The Ruskin Bond Mini Bus

by Ruskin Bond

  Quercus

  Q had me in a quandary

  Until I looked out of my window

  And saw my old friend the oak tree

  staring hard at me!

  Roses

  Of roses there are many kinds—

  The moss, the musk, the Eglantine;

  Roses speak of faithfulness,

  The red rose of voluptuousness.

  Snapdragon

  Your sweet scent fills the air and

  draws me to you;

  I'd follow you anywhere.

  Tulips

  I was offered a tulip, they said it

  stood for fame

  I'll settle for the Thorn-Apple, if to

  you it's just the same.

  Urtica

  The common nettle:

  You ignore it at your peril!

  Violet

  Modest and sweet—

  I look for you in quiet corners.

  Wallflower

  Wallflower bright against my wall,

  You are the sturdiest flower of all!

  Xerophyte

  You thought you'd fool me, Mr. X

  I looked you up, I must confess

  In the desert you exist

  Where other plants like you persist...

  Yellow Iris

  You speak of passion — love's dream

  ends.

  Zinnia

  You bring me thoughts of absent

  friends.

  granny's proverbs

  A hungry man is an angry man,

  Said dear old Gran

  As she prepared an Irish stew

  For the chosen few

  (Gran'dad, my cousins and me).

  But then she'd turn to me and emote—

  'Don't be greedy, or your tongue will cut your throat!'

  And if I asked for more of my favourite fish,

  'That small fish,' she'd say, 'is better than

  an empty dish!'

  Like Mann, she taught us to honour our food,

  She was the law-giver, seeking all good.

  Gran'dad and I, we'd eat what we were given

  (Irish stew and a tart)

  But sometimes we'd sneak away to the bazaar

  To feast on tikkees and chaat

  —And that was heaven!

  __________________

  (You can read more about my grandparents in 'Grandfather's Private Zoo' in my children's omnibus.)

  foot soldiers

  'Where's Solan?' the private was asking.

  'Somewhere in Tibet, I should think.'

  'There's a brewery there,

  And it's brimming with beer,

  But we can't get a mouthful to drink!'

  So we route-march from Delhi to Solan

  In the dust and the devilish sun,

  And we're cursing away like Hades,

  'Cause there ain't any ladies

  To hear every son-of-a-gun!

  And when we have climbed up to Solan

  Our language continues profane,

  For right well we know

  We shall soon have to go.

  Down from Solan to Delhi again.

  ______________

  (Based on an old ditty my soldier-grandfather used to sing. The Solan Brewery is 150 years old.)

  out of the darkness

  Out of darkness we came, into darkness we go,

  Out of the sea to the land we know,

  Out of the trembling hills and its streams,

  From night unto day we come with our dreams.

  The wind and the water gave form to our lives;

  After thousands of aeons mankind still survives,

  And beyond those great spaces, those planets and stars,

  Who knows, there are heart-beats and children like

  ours.

  a nightmare

  Cupid, with his famous dart,

  Struck me just above the heart—

  'Life' he said, 'is just a gamble,

  You'll take to her without preamble.

  And so there came, all bent and grey,

  This withered crone, and she did sway

  Backwards and forwards, as though she'd seen

  The phantom lover of a dream.

  She hypnotised me with one glance

  And there and then began to dance,

  Then tossed me in her waiting carriage

  And promised me her hand in marriage.

  She took me to her home in state,

  And chortling, said, 'There's no escape,

  I'll keep you in my empty cupboard;

  You know my name — it's Mother Hubbard!

  I'll feed you frogs and make you fat—

  A kofta for my favourite cat.'

  Her cat? The thing she called her darling

  Was a monstrous tiger, fiercely snarling,

  Its eyes were burning bright and red.

  It pounced! I woke up in my bed.

  No tiger lady in my cupboard...

  But when I opened my front door

  I found the brass plate bore

  My name: Mr. Hubbard.

  lines written on a sleepless night

  I'm unfamiliar with statistics,

  I wouldn't know what to do

  With a book on Mathematics

  Or a girl of ninety-two.

  I really can't tell the difference

  Between a man from Kalamazoo*

  And the kind of endangered species

  That you only find in a zoo.

  I'm hopeless at Nuclear Physics—

  Don't ask me to make you a bomb—

  But if you would like me to bake you a cake,

  I'll do it with great aplomb.

  I'm not very good at book-keeping,

  My accounting, they say, is too lax.

  I can't trace my Income, or, credit my debit,

  So how can I pay Income Tax?

  I'm really not bad at prognosis,

  Consult me — I won't take a fee—

  I'll soon let you know if your calcium is low

  Or if it's just Housemaid's Knee.

  I'm not very good with a Nurse

  And I feel more at ease writing verse—

  I'm inclined to convulse when she feels for my pulse,

  And if I feel hers, she gets terse!

