by Ruskin Bond
It is a song that never fails to thrill and enchant me. The bird starts with a hesitant schoolboy whistle, as though trying out the tune; then, confident of the melody, it bursts into full song, a crescendo of sweet notes and variations that ring clearly across the hillside. Suddenly the song breaks off right in the middle of a cadenza, and I am left wondering what happened to make the bird stop so suddenly.
At first the bird was heard but never seen. Then one day I found the whistling thrush perched on the broken garden fence. He was deep glistening purple, his shoulders flecked with white; he had sturdy black legs and a strong yellow beak. A dapper fellow who would have looked just right in a top hat! When he saw me coming down the path, he uttered a sharp kree-ee—unexpectedly harsh when compared to his singing—and flew off into the shadowed ravine.
As the months passed, he grew used to my presence and became less shy. Once the rainwater pipes were blocked, and this resulted in an overflow of water and a small permanent puddle under the steps. This became the whistling 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 roof, he would treat me to a little concert—performed, I could not help feeling, especially for my benefit.
It was Govind, the milkman, who told me the legend of the whistling thrush, locally called Kastura by the hill people, but also going by the name of Krishan-patti.
According to the story, Lord Krishna fell asleep near a mountain stream and while he slept, a small boy made off with the god’s famous flute. Upon waking and finding his flute gone, Krishna was so angry that he changed the culprit into a bird. But having once played on the flute, the bird had learnt bits and pieces of Krishna’s wonderful music. And so he continued, in his disrespectful way, to play the music of the gods, only stopping now and then (as the whistling thrush does) when he couldn’t remember the tune.
It wasn’t long before my whistling thrush was joined by a female, who looked exactly like him. (I am sure there are subtle points of difference, but not to my myopic eyes!) Sometimes they gave solo performances, sometimes they sang duets; and these, no doubt, were love calls, because it wasn’t long before the pair were making forays into the rocky ledges of the ravine, looking for a suitable maternity home. But a few breeding seasons were to pass before I saw any of their young.
After almost three years in the hills, I came to the conclusion 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 about in the chimney, while distant thunder threatens a storm. Undismayed, the whistling thrushes are calling to each other as they roam the wind-threshed forest.
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 recognize this untidy bundle as a nest.
It meant, of course, that I couldn’t open the window, as this would have resulted in the nest toppling over the edge. Fortunately the room had another window and I kept this one open to let in sunshine, fresh air, the music of birds, and, always welcome, the call of the postman! The postman’s call may not be as musical as birdsong, but this writer never tires of it, for it heralds the arrival of the occasional cheque that makes it possible for him to live close to nature.
And now, this very day, 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 a great day that’s coming soon.
The wild cherry trees, which I grew especially for birds, attract a great many small birds, both when it is in flower and when it is in fruit.
When it is covered with pale pink blossoms, the most common visitor is a little yellow-backed sunbird, who emits a squeaky little song as he flits from branch to branch. He extracts the nectar from the blossoms with his tubular tongue, sometimes while hovering on the wing but usually while clinging to the slender twigs.
Just as some vegetarians will occasionally condescend to eat meat, the sunbird (like the barbet) will vary his diet with insects. Small spiders, caterpillars, beetles, bugs and flies (probably in most cases themselves visitors to these flowers), fall prey to these birds. I have also seen a sunbird flying up and catching insects on the wing.
The flycatchers are gorgeous birds, especially the Paradise Flycatcher with its long white tail and ghost-like flight; and although they are largely insectivorous, like some meat-eaters they will also take a little fruit! And so they will occasionally visit the cherry tree when its sour little cherries are ripening. While travelling over the boughs, they utter twittering notes with occasional louder calls, and now and then the male bird breaks out into a sweet little song, thus justifying the name of Shah Bulbul by which he is known in northern India.
Copperfield in the Jungle
GRANDFATHER NEVER hunted wild animals; he could not understand the pleasure some people obtained from killing the creatures of our forests. Birds and animals, he felt, had as much right to live as humans. There was some justification in killing for food—most animals did—but none at all in killing just for the fun of it.
At the age of twelve, I did not have the same high principles as Grandfather. Nevertheless, I disliked anything to do with shikar or hunting. I found it terribly boring.
Uncle Henry and some of his sporting friends once took me on a shikar expedition into the Terai forests of the Siwaliks. The prospect of a whole week in the jungle as camp follower to several adults with guns filled me with dismay. I knew that long, weary hours would be spent tramping behind these tall, professional-looking huntsmen. They could only speak in terms of bagging this tiger or that wild elephant, when all they ever got, if they were lucky, was a wild hare or a partridge. Tigers and excitement, it seemed, came only to Jim Corbett.
This particular expedition proved to be different from others. There were four men with guns, and at the end of the week, all that they had shot were two miserable, underweight wild fowls. But I managed, on our second day in the jungle, to be left behind at the rest house. And, in the course of a morning’s exploration of the old bungalow, I discovered a shelf of books half-hidden in a corner of the back veranda.
