforward hand of Abraham Lincoln; it mirrors the man.

  Not everyone had a beautiful hand. King Henry VIII had an untidy scrawl, but then, he was not a man of much refinement. Guy Fawkes, who tried to blow up the British Parliament, had a very shaky hand. With such a quiver, no wonder he failed in his attempt. Hitler’s signature is ugly, as you might expect. And Napoleon’s doesn’t seem to know when to stop; how like the man!

  When I think of the great eighteenth and nineteenth century writers, scratching away with their quill pens, filling hundreds of pages every month, I am amazed that their handwriting did not deteriorate into the sort of hieroglyphics that makes up the average doctor’s prescription today. They knew how to write legibly, if only for the sake of the typesetters.

  And it wasn’t only authors who wrote with an elegant hand. Most of our parents and grandparents had distinctive styles of their own. I still have my father’s last letter, written to me when I was at boarding school over sixty years ago. He used large, beautifully formed letters, and his thoughts seemed to have the same flow and clarity as his handwriting.

  In his letter he advises nine-year-old Ruskin about his handwriting:

  I wanted to write before about your writing, Ruskin . . . Sometimes I get letters from you in very small writing, as if you wanted to squeeze everything into one sheet of paper. It is not good for you or for your eyes, to get into the habit of writing so small. . . Try and form a larger style of handwriting. Use more paper if necessary!

  I did my best to follow his advice, and I’m glad to report that after a lifetime of penmanship, my handwriting is still readable.

  Word processors and computers are the in thing now, and I do not object to these electronic aids any more than I objected to the mechanical aid of my old Olympia typewriter, which is still going strong after forty years; the latter is at least impervious to power failures. Although I still do most of my writing in longhand, I follow the conventions by typing a second draft. But I would not enjoy my writing if I had to do it straight on to a machine. It isn’t just the pleasure of writing by hand, although that’s part of it. Sometimes I like taking my notebooks or writing pads to odd places. This particular entry is being composed on the steep hillside above the cottage in which I live. Part of the reason for sitting here is that there is a new postman on the route, and I don’t want him to miss me. For a freelance writer, the postman is almost as important as his publisher. He brings me editorial acceptances or rejections, the occasional cheques and sometimes a nice letter from a reader. I could, of course, sit here doing nothing, but as I have pencil and paper with me, and feel like using them, I shall write until the postman comes and maybe after he has gone, too.

  Typewriters and computers were not designed with steep mountain slopes in mind. On one occasion last autumn I did carry my typewriter into the garden, and I am still trying to extricate a couple of acorns from under the keys, while the roller seems permanently stained from some fine yellow pollen dust from the deodar trees. But armed with pencils and paper, I can lie on the grass and write for hours. Provided there are a couple of cheese-and-tomato sandwiches within easy reach.

  *

  The smallest insect in the world is a sort of fairy fly and its body is only a fifth of a millimetre long. One can only just see it with the naked eye. Almost like a speck of dust, yet it has perfect little wings and little combs on its legs for preening itself.

  That is perfection.

  *

  The nice thing about reaching a reasonable age (sixty plus) is that, along the way, one has collected a few pleasant memories. Life isn’t always pleasant, but I find it’s possible to shut out the darker recollections and dwell instead on life’s happier moments. Psychiatrists may not agree with this method. They like their patients to unburden themselves and reveal their childhood traumas. But it’s when we cannot escape our childhood traumas that we end up on the psychiatrist’s couch.

  Anyway, here’s an example of being able to relive an old memory without regret:

  Last week, after a gap of forty years, I climbed to the little temple of Sirkhanda Devi, a steep climb from the motor road at 8000 feet to the summit at 10,000 feet. Forty years ago I’d walked the thirty-odd miles from Mussoorie to Kaddukhal; there was no motor road then, just a bridle path. Now buses and taxis bring tourists and pilgrims to Kaddukhal, but they still have to climb to the temple. Climbing is good for both body and soul.

  The old bridle path has disappeared, but remnants of it can be seen in places. While climbing up from the new road, I came across a little cluster of huts and recognized the one in which I’d spent a night, before tramping on to Chamba. I was just a boy then . . . Of course the old man who’d offered me hospitality was long gone, and his son had moved elsewhere, but there were children in the courtyard, and goats and chickens, and a tall deodar which had been no taller than me on that first visit. So here were memories flooding back in the nicest of ways.

  To be perfectly honest, that night in the hut had not been so lovely, for the sheepskin rug on which I’d slept had been infested with vicious fleas and khatmals, and I’d stayed awake scratching into the early hours. But see how easy it is to put aside the less pleasant memory. Forget the bugs and think of the moon coming up over the mountains, and life becomes a little more tolerable.

