Ruskin Bond Children's Omnibus Volume 2

by Ruskin Bond

  He pushed open the lounge door, walked in, and when the girl had finished playing, applauded loudly. She acknowledged his applause with a smile and then went on to play something else. When she had finished he clapped again and said, ‘Wonderful! Chopin never sounded better!’

  ‘Actually, it’s Tchaikovsky,’ said the girl. But she didn’t seem to mind.

  Uncle Ken would turn up at all her practice sessions and very soon they were strolling the decks together. She was Australian, on her way to London to pursue a musical career as a concert pianist. I don’t know what she saw in Uncle Ken, but he knew all the right people. And he was quite good looking in an effete sort of way.

  Left to my own devices, I followed my fortune-telling friend around and watched him study the palms of our fellow passengers. He foretold romance, travel, success, happiness, health, wealth and longevity, but never predicted anything that might upset anyone. As he did not charge anything (he was, after all, on holiday) he proved to be a popular passenger throughout the voyage. Later he was to become quite famous as a palmist and mind reader, an Indian ‘Cheiro’, much in demand in the capitals of Europe.

  The voyage lasted eighteen days, with stops for passengers and cargo at Aden, Port Said and Marseilles, in that order. It was at Port Said that Uncle Ken and his friend went ashore, to look at the sights and do some shopping.

  ‘You stay on the ship,’ Uncle Ken told me. ‘Port Said isn’t safe for young boys.’

  He wanted the girl all to himself, of course. He couldn’t have shown off with me around. His ‘man of the world’ manner would not have been very convincing in my presence.

  The ship was due to sail again that evening and passengers had to be back on board an hour before departure. The hours passed easily enough for me as the little library kept me engrossed. If there are books around, I am never bored. Towards evening, I went up on deck and saw Uncle Ken’s friend coming up the gangway; but of Uncle Ken there was no sign.

  ‘Where’s Uncle?’ I asked her.

  ‘Hasn’t he returned? We got separated in a busy marketplace and I thought he’d get here before me.’

  We stood at the railings and looked up and down the pier, expecting to see Uncle Ken among the other returning passengers. But he did not turn up.

  ‘I suppose he’s looking for you,’ I said. ‘He’ll miss the boat if he doesn’t hurry.’

  The ship’s hooter sounded. ‘All aboard!’ called the captain on his megaphone. The big ship moved slowly out of the harbour. We were on our way! In the distance I saw a figure that looked like Uncle Ken running along the pier, frantically waving his arms. But there was no turning back.

  A few days later my aunt met me at Tilbury Dock.

  ‘Where’s your Uncle Ken?’ she asked.

  ‘He stayed behind at Port Said. He went ashore and didn’t get back in time.’

  ‘Just like Ken. And I don’t suppose he has much money with him. Well, if he gets in touch we’ll send him a postal order.’

  But Uncle Ken failed to get in touch. He was a topic of discussion for several days, while I settled down in my aunt’s house and looked for a job. At sixteen, I was working in an office, earning a modest salary and contributing towards my aunt’s housekeeping expenses. There was no time to worry about Uncle Ken’s whereabouts.

  My readers know that I longed to return to India, but it was nearly four years before that became possible. Finally I did come home and as the train drew into Dehra’s little station, I looked out of the window and saw a familiar figure on the platform. It was Uncle Ken!

  He made no reference to his disappearance at Port Said, and greeted me as though we had last seen each other the previous day.

  ‘I’ve hired a cycle for you,’ he said. ‘Feel like a ride?’

  ‘Let me get home first, Uncle Ken. I’ve got all this luggage.’

  The luggage was piled into a tonga, I sat on top of everything and we went clip-clopping down an avenue of familiar lichi trees (all gone now, I fear). Uncle Ken rode behind the tonga, whistling cheerfully.

  ‘When did you get back to Dehra?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, a couple of years ago. Sorry I missed the boat. Was the girl upset?’

  ‘She said she’d never forgive you.’

  ‘Oh well, I expect she’s better off without me. Fine piano player. Chopin and all that stuff.’

  ‘Did Granny send you the money to come home?’

