Uncles, Aunts and Elephants

by Ruskin Bond

  Mr Jones, with his socialist, Dickensian viewpoint, had an aversion for P.G. Wodehouse, whose comic novels I greatly enjoyed. He told me that these novels glamorized the most decadent aspects of upper-class English life (which was probably true), and that only recently, during the War (when he was interned in France), Wodehouse had been making propaganda broadcasts on behalf of Germany. This was true, too; although years later when I read the texts of those broadcasts (in Performing Flea), they seemed harmless enough.

  But Mr Jones did have a point — Wodehouse was hopelessly out of date, for when I went to England after leaving school, I couldn’t find anyone remotely resembling a Wodehouse character. Except perhaps Ukridge, who was always borrowing money from his friends in order to set up in some business or the other; he was universal.

  The school library — the Anderson Library — was fairly well stocked, and it was to be something of a haven for me over the next three years. There were always writers, past or present, to ‘discover’ — and I still have a tendency to ferret out writers who have been ignored, neglected or forgotten.

  After Copperfield the novel that most influenced me was Hugh Walpole’s Fortitude, an epic account of another young writer in the making. Its opening line still acts as a clarion call when I feel depressed or as though I am getting nowhere: ‘Tisn’t life that matters, but the courage you bring to it.’

  Walpole’s more ambitious works have been forgotten, but his stories and novels of the macabre are still worth reading — Mr Perrin and Mr Trail, Portrait of a Man with Red Hair, The White Tower. . . And, of course, Fortitude. I returned to it last year and found it was still stirring stuff.

  But life wasn’t all books. At the age of fifteen I was at my best as a football goalkeeper, hockey player, athlete. I was also acting in school plays and taking part in debates. I wasn’t much of a boxer — a sport I disliked — but I had learnt to use my head to good effect, and managed to get myself disqualified by butting the other fellow in the head or midriff. As all games were compulsory, I had to overcome my fear of water and learn to swim a little. Mr Jones taught me to do the breast stroke, saying it was more suited to my temperament than the splash and dash stuff.

  The only thing I couldn’t do was sing, and although I loved listening to great singers, from Caruso to Gigli, I couldn’t sing a note. Our music teacher, Mrs Knight, put me in the school choir because, she said, I looked like a choir boy, all pink and shining in a cassock and surplice, but she forbade me from actually singing. I was to open my mouth with the others, but on no account was I to allow any sound to issue from it.

  This took me back to the convent in Mussoorie where I had been given piano lessons, probably at my father’s request. The nun who was teaching me would get so exasperated with my stubborn inability to strike the right chord or play the right notes that she would crack me over the knuckles with a ruler — thus effectively putting an end to any interest I might have had in learning to play a musical instrument. Mr Priestley’s violin, in the prep school, and now Mrs Knight’s organ playing, were none too inspiring.

  Insensitive though I may have been to high notes and low notes, diminuendos and crescendos, I was nevertheless sensitive to sound — birdsong, the hum of the breeze playing in tall trees, the rustle of autumn leaves, crickets chirping, water splashing and murmuring in brooks, the sea sighing on the sand — all natural sounds, indicating a certain harmony in the natural world.

  Man-made sounds — the roar of planes, the blare of horns, the thunder of trucks and engines, the baying of a crowd — are usually ugly. But some gifted humans have tried to rise above it by creating great music; and we must not scorn the also-rans, those who come down hard on their organ pedals, or emulate cicadas with their violin playing.

  Although I was quite popular at Bishop Cotton’s, after Omar’s departure I did not have many close friends. There was, of course, young A — , my junior by two years, who followed me everywhere until I gave in and took him to the pictures in town, or fed him at the tuck shop.