Who had left them there? A literary forest officer? A memsahib who had been bored by her husband’s camp-fire boasting? Or someone who had no interest in the ‘manly’ sport of slaughtering wild animals and had brought his library along to pass the time?
Or possibly the poor fellow had gone into the jungle one day, as a gesture towards his more bloodthirsty companions, and been trampled by an elephant, or gored by a wild boar, or (more likely) accidentally shot by one of the shikaris and his sorrowing friends had taken his remains away and left his books behind.
Anyway, there they were—a shelf of some thirty volumes, obviously untouched for many years. I wiped the thick dust off the covers and examined the titles. As my reading tastes had not yet formed, I was willing to try anything. The bookshelf was varied in its contents—and my own interests have since remained fairly universal.
On that fateful day in the forest rest house, I discovered P.G. Wodehouse and read his Love among the Chickens, an early Ukridge story and still one of my favourites. By the time the perspiring hunters came home late in the evening, with their spent cartridges and lame excuses, I had made a start with M.R. James’s Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, which had me hooked on ghost stories for the rest of my life. It kept me awake most of the night, until the oil in the kerosene lamp had finishe
d.
Next morning, fresh and optimistic again, the shikaris set out for a different area, where they hoped to ‘bag a tiger’. They had employed a party of villagers to beat the jungle, and all day I could hear their drums throbbing in the distance. This did not prevent me from finishing M.R. James or discovering a book called A Naturalist on the Prowl by Edward Hamilton Aitken.
My concentration was disturbed only once, when I looked up and saw a spotted deer crossing the open clearing in front of the bungalow. The deer disappeared among the sal trees, and I returned to my book.
Dusk had fallen when I heard the party returning from the hunt. The great men were talking loudly and seemed excited. Perhaps they had got their tiger. I put down my book and came out to meet them.
‘Did you shoot the tiger?’ I asked excitedly.
‘No, my boy,’ said Uncle Henry. ‘I think we’ll bag it tomorrow. But you should have been with us—we saw a spotted deer!’
There were three days left and I knew I would never get through the entire bookshelf. So I chose David Copperfield—my first encounter with Dickens—and settled down on the veranda armchair to make the acquaintance of Mr Micawber and his family, Aunt Betsy Trotwood, Mr Dick, Peggotty, and a host of other larger-than-life people. I think it would be true to say that David Copperfield set me off on the road to literature; I identified with young David and wanted to grow up to be a writer like him.
But on my second day with the book an event occurred which disturbed my reading for a little while.
I had noticed, on the previous day, that a number of stray dogs—belonging to watchmen, villagers and forest guards—always hung about the house, waiting for scraps of food to be thrown away. It was ten o’clock in the morning, a time when wild animals seldom come into the open, when I heard a sudden yelp in the clearing. Looking up, I saw a large leopard making off into the jungle with one of the dogs held in its jaws. The leopard had either been driven towards the house by the beaters, or had watched the party leave the bungalow and decided to help itself to a meal.
There was no one else about at the time. Since the dog was obviously dead within seconds of being seized, and the leopard had disappeared, I saw no point in raising an alarm which would have interrupted my reading. So I returned to David Copperfield.
It was getting late when the shikaris returned. They were dirty, sweaty, and as usual, disappointed. Next day we were to return to the city, and none of the hunters had anything to show for a week in the jungle. Swear words punctuated their conversation.
‘No game left in these… jungles,’ said the leading member of the party, famed for once having shot two man-eating tigers and a basking crocodile in rapid succession.
‘It’s this beastly weather,’ said Uncle Henry. ‘No rain for months.’
‘I saw a leopard this morning,’ I said modestly.
But no one took me seriously. ‘Did you really?’ said the leading hunter, glancing at the book beside me. ‘Young Master Copperfield says he saw a leopard!’
‘Too imaginative for his age,’ said Uncle Henry. ‘Comes from reading too much, I suppose.’
‘If you were to get out of the house and into the jungle,’ said the third member, ‘you might really see a leopard! Don’t know what young chaps are coming to these days.’
I went to bed early and left them to their tales of the ‘good old days’ when rhinos, cheetahs, and possibly even the legendary phoenix were still available for slaughter.
Next day the camp broke up and we went our different ways. I was still only half-way through David Copperfield, but I saw no reason why it should be left behind to gather dust for another thirty years, and so I took it home with me. I have it still, a reminder of how I failed as a shikari but launched myself on a literary career.
The Hare in the Moon
A LONG TIME ago, when animals could talk, there lived in a forest four wise creatures—a hare, a jackal, an otter and a monkey.
They were good friends, and every evening they would sit together in a forest glade to discuss the events of the day, exchange advice, and make good resolutions. The hare was the noblest and wisest of the four. He believed in the superiority of men and women, and was always telling his friends tales of human goodness and wisdom.