  ‘No, I had to take a job working as a waiter in a Greek restaurant. Then I took tourists to look at the pyramids. I’m an expert on pyramids now. Great place, Egypt. But I had to leave when they found I had no papers or permit. They put me on a boat to Aden. Stayed in Aden six months teaching English to the son of a shiekh. Shiekh’s son went to England, I came back to India.’

  ‘And what are you doing now, Uncle Ken?’

  ‘Thinking of starting a poultry farm. Lots of space behind your Gran’s house. Maybe you can help with it.’

  ‘I couldn’t save much money, Uncle.’

  ‘We’ll start in a small way. There is a big demand for eggs, you know. Everyone’s into eggs—scrambled, fried, poached, boiled. Egg curry for lunch. Omelettes for dinner. Egg sandwiches for tea. How do you like your egg?’

  ‘Fried,’ I said. ‘Sunny side up.’

  ‘We shall have fried eggs for breakfast. Funny side up!’

  The poultry farm never did happen, but it was good to be back in Dehra, with the prospect of limitless bicycle rides with Uncle Ken.

  N NEARLY fifty years of writing for a living, I have never succeeded in writing a bestseller. And now I know why. I can’t cook.

  Had I been able to do so, I could have turned out a few of those sumptuous-looking cookery books that brighten up the bookstore windows before being snapped up by folk who can’t cook either.

  As it is, if I were forced to write a cook book, it would probably be called Fifty Different Ways of Boiling An Egg and Other Disasters.

  I used to think that boiling an egg would be a simple undertaking. But when I came to live at 7,000 feet in the Himalayan foothills, I found that just getting the water to boil was something of an achievement. I don’t know if it’s the altitude or the density of the water, but it just won’t come to a boil in time for breakfast. As a result, my eggs are only half-boiled. ‘Never mind,’ I tell everyone, ‘half-boiled eggs are more nutritious than full-boiled eggs.’

  ‘Why boil them at all?’ asks my five-year-old grandson, Gautam, who is my Mr Dick, always offering good advice. ‘Raw eggs are probably healthier.’

  ‘Just you wait and see,’ I told him. ‘I’ll make you a cheese omelette you’ll never forget.’ And I did. It was a bit messy, as I was over-generous with the tomatoes, but I thought it tasted rather good. Gautam, however, pushed his plate away, saying, ‘You forgot to put in the egg.’

  101 Failed Omelettes might well be the title of my bestseller.

  I love watching other people cook—a habit that I acquired at a young age, when I would watch my Granny at work in the kitchen, turning out delicious curries, koftas and custards. I would try helping her, but she soon put a stop to my feeble contributions. On one occasion she asked me to add a cup of spices to a large curry dish she was preparing, and absent-mindedly I added a cup of sugar. The result—a very sweet curry! Another invention of mine.

  I was better at remembering Granny’s kitchen proverbs. Here are some of them:

  ‘There is skill in all things, even in making porridge.’

  ‘Dry bread at home is better then curried prawns abroad.’

  ‘Eating and drinking should not keep men from thinking.’

  ‘Better a small fish than an empty dish.’

  And her favourite maxim, with which she reprimanded me whenever I showed signs of gluttony: ‘Don’t let your tongue cut your throat.’

  And as for making porridge, it’s certainly no simple matter. I made one or two attempts, but it always came out lumpy.

  ‘What’s this?’ asked Gautam suspic
iously, when I offered him some.

  ‘Porridge!’ I said enthusiastically. ‘It’s eaten by those brave Scottish Highlanders who were always fighting the English!’

  ‘And did they win?’ he asked.

  ‘Well—er—not usually. But they were outnumbered!’

  He looked doubtfully at the porridge. ‘Some other time,’ he said.

  So why not take the advice of Thoreau and try to simplify life? Simplify, simplify! Or simply sandwiches...

  These shouldn’t be too difficult, I decided. After all, they are basically bread and butter. But have you tried cutting bread into thin slices? Don’t. It’s highly dangerous. If you’re a pianist, you could be putting your career at great risk.