  I'm hopeless at counting those sheep—

  I'd rather be off with Bo-Peep!

  If she'd leave them alone

  And take me straight home

  I wouldn't mind losing more sleep.

  _____________

  On the night before my 70th Birthday, I just couldn't sleep. Whenever I was on the verge of dozing off, one of these silly verses would pop into my head. On each occasion I'd get up, put it down on paper, and go hack to bed. It might have been better if I'd forgotten them. On the other hand, Gautam says publish and be damned.

  ______________

  * There is such a place — or used to be.

  what can we give our children?

  What can we give our children?

  Knowledge, yes, and honour too,

  And strength of character

  And the gift of laughter.

  What gold do we give our children?

  The gold of a sunny childhood,

  Open spaces, a home that binds

  Us to the common good...

  These simple things

  Are greater than the gold of kings.

  the duck is seventy

  This year, '04, I'm 70 years old,

  And so is Donald Duck, I'm told.

  At writing verse he's rather slack,

  I'm not much better when I quack!

  So here, dear Donald, is my boast—

  Roast duck is best with buttered toast.

  Says Donald, 'Friend, don't push your luck,

  You might be born again a duck!'

  (For Shubhadarshini)

  ROADS TO MUSSOORIE

  Backward

  Instead of a Foreword I'm writing a
Backward, because that's the kind of person I've always been.... Very backward. I write by hand instead of on a computer. I listen to the radio instead of watching television. I don't know how to operate a cellphone, if that's what it's still called. Sometimes I read books upside-down, just for the hell of it. If I have to read a modern novel, I will read the last chapter first; usually that's enough. Sometimes I walk backwards. And in this book I take a backward look at people I've known, and interesting and funny things that have happened to me on the way up to the hills or down from the hills.

  In fact, I urge my readers to start this book with the last chapter and then, if they haven't thrown their hands up in despair, to work their way forwards to the beginning.

  For over forty years I've been living in this rather raffish hill-station, and when people ask me why, I usually say 'I forgot to go away.'

  That's only partly true. I have had good times here, and bad, and the good times have predominated. There's something to be said for a place if you've been happy there, and it's nice to be able to record some of the events and people that made for fun and happy living.

  I have written about my writing life and family life in The India I Love and other books. The stories, anecdotes and reminiscences in this book deal with the lighter side of life in the hill-station, with the emphasis on my own escapades and misadventures. Over the years, Mussoorie has changed a little, but not too much. I have changed too, but not too much. And I think I'm a better person for having spent half my life up here.

  Like Mussoorie, I'm quite accessible. You can find me up at Sisters Bazaar (walking backwards), or at the Cambridge Book Depot (reading backwards), or climbing backwards over Ganesh Saili's gate to avoid the attentions of his high-spirited Labrador. You are unlikely to find me at my residence. I am seldom there. I have a secret working-place, at a haunted house on the Tehri road, and you can only find it if you keep driving in reverse. But you must look backwards too, or you might just go off the edge of the road.

  I shall sign off with the upside-down name given to me by the lady who'd had one gin too many—

  'Bunskin Rond'

  Ledur (the village behind Landour)

  ONE

  Breakfast Time

  I like a good sausage, I do;

  It's a dish for the chosen and few.

  Oh, for sausage and mash,

  And of mustard a dash

  And an egg nicely fried—maybe two?

  At breakfast or lunch, or at dinner,

  The sausage is always a winner;

  If you want a good spread

  Go for sausage on bread,

  And forget all your vows to be slimmer.

  'In Praise of the Sausage'

  (Written for Victor and Maya Banerjee,

  who excel at making sausage breakfasts)

  There is something to be said for breakfast.

  If you take an early morning walk down Landour Bazaar, you might be fortunate enough to see a very large cow standing in the foyer of a hotel, munching on a succulent cabbage or cauliflower. The owner of the hotel has u soft spot for this particular cow, and invites it in for breakfast every morning. Having had its fill, the cow—very well-behaved—backs out of the shop and makes way for paying customers.

  I am not one of them. I prefer to have my breakfast at home—a fried egg, two or three buttered toasts, a bit of bacon if I'm lucky, otherwise some fish pickle from the south, followed by a cup of strong coffee—and I'm a happy man and can take the rest of the day in my stride.

  I don't think I have ever written a good story without a good breakfast. There are of course, writers who do not eat before noon. Both they and their prose have a lean and hungry look. Dickens was good at describing breakfasts and dinners— especially Christmas repasts—and many of his most rounded characters were good-natured people who were fond of their food and drink—Mr Pickwick, the Cheeryble brothers, Mr Weller senior, Captain Cuttle—as opposed to the half-starved characters in the works of some other Victorian writers. And remember, Dickens had an impoverished childhood. So I took it as a compliment when a little girl came up to me the other day and said, 'Sir, you're Mr Pickwick!'

