by Ruskin Bond
More than a year passed before I began to take more than a mildly patronizing interest in Madhu.
It occurred to me after some time that she should be taught to read and write, and I asked a local teacher to give her lessons in the garden for an hour every day. She clapped her hands with pleasure at the prospect of what was to be for her a fascinating new game.
In a few weeks Madhu was surprising us with her capacity for absorbing knowledge. She always came to me to repeat the lessons of the day, and pestered me with questions on a variety of subjects. How big was the world? And were the stars really like our world? Or were they the sons and daughters of the sun and the moon?
My interest in Madhu deepened, and my life, so empty till then, became imbued with a new purpose. As she sat on the grass beside me, reading aloud, or listening to me with a look of complete trust and belief, all the love that had been lying dormant in me during my years of self-exile surfaced in a sudden surge of tenderness.
Three years glided away imperceptibly, and at the age of thirteen Madhu was on the verge of blossoming into a woman. I began to feel a certain responsibility towards her.
It was dangerous, I knew, to allow a child so pretty to live almost alone and unprotected, and to run unrestrained about the grounds. And in a censorious society she would be made to suffer if she spent too much time in my company.
She could see no need for any separation but I decided to send her to a mission school in the next district, where I could visit her from time to time.
‘But why?’ said Madhu. ‘I can learn more from you, and from the teacher who comes. I am so happy here.’
‘You will meet other girls and make many friends,’ I told her. ‘I will come to see you. And, when you come home, we will be even happier. It is good that you should go.’
It was the middle of June, a hot and oppressive month in the Siwaliks. Madhu had expressed her readiness to go to school, and when, one evening, I did not see her as usual in the garden, I thought nothing of it; but the next day I was informed that she had fever and could not leave the house.
Illness was something Madhu had not known before, and for this reason I felt afraid. I hurried down the path which led to the old woman’s cottage. It seemed strange that I had never once entered it during my long friendship with Madhu.
It was a humble mud hut, the ceiling just high enough to enable me to stand upright, the room dark but clean. Madhu was lying on a string cot, exhausted by fever, her eyes closed, her long hair unkempt, one small hand hanging over the side.
It struck me then how little, during all this time, I had thought of her physical comforts. There was no chair; I knelt down, and took her hand in mine. I knew, from the fierce heat of her body, that she was seriously ill.
She recognized my touch, and a smile passed across her face before she opened her eyes. She held on to my hand, then laid it across her cheek.
I looked round the little room in which she had grown up. It had scarcely an article of furniture apart from two string cots, on one of which the old woman sat and watched us, her white, wizened head nodding like a puppet’s.
In a corner lay Madhu’s little treasures. I recognized among them the presents which during the past four years I had given her. She had kept everything. On her dark arm she still wore a small piece of ribbon which I had playfully tied there about a year ago. She had given her heart, even before she was conscious of possessing one, to a stranger unworthy of the gift. As the evening drew on, a gust of wind blew open the door of the dark room, and a gleam of sunshine streamed in, lighting up a portion of the wall. It was the time when every evening she would join me under the mango tree. She had been quiet for almost an hour, and now a slight pressure of her hand drew my eyes back to her face.
‘What will we do now?’ she said. ‘When will you send me to school?’
‘Not for a long time. First you must get well and strong. That is all that matters.’
She didn’t seem to hear me. I think she knew she was dying, but she did not resent it happening.
‘Who will read to you under the tree?’ she went on. ‘Who will look after you?’ she asked, with the solicitude of a grown woman.
‘You will, Madhu. You are grown up now. There will be no one else to look after me.’
The old woman was standing at my shoulder. A hundred years—and little Madhu was slipping away. The woman took Madhu’s hand from mine, and laid it gently down. I sat by the cot a little longer, and then I rose to go, all the loneliness in the world pressing upon my heart.
