All Roads Lead to Ganga

by Ruskin Bond

  All Roads

  Lead to Ganga

  By the same author:

  Angry River

  A Little Night Music

  A Long Walk for Bina

  Hanuman to the Rescue

  Ghost Stories from the Raj

  Strange Men, Strange Places

  The India I Love

  Tales and Legends from India

  The Blue Umbrella R

  uskin Bond's Children's Omnibus

  The Ruskin Bond Omnibus-l

  The Ruskin Bond Omnibus-Il

  The Ruskin Bond Omnibus-III

  Rupa Book of Great Animal Stories

  The Rupa Book of True Tales of Mystery and Adventure

  The Rupa Book of Ruskin Bond's Himalayan Tales

  The Rupa Book of Great Suspense Stories

  The Rupa Laughter Omnibus

  The Rupa Book of Scary Stories

  The Rupa Book of Haunted Houses

  The Rupa Book of Travellers' Tales

  The Rupa Book of Great Crime Stories

  The Rupa Book of Nightmare Tales

  The Rupa Book of Shikar Stories

  The Rupa Book of Love Stories

  The Rupa Book of Wicked Stories

  The Rupa Book of Heartwarming Stories

  The Rupa Book of Thrills and Spills

  All Roads

  Lead to Ganga

  Ruskin Bond

  First published in 1992 by

  Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd.

  7/16, Ansari Road, Daryaganj

  New Delhi 110002

  Sales centres:

  Allahabad Bengaluru Chennai

  Hyderabad Jaipur Kathmandu

  Kolkata Mumbai

  Copyright © Ruskin Bond 1992

  Illustrations: Shashi Shetye 2007

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This digital edition published in 2012

  e-ISBN: 978-81-291-2194-3

  Digital edition prepared by Ninestars Information Technologies Ltd.

  All rights reserved.

  This e-book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated, without the publisher’s prior consent, in any form or cover other than that in which it is published. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic, mechanical, print reproduction, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Any unauthorized distribution of this e-book may be considered a direct infringement of copyright and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Contents

  The Writer on the Hill

  Rani of the Doon

  Growing up with Trees

  A Village in Garhwal

  Tales of Old Mussoorie

  Landour Bazaar

  Along the Mandakini

  The Magic of Tungnath

  The Road to Badrinath

  Where Rivers Meet

  Ganga Descends

  Great Trees of Garhwal

  Birdsong in the Hills

  Early Plant Collectors

  White Clouds, Green Mountains

  The Dehra I Know

  The Writer on the Hill

  IT'S HARD TO REALISE THAT I'VE BEEN HERE ALL THESE years—forty summers and monsoons and winters and Himalayan springs—because, when I look back to the time of my first coming here, it really does seem like yesterday.

  That probably sums it all up. Time passes, and yet it doesn't pass (it is only you and I who are passing). People come and go, the mountains remain. Mountains are permanent things. They are stubborn, they refuse to move. You can blast holes out of them for their mineral wealth; or strip them of their trees and foliage; or dam their streams and divert their torrents; or make tunnels and roads and bridges; but no matter how hard they try, humans cannot actually get rid of these mountains. That's what I like about them; they are here to stay.

  I like to think that I have become a part of this mountain, this particular range, and that by living here for so long, I 2 All Roads Lead to Ganga am able to claim a relationship with the trees, wild flowers, even the rocks that are an integral part of it. Yesterday, at twilight, when I passed beneath the canopy of oak leaves, I felt that I was a part of the forest. I put out my hand and touched the bark of an old tree and as I turned away, its leaves brushed against my face as if to acknowledge me.

  One day I thought, if we trouble these great creatures too much, and hack away at them and destroy their young, they will simply uproot themselves and march away— whole forests on the move—over the next range and the next, far from the haunts of man. Over the years, I have seen many forests and green places dwindle and disappear.

  Now there is an outcry. It is suddenly fashionable to be an environmentalist. That's all right. Perhaps it isn't too late to save the little that's left. They could start by curbing the property developers, who have been spreading their tentacles far and wide.

  The sea has been celebrated by many great writers— Conrad, Melville, Stevenson, Masefield—but I cannot think of anyone comparable for whom the mountains have been a recurring theme. I must turn to the Taoist poets from old China to find a true feeling for mountains. Kipling does occasionally look to the hills, but the Himalayas do not appear to have given rise to any memorable Indian literature, at least not in modern times.

  By and large, I suppose, writers have to stay in the plains to make a living. Hill people have their work cut out just trying to wrest a livelihood from their thin, calcinated soil. And as for mountaineers, they climb their peaks and move on, in search of other peaks; they do not take up residence in the mountains.

  But to me, as a writer, the mountains have been kind. They were kind from the beginning, when I threw up a job in Delhi and rented a small cottage on the outskirts of the hill-station. Today, most hill-stations are rich men's playgrounds, but twenty-five years ago, they were places where people of modest means could live quite cheaply. There were very few cars and everyone walked about.