  You must get your bread ready sliced. Butter it generously. Now add your fillings. Cheese, tomato, lettuce, cucumber, whatever. Gosh, I was really going places! Slap another slice of buttered bread over this mouth-watering assemblage. Now cut in two. Result: Everything spills out at the sides and on to the tablecloth.

  ‘Now look what you’ve gone and done,’ says Gautam, in his best Oliver Hardy manner.

  ‘Never mind,’ I tell him. ‘Practice makes perfect!’

  And one of these days you’re going to find Bond’s Book of Better Sandwiches up there on the bestseller lists.

  F EVER there’s a calamity,’ Grandmother used to say, ‘it will find Grandfather in his bath.’ Grandfather loved his bath—which he took in a large round aluminum tub—and sometimes spent as long as an hour in it, ‘wallowing’ as he called it, and splashing around like a boy.

  He was in his bath during the earthquake that convulsed Bengal and Assam on 12 June 1897—an earthquake so severe that even today, the region of the great Brahmaputra river basin hasn’t settled down. Not long ago, it was reported that the entire Shillong Plateau had moved an appreciable distance away from the Geological Survey of India; this shift has been taking place gradually over the past eighty years.

  Had Grandfather been alive, he would have added one more clipping to his scrapbook on earthquakes. The clipping goes in anyway, because the scrapbook is now with his children. More than newspaper accounts of the disaster, it was Grandfather’s own letters and memoirs that made the earthquake seem recent and vivid; for he, along with Grandmother and two of their children (one of them my father), was living in Shillong, a picturesque little hill station in Assam, when the earth shook and the mountains heaved.

  As I have mentioned, Grandfather was in his bath, splashing about, and did not hear the first rumbling. But Grandmother was in the garden hanging out or taking in the washing (she could never remember which) when, suddenly, the animals began making a hideous noise—a sure intimation of a natural disaster, for animals sense the approach of an earthquake much more quickly than humans.

  The crows all took wing, wheeling wildly overhead and cawing loudly. The chickens flapped in circles, as if they were being chased. Two dogs sitting on the verandah suddenly jumped up and ran out with their tails between their legs. Within half a minute of her noticing the noise made by the animals, Grandmother heard a rattling, rumbling noise, like the approach of a train.

  The noise increased for about a minute, and then there was the first trembling of the ground. The animals by this time all seemed to have gone mad. Treetops lashed backwards and forwards, doors banged and windows shook, and Grandmother swore later that the house actually swayed in front of her. She had difficulty in standing straight, though this could have been more due to the trembling of her knees than to the trembling of the ground.

  The first shock lasted for about a minute and a half. ‘I was in my tub having a bath,’ Grandfather wrote for posterity, ‘which for the first time in the last two months I had taken in the afternoon instead of in the morning. My wife and children and the maid were downstairs. Then the shock came and a quaking, which increased in intensity every second. It was like putting so many shells in a basket, and shaking them up with a rapid sifting motion from side to side.

  ‘At first I did not realize what it was that caused my tub to sway about and the water to splash. I rose up, and found the earth heaving, while the washstand basin, ewer, cups and glasses danced and rocked about in the most hideous fashion. I rushed to the inner door to open it and search for my wife and children but could not move the dratted door as boxes, furniture and plaster had come up against it. The back door was the only way of escape. I managed to open it and, thank God, was able to get out. All the sections of the thatched roof had slithered down on the four sides like a pack of cards and blocked all the exits and entrances.

  ‘With only a towel wrapped around my waist, I ran into the open to the front of the house, but found only my wife there. The whole front of the house was blocked by the fallen section of thatch from the roof. Through this I broke my way under the iron railings and extricated the others. The bearer had pluckily borne the weight of the whole thatched roof section on his back, and in this way saved the maid and children from being crushed beneath it.’

  After the main shock of the earthquake had passed, minor shocks took place at regular intervals of five minutes or so, all through the night. But during that first shakeup, the town of Shillong was reduced to ruin and rubble. Everything made of masonry was brought to the ground. Government House, the post office, the jail, all tumbled down. When the jail fell, the prisoners, instead of making their escape, sat huddled on the road waiting for the superintendent to come to their aid.