The Prospect of Flowers
ern Hill, The Oaks, Hunter’s Lodge, The Parsonage, The Pines, Dumbarnie, MacKinnon’s Hall and Windermere. These are the names of some of the old houses that still stand on the outskirts of one of the smaller Indian hill stations. Most of them have fallen into decay and ruin. They are very old, of course—built over a hundred years ago by Britishers who sought relief from the searing heat of the plains. Today’s visitors to the hill stations prefer to live near the markets and cinemas and many of the old houses, set amidst oak and maple and deodar, are inhabited by wild cats, bandicoots, owls, goats, and the occasional charcoal burner or mule driver.
But amongst these neglected mansions stands a neat, whitewashed cottage called Mulberry Lodge. And in it, up to a short time ago, lived an elderly English spinster named Miss Mackenzie.
In years Miss Mackenzie was more than ‘elderly,’ being well over eighty. But no one would have guessed it. She was clean, sprightly, and wore old-fashioned but well-preserved dresses. Once a week, she walked the two miles to town to buy butter and jam and soap and sometimes a small bottle of eau de cologne.
She had lived in the hill station since she had been a girl in her teens, and that had been before the First World War. Though she had never married, she had experienced a few love affairs and was far from being the typical frustrated spinster of fiction. Her parents had been dead thirty years; her brother and sister were also dead. She had no relatives in India, and she lived on a small pension of forty rupees a month and the gift parcels that were sent out to her from New Zealand by a friend of her youth.
Like other lonely old people, she kept a pet, a large black cat with bright yellow eyes. In her small garden she grew dahlias, chrysanthemums, gladioli and a few rare orchids. She knew a great deal about plants, and about wild flowers, trees, birds and insects. She had never made a serious study of these things, but having lived with them for so many years, had developed an intimacy with all that grew and flourished around her.
She had few visitors. Occasionally the padre from the local church called on her, and once a month the postman came with a letter from New Zealand or her pension papers. The milkman called every second day with a litre of milk for the lady and her cat. And sometimes she received a couple of eggs free, for the egg seller remembered a time when Miss Mackenzie, in her earlier prosperity bought eggs from him in large quantities. He was a sentimental man. He remembered her as a ravishing beauty in her twenties when he had gazed at her in round-eyed, nine-year-old wonder and consternation.
Now it was September and the rains were nearly over and Miss Mackenzie’s chrysanthemums were coming into their own. She hoped the coming winter wouldn’t be too severe because she found it increasingly difficult to bear the cold.
One day, as she was pottering about in her garden, she saw a schoolboy plucking wild flowers on the slope about the cottage.
‘Who’s that?’ she called. ‘What are you up to, young man?’
The boy was alarmed and tried to dash up the hillside, but he slipped on pine needles and came slithering down the slope into Miss Mackenzie’s nasturtium bed.
When he found there was no escape, he gave a bright disarming smile and said, ‘Good morning, miss.’
He belonged to the local English-medium school, and wore a bright red blazer and a red and black striped tie. Like most polite Indian schoolboys, he called every woman ‘miss’.
‘Good morning,’ said Miss
Mackenzie severely. ‘Would you mind moving out of my flower bed?’
The boy stepped gingerly over the nasturtiums and looked up at Miss Mackenzie with dimpled cheeks and appealing eyes. It was impossible to be angry with him.
‘You’re trespassing,’ said Miss Mackenzie.
‘Yes, miss.’
‘And you ought to be in school at this hour.’
‘Yes, miss.’
‘Then what are you doing here?’
‘Picking flowers, miss.’ And he held up a bunch of ferns and wild flowers.
‘Oh,’ Miss Mackenzie was disarmed. It was a long time since she had seen a boy taking an interest in flowers, and, what was more, playing truant from school in order to gather them.
‘Do you like flowers?’ she asked.
‘Yes, miss. I’m going to be a botan—a botantist?’
‘You mean a botanist.’
‘Yes, miss.’
‘Well, that’s unusual. Most boys at your age want to be pilots or soldiers or perhaps engineers. But you want to be a botanist. Well, well. There’s still hope for the world, I see. And do you know the names of these flowers?’