  As a young man, I had a lean and hungry look. After all, I was often hungry. Now, if I look like Pickwick, I take it as an achievement.

  And all those breakfasts had something to do with it.

  It's not only cows and early-to-rise writers who enjoy a good breakfast. Last summer, Colonel Solomon was out taking his pet Labrador for an early morning walk near Lai Tibba when a leopard sprang out of a thicket, seized the dog and made off with it down the hillside. The dog did not even have time to yelp. Nor did the Colonel. Suffering from shock, he left Landour the next day and has yet to return.

  Another leopard—this time at the other end of Mussoorie—entered the Savoy hotel at dawn, and finding nothing in the kitchen except chicken's feathers, moved on to the billiard-room and there vented its frustration on the cloth of the billiard-table, clawing it to shreds. The leopard was seen in various parts of the hotel before it made off in the direction of the Ladies' Block.

  Just a hungry leopard in search of a meal. But three days later, Nandu Jauhar, the owner of the Savoy, found himself short of a lady housekeeper. Had she eloped with the laundryman, or had she become a good breakfast for the leopard? We do not know till this day.

  English breakfasts, unlike continental breakfasts, are best enjoyed in India where you don't have to rush off to catch a bus or a train or get to your office in time. You can linger over your scrambled egg and marmalade on toast. What would breakfast be without some honey or marmalade? You can have an excellent English breakfast at the India International Centre, where I have spent many pleasant reflective mornings.... And a super breakfast at the Raj Mahal Hotel in Jaipur. But some hotels give very inferior breakfasts, and I am afraid that certain Mussoorie establishments are great offenders, specializing in singed omelettes and burnt toasts.

  Many people are under the erroneous impression that the days of the British Raj were synonymous with huge meals and unlimited food and drink. This may have been the case in the days of the East India Company, but was far from being so during the last decade of British rule. Those final years coincided with World War II, when food-rationing was in force. At my boarding school in Shimla, omelettes were made from powdered eggs, and the contents of the occasional sausage were very mysterious—so much so, that we called our sausages 'sweet mysteries of life!' after a popular Nelson Eddy song.

  Things were not much better at home. Just porridge (no eggs!) bread and jam (no butter!), and tea with ghur instead of refined sugar. The ghur was, of course, much healthier than sugar.

  Breakfasts are better now, at least for those who can afford them. The jam is better than it used to be. So is the bread. And I can enjoy a fried egg, or even two, without feeling guilty about it. But good omelettes are still hard to come by. They shouldn't be made in a hurried or slapdash manner. Some thought has to go into an omelette. And a little love too. It's like writing a book—done much better with some feeling!

  TWO

  On the Delhi Road

  Road travel can involve delays and mishaps, but it also provides you with the freedom to stop where you like and do as you like. I have never found it boring. The seven-hour drive from Mussoorie to Delhi can become a little tiring towards the end, but as I do not drive myself, I can sit back and enjoy everything that the journey has to offer.

  I have been to Delhi five times in the last six months— something of a record for me—and on every occasion I have travelled by road. I like looking at the countryside, the passing scene, the people along the road, and this is something I don't see any more from trains; those thick windows of frosted glass effectively cut me off from the world outside.

  On my last trip we had to leave the main highway because of a disturbance near Meerut. Instead we had to drive through about a dozen villages in the prosperous sugarcane belt that dominates this area. It was a wonderful contrast,
leaving the main road with its cafes, petrol pumps, factories and management institutes and entering the rural hinterland where very little had changed in a hundred years. Women worked in the fields, old men smoked hookahs in their courtyards, and a few children were playing guli-danda instead of cricket! It brought home to me the reality of India—urban life and rural life are still poles apart.

  These journeys are seldom without incident. I was sipping a coffee at a wayside restaurant, when a foreign woman walked in, and asked the waiter if they had 'à la carte'. Roadside stops seldom provide menus, nor do they go in for French, but our waiter wanted to be helpful, so he led the tourist outside and showed her the way to the public toilet. As she did not return to the restaurant, I have no idea if she eventually found à la carte.

  My driver on a recent trip assured me that he knew Delhi very well and could get me to any destination. I told him I'd been booked into a big hotel near the airport, and gave him the name. Not to worry, he told me, and drove confidently towards Palam. There he got confused, and after taking several unfamiliar turnings, drove straight into a large piggery situated behind the airport. We were surrounded by some fifty or sixty pigs and an equal number of children from the mohalla. One boy even asked me if I wanted to purchase a pig. I do like a bit of bacon now and then, but unlike Lord Emsworth I do not have any ambition to breed prize pigs, so I had to decline. After some arguments over right of way, we were allowed to proceed and finally made it to the hotel.