  The cottage was situated on the edge of an oak and maple forest and I spent eight or nine years in it, most of them happy years, writing stories, essays, poems, books for children. It was only after I came to live in the hills that I began writing for children.

  I think this had something to do with Prem's children. Prem Singh came to work for me as a boy, fresh from his village near Rudraprayag, in Pauri Garhwal. He was taller and darker than most of the young men from his area. Although in those days the village school did not go beyond the primary stage, he had an aptitude for reading and a good head for figures.

  After he had been with me for a couple of years, he went home to get married, and then he and his wife Chandra took on the job of looking after the house and all practical matters; I remain helpless with electric-fuses, clogged cisterns, leaking gas cylinders, ruptured water-pipes, tin roofs that blow away whenever there's a storm, and the doit-yourself world of hill-station India. In other words, they made it possible for a writer to write.

  They also nursed me when I was ill, and gave me a feeling of belonging to a family, something which I hadn't known since childhood.

  Their sons Rakesh and Mukesh, and daughter Savitri, grew up in Maplewood Cottage and then in other houses and cottages when we moved. I became, for them, an adopted grandfather. For Rakesh I wrote a story about a cherry tree that had difficulty in growing up (he was rather frail as a child). For Mukesh, who liked upheavals, I wrote a story about an earthqua
ke and put him in it; and for Savitri I wrote a whole bunch of rhymes and poems.

  One seldom ran short of material. There was a stream at the bottom of the hill and this gave me many subjects in the way of small (occasionally large) animals, wild flowers, birds, trees, insects, ferns. The nearby villages were of absorbing interest. So were the old houses and old families of the Landour and Mussoorie hill-stations.

  There were walks into the mountains and along the pilgrim trails, and sometimes I slept at a roadside tea-shop or at a village school. Sadly, many of these villages are still without basic medical and educational facilities taken for granted elsewhere.

  'Who goes to the hills, goes to his mother.' So wrote Kipling in Kim and he seldom wrote truer words, for living in the hills was like living in the bosom of a strong, sometimes proud, but always comforting, mother. And every time I went away, the homecoming would be more tender and precious. It became increasingly difficult for me to go away. Once the mountains are in your blood, there is no escape.

  It has not always been happiness and light. Two-year old Suresh (who came between Rakesh and Mukesh) died of tetanus. I had bouts of ill-health, and there were times when money ran out. Freelancing can be daunting at times, and I never could make enough to buy a house like almost everyone else I know.

  Editorial doors close; but when one door closes, another has, for me, almost immediately, miraculously opened. I could perhaps have done a little better living in London or Hong Kong, or even Bombay. But given the choice, I would not have done differently. When you have received love from people and the freedom that only the mountains can give, you have come very near the borders of heaven.

  And now, Rakesh and Beena have three lovely children, and Mukesh and Vinita have two little scamps.

  Rani of the Doon

  REMEMBERING THE DEHRA DUN OF MY BOYHOOD IN the 1940s, with its modest population of about forty thousand souls, and contemplating it now, with a population of roughly five lakh persons, I cannot help tossing a question into the void and asking the Creator, 'God, what will it be twenty years from now?'

  To this God, as enigmatic as ever, replies: 'A computer should be able to tell you. Find out for yourself.'

  All the same, for one who presumably created our earth and all that moves upon it, it must be a little daunting to observe the growth of mankind (in sheer numbers), often at the expense of other creatures and the forest and plant life that has sustained us. God may be forgiving, but Nature is not, and we upset the ecological balance at our own peril.

  To take this one small corner of the world, this particular valley, it is fascinating to realise that just four hundred years ago the only habitations were a few scattered villages.

  It is possible to identify them, although they have long since been swallowed up in urban Dehra Dun. In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the Doon was governed by a woman, Rani Karnavati, who apparently administered the territory on behalf of the Garhwal rajas. Her consort, a certain Abju Kanwar, was content to remain in the background. Early records mention that her palace was at a place called Nawada, on Nagsidh hill, a few miles south-east of the present city.

  Included in her domain were the villages of Kaulagarh, Karnapur, Rajpur and Kyarkuli. Karnapur and Kaulagarh have long since been absorbed into the city. Guru Ram Rai's settlement at Khurbura in the late seventeenth century started the process. Rajpur remained a separate hamlet until it became a staging post on the way to Mussoorie, when that hill-station was founded by the British in the 1820s.

  Only Kyarkuli has remained more or less aloof from both Dehra and Mussoorie. You can see it straddling its own ridge as you drive up to Mussoorie; almost, but not quite, swallowed up by the limestone quarries that had until recently spread like a cancer over the hills.

  Rani Karnavati must have been an outstanding woman in her time. She is credited with having built the original Rajpur canal, which was later restored by the British to water their tea-estates and lichi gardens. Atkinson, in his Gazetteer, tells us that on a peak in the Dudatoli range there is a temple of Shiva at Binsar; a temple celebrated throughout the lower foot-hills for its sanctity and power of working miracles. It was here that Rani Karnavati was saved from her enemies by god, who destroyed them in a hailstorm. Out of gratitude she built a new tower for the temple.