  Well, on this second occasion I entered the tiny temple on the hilltop and thanked the Devi for her blessings and told her that life had been good to me since I’d last been there.

  I feel drawn to little temples on lonely hilltops. With the mist swirling round them, and the wind humming in the stunted pines, they absorb some of the magic and mystery of their surroundings and transmit it to the questing pilgrim.

  Another memory revived when I accompanied the family to the sulphur springs outside Dehra, and discovered that this former wilderness had been turned into a little dhaba township, with the garbage left by tour
ists and picnickers littering the banks of the stream and being caught up on the rocks.

  Here, fifty years ago, I bicycled with my friends, bathed, and rested in the shade of the ravine. Few people found their way there. Today, it has been ‘developed’ into a tourist spot, although there is no longer any sign of the hot spring that made it known in the first place. In shock, the spring appears to have gone underground.

  All this is progress, of course, and I must confess to being sadly behind the times.

  The other day a young Internet surfer asked me why I preferred using a pencil instead of a computer. The principal reason, I told him, was that I liked chewing on the end of my pencil. A nasty habit, but it helps me concentrate. And I find it extremely difficult to chew on a computer.

  *

  ‘We should not spoil what we have by desiring what we have not, but remember that what we have too was the gift of fortune’ — Epicurus

  *

  Glorious day. Walked up and around the hill, and got some of the cobwebs out of my head.

  Some epigrams (my own, for future use):

  A well-balanced person: someone with a chip on both shoulders.

  Experience: The knowledge that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it the second time.

  Sympathy: What one woman offers another in exchange for details.

  Worry: The interest paid on trouble before it becomes due.

  I read these out to my critic and confidant, four-year-old Gautam (Siddharth’s younger brother), and he shook his head sadly and responded with ‘Kabi Khushi, Kabi Gam!’ Like Mr Dick in David Copperfield, he usually comes up with an appropriate response.

  *

  Death moves about at random, without discriminating between the innocent and the evil, the poor and the rich. The only difference is that the poor usually handle it better.

  I heard today that the peanut vendor had died. The old man would always be in the dark, windy corner in Landour Bazaar, hunched up over the charcoal fire on which he roasted his peanuts. He’d been there for as long as I could remember, and he could be seen at almost any hour of the day or night. Summer or winter, he stayed close to his fire.

  He was probably quite tall, but I never saw him standing up. One judged his height from his long, loose limbs. He was very thin, and the high cheekbones added to the tautness of his tightly stretched skin.

  His peanuts were always fresh, crisp and hot. They were popular with the small boys who had a few coins to spend on their way to and from school, and with the patrons of the cinemas, many of whom made straight for the windy corner during intervals or when the show was over. On cold winter evenings, or misty monsoon days, there was always a demand for the old man’s peanuts.

  No one knew his name. No one had ever thought of asking him for it. One just took him for granted. He was as fixed a landmark as the clock tower or the old cherry tree that grows crookedly from the hillside. The tree was always being lopped; the clock often stopped. The peanut vendor seemed less perishable than the tree, more dependable than the clock. He had no family, but in a way all the world was his family, because he was in continuous contact with people. And yet he was a remote sort of being, always polite, even to children, but never familiar. There is a distinction to be made between aloneness and loneliness. The peanut vendor was seldom alone, but he must have been lonely.

  Summer nights he rolled himself up in a thin blanket and slept on the ground, beside the dying embers of his fire. During the winter, he waited until the last show was over, before retiring to the coolies’ shed where there was some protection from the biting wind.

  Did he enjoy being alive? I wonder now. He was not a joyful person; but then, neither was he miserable. I should think he was a genuine stoic, one of those who do not attach overmuch importance to themselves, who are emotionally uninvolved, content with their limitations, their dark corners. I wanted to get to know the old man better, to sound him out on the immense questions involved in roasting peanuts all his life, but it’s too late now. Today his dark corner was deserted; the old man had vanished; the coolies had carried him down to the cremation ground.

  ‘He died in his sleep,’ said the tea shop owner. ‘He was very old.’

  Very old. Sufficient reason to die.

  But that corner is very empty, very dark, and I know that whenever I pass it I will be haunted by visions of the old peanut vendor, troubled by the questions I failed to ask.

  *

  Spoke to the Christian writers’ group at Deodars, on the subject of writing for a living.

  Question: Which, in your opinion, is the best book on Christianity?

  ‘I’d always thought it was the New Testament,’ was all I could say.

  Reading Was My Religion

  In January 1948, Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated.