  There were just one or two boys who actually read books for pleasure. We tend to think of that era as one when there were no distractions such as television, computer games and the like. But reading has always been a minority pastime. People say children don’t read any more. This may be true of the vast majority, but I know many boys and girls who enjoy reading, far more than I encountered when I was a schoolboy. In those days there were comics and the radio and the cinema. I went to the cinema whenever I could, but that did not keep me from reading almost everything that came my way. And so it is today. Book readers are special

  people, and they will always turn to books as the ultimate pleasure. Those who do not read are the unfortunate ones. There’s nothing wrong with them; but they are missing out on one of life’s compensations and rewards. A great book is a friend that never lets you down. You can return to it again and again, and the joy first derived from it will still be there.

  I think it is fair to say that when I was a boy, reading was my true religion. It helped me to discover my soul.

  Miss Romola and Others

  Though their numbers have diminished over the years, there are still a few compulsive daily walkers around: the odd ones, the strange ones, who will walk all day, here, there and everywhere, not in order to get somewhere, but to escape from their homes, their lonely rooms, their mirrors, themselves . . .

  Those of us who must work for a living and would love to be able to walk a little more don’t often get the chance. There are offices to attend, deadlines to be met, trains or planes to be caught, deals to be struck, people to deal with. It’s the rat race for most people, whether they like it or not. So who are these lucky ones, a small minority it has to be said, who find time to walk all over this hill station from morn to night?

  Some are fitness freaks, I suppose; but several are just unhappy souls who find some release, some meaning, in covering miles and miles of highway without so much as a nod in the direction of others on the road. They are not looking at anything as they walk, not even at a violet in a mossy stone.

  Here comes Miss Romola. She’s been at it for years. A retired schoolmistress who never married. No friends. Lonely as hell. Not even a visit from a former pupil. She could not have been very popular.

  She has money in the bank. She owns her own flat. But she doesn’t spend much time in it. I see her from my window, tramping up the road to Lal Tibba. She strides around the mountain like the character in the old song ‘She’ll be coming round the mountain’, only she doesn’t wear pink pyjamas; she dresses in slacks and a shirt. She doesn’t stop to talk to anyone. It’s quick march to the top of the mountain, and then down again, home again, jiggety-jig. When she has to go down to Dehradun (too long a walk even for her), she stops a car and cadges a lift. No taxis for her, not even the bus.

  Miss Romola’s chief pleasure in life comes from conserving her money. There are people like that. They view the rest of the world with suspicion. An overture of friendship will be construed as taking an undue interest in her assets. We are all part of an international conspiracy to relieve her of her material possessions! She has no servants, no friends; even her relatives are kept at a safe distance.

  A similar sort of character but even more eccentric is Mr Sen, who used to live in the USA and walks from the Happy Valley to Landour (five miles) and back every day, in all seasons, year in and year out. Once or twice every week he will stop at the Community Hospital to have his blood pressure checked or undergo a blood or urine test. With all that walking he should have no health problems, but he is a hypochondriac and is convinced that he is dying of something or the other.

  He came to see me once. Unlike Miss Romola, he seemed to want a friend, but his neurotic nature turned people away. He was convinced that he was surrounded by individual and collective hostility. People were always staring at him, he told me. I couldn’t help wondering why, because he looked fairly nondescript. He wore conventional Western clothes, perfectly ac
ceptable in urban India, and looked respectable enough except for a constant nervous turning of the head, looking to the left, right, or behind, as though to check on anyone who might be following him. He was convinced that he was being followed at all times.

  ‘By whom?’ I asked.

  ‘Agents of the government,’ he said.

  ‘But why should they follow you?’

  ‘I look different,’ he said. ‘They see me as an outsider. They think I work for the CIA.’

  ‘And do you?’

  ‘No, no!’ He shied nervously away from me. ‘Why did you say that?’

  ‘Only because you brought the subject up. I haven’t noticed anyone following you.’

  ‘They’re very clever about it. Perhaps you’re following me too.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t walk as fast or as far as you,’ I said with a laugh; but he wasn’t amused. He never smiled, never laughed. He did not feel safe in India, he confided. The saffron brigade was after him!