‘This is a bukhilo flower,’ he said, showing her a small golden flower. ‘That’s a Pahari name. It means puja or prayer. The flower is offered during prayers. But I don’t know what this is…’
He held out a pale pink flower with a soft, heart-shaped leaf.
‘It’s a wild begonia,’ said Miss Mackenzie. ‘And that purple stuff is salvia, but it isn’t wild. It’s a plant that escaped from my garden. Don’t you have any books on flowers?’
‘No, miss.’
‘All right, come in and I’ll show you a book.’
She led the boy into a small front room, which was crowded with furniture and books and vases and jam jars and offered him a chair. He sat awkwardly on its edge. The black cat immediately leapt on to his knees, and settled down on them, purring loudly.
‘What’s your name?’ asked Miss Mackenzie, as she rummaged among her books.
‘Anil, miss.’
‘And where do you live?’
‘When school closes, I go to Delhi. My father has a business.’
‘Oh, and what’s that?’
‘Bulbs, miss.’ ‘Flower bulbs?’
‘No, electric bulbs.’
‘Electric bulbs! You might send me a few, when you get home. Mine are always fusing, and they’re so expensive, like everything else these days. Ah, here we are!’ She pulled a heavy volume down from the shelf and laid it on the table. ‘Flora Himaliensis, published in 1892, and probably the only copy in India. This is a very valuable book, Anil. No other naturalist has recorded so many wild Himalayan flowers. And let me tell you this; there are many flowers and plants which are still unknown to the fancy botanists who spend all their time with microscopes instead of in the mountains. But perhaps, you’ll do something about that, one day.’
‘Yes, miss.’
They went through the book together, and Miss Mackenzie pointed out many flowers that grew in and around the hill station, while the boy made notes of their names and seasons. She lit a stove, and put the kettle on for tea. And then the old English lady and the small Indian boy sat side by side over cups of hot sweet tea, absorbed in a book of wild flowers.
‘May I come again?’ asked Anil, when finally he rose to go.
‘If you like,’ said Miss Mackenzie. ‘But not during school hours. You mustn’t miss your classes.’
After that, Anil visited Miss Mackenzie about once a week, and nearly always brought a wildflower for her to identify. She found herself looking forward to the boy’s visits—and sometimes, when more than a week passed and he didn’t come, she was disappointed and lonely and would grumble at the black cat.
Anil reminded her of her brother, when the latter had been a boy. There was no physical resemblance. Andrew had been fair-haired and blue-eyed. But it was Anil’s eagerness, his alert, bright look and the way he stood—legs apart, hands on hips, a picture of confidence—that reminded her of the boy who had shared her own youth in these same hills.
And why did Anil come to see her so often?
Partly because she knew about wild flowers, and he really did want to become a botanist. And partly because she smelt of freshly baked bread, and that was a smell his own grandmother had possessed. And partly because she was lonely and sometimes a boy of twelve can sense loneliness better than an adult. And partly because he was a little different from other children.
By the middle of October, when there was only a fortnight left for the school to close, the first snow had fallen on the distant mountains. One peak stood high above the rest, a white pinnacle against the azure-blue sky. When the sun set, this peak turned from orange to gold to pink to red.
‘How high is that mountain?’ asked Anil.
‘It must be over 12,000 feet,’ said Miss Mackenzie. ‘About thirty miles from here, as the crow flies. I always wanted to go there, but there was no proper road. At that height, there’ll be flowers that you don’t get here—the blue gentian and the purple columbine, the anemone and the edelweiss.’
‘I’ll go there one day,’ said Anil.
‘I’m sure you will, if you really want to.’
The day before his school closed, Anil came to say goodbye to Miss Mackenzie.
‘I don’t suppose you’ll be able to find many wild flowers in Delhi,’ she said. ‘But have a good holiday.’
‘Thank you, miss.’
As he was about to leave, Miss Mackenzie, on an impulse, thrust the Flora Himaliensis into his hands.
‘You keep it,’ she said. ‘It’s a present for you.’