  I had gone to the pictures at one of Dehra’s new cinemas — The Hollywood on Chakrata Road — and the film was called Blossoms in the Dust; but it had been showing for about ten minutes when the projector stopped running. The lights came on and the manager appeared at one of the doors to announce that news had just been received that Gandhiji, father of the nation, had been shot dead. The cinema would be closed for a week. We were given our money back.

  I walked disconsolately home across the maidan, shocked by the event and also a little dismayed that I wouldn’t be able to see another picture for at least a week. (And I never did see Blossoms in its entirety.) As I was only thirteen at the time, I don’t think I could be accused of a lack of sensitivity. As I walked across the vast maidan — it was now late evening — I passed little groups of people talking about what had happened and how it might affect the course of politics in the country. The assassin belonged to the majority community, and there was undisguised relief that the tragedy would not result in more communal riots. Gandhiji had already become history. Now he was to achieve sainthood.

  Oddly enough my sister Ellen took it to heart more than anyone else in the family. She would spend hours drawing pictures of Gandhi. As her eyesight was poor, some of these portraits took weird shapes, but sometimes you could recognize the great man’s glasses, chappals and walking stick.

  We had moved again. My stepfather was supporting my mother once more, so she had given up the job at Green’s, which was about to close down. They had rented a small, rather damp bungalow on the Eastern Canal Road, and I had a dark little room which leaked at several places when it rained. On wet winter nights it had a rather spooky atmosphere: the drip of water, the scurrying of rats in the space between the ceiling and corrugated tin roof, and the nightly visitation of a small bat which got in through a gap in the wall and swooped around the room, snapping up moths. I would stay up into the early hours reading Oliver Twist (pinched from Granny’s house), Wuthering Heights (all in one sitting, during a particularly stormy night) and Shakespeare’s Complete Works — a lofty volume of the band’s plays and poems, which, till then, was the only book in the house that I hadn’t read. The print was very small but I set myself the task of reading right through, and achieved this feat during the winter holidays. Of the plays I enjoyed The Tempest more than any other. Of the longer poems The Rape of Lucrece was the most intriguing but I found it difficult to reconcile its authorship with that of the plays. They were so robust, the poems formalized, watery by comparison.

  I realize now that my mother was a brave woman. She stuck it out with Mr Hari who, as a businessman, was a complete disaster. He’d lost on his photographic saloon, which had now been sold by his first wife; he had lost on his motor workshop and he had lost his car sales agencies. He was up against large income tax arrears and he was irregular with all his payments. But he was popular with his workmen and mechanics, as he was quite happy to sit and drink with them, or take them along on his shikar expeditions. In this way everyone had a good time, even though his customers grew more irate by the day. Repair jobs were seldom finished on time. If a customer left a decent looking car with him for servicing, my stepfather wou
ld use it for two or three months, on the pretext of ‘testing’ it, before handing it back to the owner.

  But his heart was in the right place. During the communal riots of ‘47, he, a Hindu, was instrumental in saving a number of Muslim lives, driving friends or employees to safer locations, or even upto the Pakistan border.

  He never had a harsh word for me. Sometimes I wish he had!

  *

  The RAF had undertaken to pay for my schooling, so I was able to continue at BCS.

  Back in Simla I found a sympathetic soul in Mr Jones, an ex-Army Welshman who taught us divinity. He did not have the qualifications to teach us anything else, but I think I learnt more from him than from most of our more qualified staff. He had even got me to read the Bible (King James version) for the classical simplicity of its style.

  Mr Jones got on well with small boys, one reason being that he never punished them. Alone among the philistines he was the only teacher to stand out against corporal punishment. He waged a lone campaign against the custom of caning boys for their misdemeanours, and in this respect was far ahead of his time. The other masters thought him a little eccentric, and he lost his seniority because of his refusal to administer physical punishment.

  But there was nothing eccentric about Mr Jones, unless it was the pet pigeon that followed him everywhere and sometimes perched on his bald head. He managed to keep the pigeon (and his cigar) out of the classroom, but his crowded, untidy bachelor quarters reeked of cigar smoke.

  He had a passion for the works of Dickens, and when he discovered that I had read Nickleby and Sketches by Boz, he allowed me to look at his set of the Complete Works, with the illustrations by Phiz. I launched into David Copperfield, which I thoroughly enjoyed, identifying myself with young David, his triumphs and tribulations. After reading Copperfield I decided it was a fine thing to be a writer. The seed had already been sown, and although in my imagination I still saw myself as an Arsenal goalkeeper or a Gene Kelly-type tap dancer, I think I knew in my heart that I was best suited to the written word. I was topping the class in essay writing, although I had an aversion to studying the texts that were prescribed for English literature classes.