  One of the many legends concerning Binsar states that should anyone remove anything belonging to god or his worshippers from the temple precincts, an avenging spirit pursues the culprit and compels him to restore it twenty-fold. Even the faithless and dishonest are reformed by a visit to Binsar. Hence the proverb : Bhai, Binsar ka loha janlo samajhlo.

  It is said that although the forests in the neighbourhood abounded with tigers, not one attacked a pilgrim, owing to the protecting influence of god. Indeed, it was considered propitious to see a tiger on the way to Binsar. This belief is still held, although tigers now being less numerous, the chances of seeing one are not as good as in those days of yore.

  Unusual though it was for a woman to have ruled over a large tract of hill country, there were women rulers before Karnavati in parts of western Garhwal. Huien Tsang, the seventh century traveller, in his sub-Himalayan travels speaks of a kingdom called Barhampura, later identified with Barahat in Rawain Garhwal (now Uttarkashi), which 'produced gold and where for ages a woman has been the ruler and so it is called the kingdom of a woman. The husband of the reigning woman is called king, but he knows nothing of the affairs of state. This man manages the wars and sows the land....'

  There is little or no recorded history for that period, but it would appear that for a woman to have governed large tracts of land was not unusual. The sociology of the area has always been unique.

  Nearer in time, I can imagine the Doon of Rani Karnavati's reign—scattered villages, a little cultivation here and there, and large tracts of forest reaching up to the foothills and beyond. Tigers and elephants roamed these forests, and so did many wild animals now extinct in the area.

  Inevitably, immigration took place from other parts of the country, but even as late as 1817, when the British wrested the Doon from the Gurkhas, a population count (Walton's Gazetteer) showed Dehra Dun to have a population of two thousand and one hundred, with five hundred dwelling-places; hardly a town by today's standards.

  Compare this with today's five lakhs and you have a classic example of urbanisation and population growth on an impressive scale, most of it during the last fifty years.

  And yet, parts of the Doon are still lovely. Almost any tree or flower will grow in this fertile valley. Hopefully, when we go into the twenty-first century, there will still be a few gardens and open spaces for our children to enjoy.

  And now that Dehra Dun is the capital of the State of Uttarakhand, all statistics need an upward revision. Never having been any good at maths, I can safely leave all calculations to the computers.

  Growing up with Trees

  DEHRA DUN WAS A GOOD PLACE FOR TREES, AND Grandfather's house was surrounded by several kinds— peepul, neem, mango, jack-fruit and papaya. There was also an ancient banyan tree. I grew up amongst these trees, and some of them planted by Grandfather grew with me.

  There were two types of trees that were of special interest to a boy—trees that were good for climbing, and trees that provided fruit.

  The jack-fruit tree was both these things. The fruit itself—the largest in the world—grew only on the trunk and main branches. I did not care much for the fruit, although cooked as a vegetable it made a good curry. But the tree was large and leafy and easy to climb. It was a very dark tree and if I hid in it, I could not be easily seen from below. In a hole in the tree-trunk I kept various banned items— a catapult, some lurid comics, and a large stock of chewing-gum. Perhaps they are still there, because I forgot to collect them when we finally went away.

  The banyan tree grew behind the house. Its spreading branches, which hung to the ground and took root again, formed a number of twisting passageways and gave me endless
pleasure. The tree was older than the house, older than my grandparents, as old as Dehra. I could hide myself in its branches, behind thick green leaves, and spy on the world below. I could read in it too, propped up against the bole of the tree, with Treasure Island or the Jungle Books or comics like Wizard or Hotspur which, unlike the forbidden Superman and others like him, were full of clean-cut schoolboy heroes.

  The banyan tree was a world in itself, populated with small beasts and large insects. While the leaves were still pink and tender, they would be visited by the delicate map butterfly, who committed her eggs to their care. The 'honey' on the leaves—an edible smear—also attracted the little striped squirrels, who soon grew used to my presence and became quite bold. Red-headed parakeets swarmed about the tree early in the morning.

  But the banyan really came to life during the monsoon, when the branches were thick with scarlet figs. These berries were not fit for human consumption, but the many birds that gathered in the tree—gossipy rosy pastors, quarrelsome mynas, cheerful bulbuls and coppersmiths, and sometimes a raucous bullying crow—feasted on them. And when night fell, and the birds were resting, the dark flying foxes flapped heavily about the tree, chewing and munching as they clambered over the branches.

  Among nocturnal visitors to the jack-fruit and banyan trees was the brainfever bird, whose real name is the hawk-cuckoo. 'Brainfever, brainfever!' it seems to call, and this shrill, nagging cry will keep the soundest of sleepers awake on a hot summer night.

  The British called it the brainfever bird, but there are other names for it. The Mahrattas called it 'Paos-ala' which means 'Rain is coming!' Perhaps Grandfather's interpretation of its call was the best. According to him, when the bird was tuning up for its main concert, it seemed to say: 'Oh dear, oh dear! How very hot it's getting! we feel it...WE FEEL IT...WE FEEL IT!'