  ‘But why?’ I asked. ‘They’re not after me. And you’re a Hindu with a Hindu name.’

  ‘Ah yes, but I don’t look like one!’

  ‘Well, I don’t look like a Taoist monk, but that’s what I am,’ I said, adding, in a more jocular manner: ‘I know how to become invisible, and you wouldn’t know I’m around. That’s why no one follows me! I have this wonderful cloak, you see, and when I wear it I become invisible!’

  ‘Can you lend it to me?’ he asked eagerly.

  ‘I’d love to,’ I said, ‘but it’s at the cleaners right now. Maybe next week.’

  ‘Crazy,’ he muttered. ‘Quite mad.’ And he hurried on.

  A few weeks later he returned to New York and safety. Then I heard he’d been mugged in Central Park. He’s recovering, but doesn’t do much walking now.

  Neurotics do not walk for pleasure; they walk out of compulsion. They are not looking at the trees or the flowers or the mountains; they are not looking at other people (except in apprehension); they are usually walking away from something — unhappiness or disarray in their lives. They tire themselves out, physically and mentally, and that brings them some relief.

  Like the journalist who came to see me last year. He’d escaped from Delhi, he told me. Had taken a room in Landour Bazaar and was going to spend a year on his own, away from family, friends, colleagues, the entire rat race. He was full of noble resolutions. He was planning to write an epic poem or a great Indian novel or a philosophical treatise. Every fortnight I meet someone who is planning to write one or the other of these things, and I do not like to discourage them, just in case they turn violent!

  In effect he did nothing but walk up and down the mountain, growing shabbier by the day. Sometimes he recognized me. At other times there was a blank look on his face, as though he was on some drug, and he would walk past me without a sign of recognition. He discarded his slippers and began walking about barefoot, even on the stony paths. He did not change or wash his clothes. Then he disappeared; that is, I no longer saw him around.

  I did not really notice his absence until I saw an ad in one of the national papers, asking for information about his whereabouts. His family was anxious to locate him. The ad carried a picture of the gentleman, taken in happier, healthier times; but it was definitely my acquaintance of that summer.

  I was sitting in the bank manager’s office, up in the cantonment, when a woman came in, making inquiries about her husband. It was the missing journalist’s wife. Yes, said Mr Ohri, the friendly bank manager, he’d opened an account with them; not a very large sum, but there were a few hundred rupees lying to his credit. And no, they hadn’t seen him in the bank for at least three months.

  The journalist couldn’t be found. Several months passed, and it was presumed that he had moved on to some other town, or that he’d lost his mind or his memory. Then some milkmen from Kolti Gaon discovered bones and remnants of clothing at the bottom of a cliff. In the pocket of the ragged shirt was the journalist’s press card.

  How he’d fallen to his death remains a mystery. It’s easy to miss your footing and take a fatal plunge on the steep slopes of this range. He may have been high on something or he may simply have been trying out an unfamiliar path. Walking can be dangerous in the hills if you don’t know the way or if you take one chance too many.

  And here’s a tale to illustrate that old chestnut that truth is often stranger than fiction:

  Colonel Parshottam had just retired and was determined to pass the evening of his life doing the things he enjoyed most: taking early morning and late evening walks, afternoon siestas, a drop of whisky before dinner, and a good book on his bedside table.

  A few streets away, on the fourth floor of a block of flats, lived Mrs L, a stout, neglected woman of forty, who’d had enough of life and was determined to do away with herself.

  Along came the Colonel on the road below, a song on his lips, strolling along with a jaunty air, in love with life and wanting more of it.

  Ouite unaware of anyone else around, Mrs L chose that moment to throw herself out of her fourth-floor window. Seconds later she landed with a thud on the Colonel. If this was a Ruskin Bond story, it would have been love at first flight. But the grim reality was that he was crushed beneath her and did not recover from the impact. Mrs L, on the other hand, survived the fall and lived on into a miserable old age.