One evening, when the moon rose in the sky—and in those days the moon’s face was clear and unmarked—the hare looked up at it carefully and said: ‘Tomorrow good men will observe a fast, for I can see that it will be the middle of the month. They will eat no food before sunset, and during the day they will give alms to any beggar or holy man who may meet them. Let us promise to do the same. In that way, we can come a little closer to human beings in dignity and wisdom.’
The others agreed, and then went their different ways.
Next day, the otter got up, stretched himself, and was preparing to get his breakfast when he remembered the vow he had taken with his friends.
‘If I keep my word, how hungry I shall be by evening!’ he thought. ‘I’d better make sure that there’s plenty to eat once the fast is over.’ He set off towards the river.
A fisherman had caught several large fish early that morning, and had buried them in the sand, planning to return for them later. The otter soon smelt them out.
‘A supper all ready for me!’ he said to himself. ‘But since it’s a holy day, I mustn’t steal.’ Instead he called out: ‘Does anyone own this fish?’
There being no answer, the otter carried the fish off to his home, setting it aside for his evening meal. Then he locked his front door and slept all through the day, undisturbed by beggars or holy men asking for alms.
Both the monkey and the jackal felt much the same way when they got up that morning. They remembered their vows but thought it best to have something put by for the evening. The jackal found some stale meat in someone’s back yard. ‘Ah, that should improve with age,’ he thought, and took it home for his evening meal. And the monkey climbed a mango tree and picked a bunch of mangoes. Like the otter, they decided to sleep through the day.
The hare woke early. Shaking his long ears, he came out of his burrow and sniffed the dew-drenched grass.
‘When evening comes, I can have my fill of grass,’ he thought. ‘But if a beggar or holy man comes my way, what can I give him? I cannot offer him grass, and I have nothing else to give. I shall have to offer myself. Most men seem to relish the flesh of the hare. We’re good to eat, I’m told.’ And pleased with this solution to the problem, he scampered off.
Now God Sakka had been resting on a cloud not far away, and he had heard the hare speaking aloud.
‘I will test him,’ said the god. ‘Surely no hare can be so noble and unselfish.’
Towards evening, God Sakka descended from his cloud, and assuming the form of an old priest, he sat down near the hare’s burrow. When the animal came home from his romp, he said: ‘Good evening, little hare. Can you give me something to eat? I have been fasting all day, and am so hungry that I cannot pray.’
The hare, remembering his vow, said: ‘Is it true that men enjoy eating the flesh of the hare?’
‘Quite true,’ said the priest.
‘In that case,’ said the hare, ‘since I have no other food to offer you, you can make a meal of me.’
‘But I am a holy man, and this is a holy day, and I may not kill any living creature with my own hands.’
‘Then collect some dry sticks and set them alight. I will leap into the flames myself, and when I am roasted you can eat me.’
God Sakka marvelled at these words, but he was still not quite convinced, so he caused a fire to spring up from the earth. The hare, without any hesitation, jumped into the flames.
‘What’s happening?’ called the hare after a while. ‘The fire surrounds me, but not a hair of my coat is singed. In fact, I’m feeling quite cold!’
As the hare spoke, the fire died down, and he found himself sitting on the cool sweet grass. Instead of the old priest, there stood before him God Sakka in all his
radiance.
‘I am God Sakka, little hare, and having heard your vow, I wanted to test your sincerity. Such unselfishness of yours deserves immortality. It must be known throughout the world.’
God Sakka then stretched out his hand towards the mountain, and drew from it some of the essence which ran in its veins. This he threw towards the moon, which had just risen, and instantly the outline of the hare appeared on the moon’s surface.
Then leaving the hare in a bed of sweet grass, he said: ‘For ever and ever, little hare, you shall look down from the moon upon the world, to remind men of the old truth, “Give to others, and the gods will give to you.”’
The White Elephant
LONG AGO, when animals could talk like humans, a great herd of elephants lived in a forest near the Himalaya mountains. The finest elephant in the tribe was a rare white animal.
Unfortunately the mother of this elephant was old and blind and although her son gathered sweet wild fruits for her every day, he was often angry to find the other elephants had stolen his mother’s food.
‘Mother,’ he said, ‘it would be better if you and I were to go and live alone in a distant cave I have discovered.’
The mother elephant agreed and for a time the two of them lived happily in a peaceful spot near a glade of wild fruit trees. Until one evening they heard loud cries coming from the great forest.
‘That is the voice of a man in distress,’ said the white elephant. ‘I must go and see if I can help him.’
‘Do not go, my son,’ said his mother. ‘I am old and blind but I know the ways of human beings towards us. Your goodness will be rewarded by treachery.’
But the white elephant could not bear to think of anyone in trouble and he hurried down to the lake in the direction of the cries, where he discovered a man who was a forester.
‘Don’t fear me, stranger,’ he said. ‘Tell me how I can help you.’
The forester told the white elephant he had been lost for seven days and nights and could not find his way back to Benares where he lived.