‘But I’ll be back next year, and I’ll be able to look at it then. It’s so valuable.’
‘I know it’s valuable and that’s why I’ve given it to you. Otherwise it will only fall into the hands of the junk dealers…’
‘But, miss.’
‘Don’t argue. Besides, I may not be here next year.’
‘Are you going away?’
‘I’m not sure. I may go to England.’
She had no intention of going to England; she had not seen the country since she was a child, and she knew she would not fit in with the life of post-war Britain. Her home was in these hills, among the oaks and maples and deodars. It was lonely, but at her age it would be lonely anywhere.
The boy tucked the book under his arm, straightened his tie, stood stiffly to attention, and said, ‘Goodbye, Miss Mackenzie.’
It was the first time he had spoken her name.
Winter set in early, and strong winds brought rain and sleet, and soon there were no flowers in the garden or on the hillside. The cat stayed indoors, curled up at the foot of Miss Mackenzie’s bed.
Miss Mackenzie wrapped herself up in all her old shawls and mufflers, but still she felt the cold. Her fingers grew so stiff that she took almost an hour to open a can of baked beans. And then it snowed and for several days the milkman did not come. The postman arrived with her pension papers, but she felt too tired to take them up to town to the bank.
She spent most of the time in bed. It was the warmest place. She kept a hot-water bottle at her back, and the cat kept her feet warm. She lay in bed, dreaming of the spring and summer months. In three months’ time the primroses would be out and with the coming of spring the boy would return.
One night the hot-water bottle burst and the bedding was soaked through. As there was no sun for several days, the blanket remained damp. Miss Mackenzie caught a chill and had to keep to her cold, uncomfortable bed. She knew she had a fever but there was no thermometer with which to take her temperature. She had difficulty in breathing.
A strong wind sprang up one night, and the window flew open and kept banging all night. Miss Mackenzie was too weak to get up and close it, and the wind swept the rain and sleet into the room. The cat crept into the bed and snuggled close to its mistress’s warm body. But towards morning that body had lost its warmth and the cat left
the bed and started scratching about on the floor.
As a shaft of sunlight streamed through the open window, the milkman arrived. He poured some milk into the cat’s saucer on the doorstep and the cat leapt down from the windowsill and made for the milk.
The milkman called a greeting to Miss Mackenzie, but received no answer. Her window was open and he had always known her to be up before sunrise. So he put his head in at the window and called again. But Miss Mackenzie did not answer. She had gone away to the mountain where the blue gentian and purple columbine grew.
My Father’s Trees in Dehra
ur trees still grow in Dehra. This is one part of the world where trees are a match for man. An old pipal may be cut down to make way for a new building; two pipal trees will sprout from the walls of the building. In Dehra the air is moist, the soil hospitable to seeds and probing roots. The valley of Dehra Dun lies between the first range of the Himalayas and the smaller but older Siwalik range. Dehra is an old town, but it was not in the reign of Rajput princes or Mughal kings that it really grew and flourished; it acquired a certain size and importance with the coming of British and Anglo-Indian settlers. The English have an affinity with trees, and in the rolling hills of Dehra they discovered a retreat which, in spite of snakes and mosquitoes, reminded them, just a little bit, of England’s green and pleasant land.
The mountains to the north are austere and inhospitable; the plains to the south are flat, dry and dusty. But Dehra is green. I look out of the train window at daybreak to see the sal and shisham trees sweep by majestically, while trailing vines and great clumps of bamboo give the forest a darkness and density which add to its mystery. There are still a few tigers in these forests; only a few, and perhaps they will survive, to stalk the spotted deer and drink at forest pools.
I grew up in Dehra. My grandfather built a bungalow on the outskirts of the town at the turn of the century. The house was sold a few years after independence. No one knows me now in Dehra, for it is over twenty years since I left the place, and my boyhood friends are scattered and lost. And although the India of Kim is no more, and the Grand Trunk Road is now a procession of trucks instead of a slow-moving caravan of horses and camels, India is still a country in which people are easily lost and quickly forgotten.