  There is no moral to the story, any more than there is a moral to life. We cannot foresee when a bolt from the blue will put an end to the best-laid plans of mice and men.

  Respect Your Breakfast

  ‘Laugh and be fat, sir!’ Thus spoke Ben Jonson, poet and playwright, Shakespeare’s contemporary and a lover of good food, wine and laughter.

  Merriment usually accompanies food and drink, and laughter is usually enjoyed in the company of friends and people of goodwill. Laugh when you’re alone, and you are likely to end up in a lunatic asylum.

  ‘Honour your food,’ said Manu, the law-giver, ‘receive it thankfully. Do not hold it in contempt.’ He did go on to say that we should avoid excess and gluttony, but his message was we should respect what is placed before us.

  This was Granny’s message, too. ‘Better a small fish than an empty dish’ was one of the sayings inscribed on her kitchen accounts notebook. She was apt to quote several of these little proverbs, and one of them was directed at me whenever I took too large a second helping of my favourite kofta curry.

  ‘Don’t let your tongue cut your throat,’ she would say ominously. ‘You don’t want to grow up to be like Billy Bunter.’ She referred to the Fat Boy of Greyfriars School, a popular fictional character in the late 1930s.

  ‘Just one more kofta, Granny,’ I’d beg, ‘I promise, I won’t take a third helping.’

  Sixty-five years later, I’m still trying to keep that promise. I keep those second helpings small, just in case I’m tempted into a third one. I’m not quite a Bunter yet, possibly because I still walk quite a bit. But the trouble with walking is it gives you an appetite, and that means you are inclined to tuck in when you get to the dining table.

  Last winter, when I was staying at the India International Centre (IIC), I would go for an early morning walk in the Lodi Gardens, followed by breakfast at the Centre. They give you a good breakfast at IIC, and I did full justice to the scrambled eggs, buttered toasts, marmalade and coffee. I could have done with a little bacon, too, but apparently it wasn’t the season for it. Well, when I looked across at the next table I saw a solitary figure breakfasting on watermelon — and nothing else! This made me feel terribly guilty, and I refrained from finishing off the marmalade.

  ‘Aren’t you Bond?’ asked the man at the next table.

  I confessed I was — not the other Bond, but the real one — and it turned out that we’d been at school together, in the dim distant past.

  ‘You were always a good eater,’ he said reflectively. ‘In fact, you used to help yourself to my jam tarts when I wasn’t looking.’

  We chatted abou
t our school days and companions of that era, and then he went on to tell me that he was suffering from various ailments — hence the frugal watermelon breakfast. As I wasn’t suffering from anything worse than a bruised shin (due to falling over a courting couple in the Gardens) I felt better about my breakfast, and immediately ordered more marmalade and a third toast. When we parted, he urged me to switch to watermelons for breakfast, though I couldn’t help noticing that he eyed my scrambled egg with a look that was full of longing. I guess healthy eating and happy eating are two different things.

  Diwali, Christmas and the New Year are appropriate times for a little indulgence, and if someone were to send me a Christmas pudding I would respect the giver and the pudding by at least enjoying a slice or two — and sharing the rest!

  But strictly speaking I’m a breakfast person, and I stand by another of Granny’s proverbs: ‘If the breakfast is bad, the rest of the day will go wrong.’ So make it a good breakfast; linger over it, enjoy the flavours. And if you happen to be someone who must prepare their own breakfast, do so with loving care and precision. As Granny said, ‘There is skill in all things, even in scrambling eggs.’

  Simla and Delhi, 1943

  We took the railcar to Simla. It was the nicest way of travelling through the mountains. The narrow-gauge train took twice as long and left you covered in soot. Going up in a motor car made you nauseous. The railcar glided smoothly round and up gradients, slipping through the 103 tunnels without subjecting the passengers to blasts of hot, black smoke.