  ‘The ground began to heave and shake,’ wrote a young girl in a newspaper called The Englishman. ‘I stayed on my bicycle for a second, and then fell off and got up and tried to run, staggering about from side to side of the road. To my left I saw great clouds of dust, which I afterwards discovered to be houses falling and the earth slipping from the sides of the hills. To my right I saw the small dam at the end of the lake torn asunder and the water rushing out, the wooden bridge across the lake break in two and the sides of the lake falling in; and at my feet the ground cracking and opening. I was wild with fear and didn’t know which way to turn.’

  The lake rose up like a mountain, and then totally disappeared, leaving only a swamp of red mud. Not a house was left standing. People were rushing about, wives looking for husbands, parents looking for children, not knowing whether their loved ones were alive or dead. A crowd of people had collected on the cricket ground, which was considered the safest place; but Grandfather and the family took shelter in a small shop on the road outside his house. The shop was a rickety wooden structure, which had always looked as though it would fall down in a strong wind. But it withstood the earthquake.

  And then the rain came and it poured. This was extraordinary, because before the earthquake there wasn’t a cloud to be seen; but five minutes after, the shock was felt for more than a hundred miles on the Assam-Bengal Railway. A train overturned at Shamshernagar; another was derailed at Mantolla. Over a thousand people lost lives in the Cherrapunji Hills, and in other areas, too, the death toll was heavy.

  The Brahmaputra burst its banks and many cultivators were drowned in the flood. A tiger was found drowned. And in North Bhagalpur, where the earthquake started, two elephants sat down in the bazaar and refused to get up until the following morning.

  Over a hundred men, who were at work in Shillong’s government printing press, were caught in the building when it collapsed, and though the men of Gurkha regiment did splendid rescue work, only a few were brought out alive. One of those killed in Shillong was Mr McCabe, a British official. Grandfather described the ruins of Mr McCabe’s house: ‘Here a bedpost, there a sword, a broken desk or chair, a bit of torn carpet, a well-known hat with its Indian Civil Service colours, battered books, speaking reminiscenes of the man we mourn.’

  While most houses collapsed where they stood, Government House, it seems, fell backwards. The church was a mass of red stones in an ugly disorder. The organ was a tortured wreck.

  A few days later, the family, with other refugees, were making their way to Ca
lcutta to stay with friends or relatives. It was a slow, tedious journey with many interruptions, for the roads and railway lines had been badly damaged, and passengers had often to be transported in trolleys. Grandfather was rather struck at the stoicism displayed by an assistant engineer. At one station, a telegram was handed to the engineer informing him that his bungalow had been destroyed. ‘Beastly nuisance,’ he observed with an aggrieved air. ‘I’ve seen it cave in during a storm, but this is the first time it has played me such a trick on account of an earthquake.’

  The family got to Calcutta to find the inhabitants of the capital in a panic; for they too had felt the quake and were expecting it to recur. The damage in Calcutta was slight compared to the devastation elsewhere, but nerves were on the edge, and people slept in the open or in carriages. Cracks and fissures had appeared in a number of old buildings, and Grandfather was among the many who were worried at the proposal to fire a salute of sixty guns on Jubilee Day (the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria). They felt the gunfire would bring down a number of shaky buildings. Obviously Grandfather did not wish to be caught in his bath a second time. However, Queen Victoria was not to be deprived of her salute. The guns were duly fired, and Calcutta remained standing.

  ‘No one, it seemed, was interested in defending Java, only in getting out as fast as possible.’

  T ALL happened within the space of a few days. The cassia tree had barely come into flower when the first bombs fell on Batavia (now called Jakarta) and the bright pink blossoms lay scattered over the wreckage in the streets.

  News had reached us that Singapore had fallen to the Japanese. My father said: ‘I expect it won’t be long before they take Java. With the British defeated, how can the Dutch be expected to win?’ He did not mean to be critical of the Dutch; he knew they did not have the backing of an Empire such as Britain then had. Singapore had been called the Gibraltar of the East. After its surrender there could only be retreat, a vast exodus of Europeans from Southeast Asia.