The Lamp Is Lit

by Ruskin Bond

  11th June

  All telephones out of order for three days. Apparently a road cleaner, finding an exposed underground cable getting in the way of his work, decided that the best way to deal with the obstacle was to cut through it with a saw. This he did most effectively, demonstrating that the Stone Age has finally caught up with the Computer Age.

  I have to admit to being something of a Stone Age man myself; never could manage or control anything on wheels. Falling off bicycles was a regular occurrence during my boyhood. And later, my attempt to learn to drive a Land Rover ended with my smashing through a single-brick boundary wall in New Delhi’s posh Friends Colony, stopping only a few metres from where a sumptuous open-air lunch party was in progress. I wrote a story about it, in which they asked me to stay for lunch; but in reality, they made me pay for the wall.

  * * *

  Beena buys a lot of second-hand cane furniture from a departing Woodstock teacher. It fills up the sitting room and to my dismay I find that she has thrown out the wobbly sofa that used to tip over and deposit its occupant on the floor—my last defence against the unwanted visitor!

  25th June

  Some genuine early-monsoon rain, warm and humid, and not that cold high altitude stuff we’ve been having all year. The plants seem to know it too, and the first cobra-lily rears its head from the ferns as I walk up to the bank and post office.

  The mist affords a certain privacy

  A schoolboy asked me to describe the hill station and valley in one sentence, and all I could say was: ‘A paradise that might have been.’

  * * *

  In the vicinity of the bank, one occasionally meets the odd retired executive, now ‘consultant’ in business management, still very prosperous, usually with adult children studying abroad, and yet, in spite of all he’s got, exuding a strong aroma of failure. People like him long for a pat on the back, but there’s no one to give it to them.

  * * *

  Visited HH and got news of fresh disasters:

  1. Large number of tourists down with food poisoning after dining at a new hotel.

  2. Abnormal nephew talks to the wall and flaps his arms like a bird. (I feel like doing this myself, sometimes.)

  3. Young Prem lala, who fell off a roof and damaged his spine and skull, may never recover. (Six months later: I’m glad to be able to say that he did.)

  I had gone over looking for something to cheer me up, but even Bill looked gloomy and his purple socks failed to stimulate.

  29th June

  Publishers seldom enjoy sending out royalty statements, or the cheques that accompany them. The author Frank Swinnerton once gave this description of the publisher J.M. Dent, for whom he worked at one time: ‘He was a very emotional man. One day I went into his office when he was signing royalty cheques, and the tears were running down his cheeks.’

  Not every publisher is heartbroken when he signs a cheque, but I have noticed a certain stinginess among those who run one-man shows. It is a character trait which probably goes back to the anal-retentive stage when as children they derived pleasure and power from withholding their faeces.

  I know at least one Delhi publisher who derives a sadistic pleasure from withholding his authors’ royalties. And there was one desperate character who got himself admitted into the cardiac unit of a hospital whenever royalty time came around. ‘The patient cannot be disturbed,’ were the familiar words of the medic in charge. This went on for several years, until he had no writers left apart from me. He has promised to send me something on account of royalties provided I help him pay his hospital bills.

  1st July

  Reading to four-year-old Siddharth from Alice in Wonderland, or rather retelling the story with the help of the illustrations, I was surprised by the hold that it can have on an imaginative child. For several evenings he has been demanding Alice—he particularly likes the ‘Drink Me’ potion and its spectacular results, the Mad Hatter, the pool of tears, and of course the Cheshire cat. Has even taken to drinking his soup, provided I recite ‘Beautiful Soup’ while he is at it! I used to think Alice was for adults or sophisticated older children, but I can see now that small children would be fascinated by a world in which nothing can be taken for granted. Lively illustrations do help. I wonder how many artists since Tenniel have tried their hand at Alice—several hundred, I should think. My only criticism of Anthony Browne’s illustrations is that he introduces his own characters (for instance, a gorilla) who are not in the book.

  16th July

  The last fortnight taken up with correcting proofs of my little memoir, and fleshing it out here and there; also proofs of one of my children’s books. And then tax returns, obligatory at this time of the year. Switching from the story of a mountain leopard to doing an income tax return is rather daunting, and rather like one of Alice’s adventures. Come to think of it, I’d rather face a leopard than an income tax inspector.

  21st July

  Jolly evening at HH’s in spite of the news that her grand-nephew was in a mental hospital, her business partner (in Bombay) was dying from lymph cancer, and almost every acquaintance was either expiring or in a bad way financially

  She is of course immune to all the disasters that surround her. Is fond of me but would never give me any money because she says I would squander it. And of course she’s right—I would!

  Ganesh did her a service, so she has promised him a new car. That is, if Nandu (of the Savoy) pays half.

  30th July

  Book completed, tax return submitted. Celebrated by taking a hot bath and sleeping all day

  My action justified by BBC Science report that our immune system works best when we are sleeping. That afternoon siesta’s all important! (Mexican proverb: ‘Oh to do nothing, and then to rest.’)

  12th August

  Endless rain, and a permanent mist. We haven’t seen the sun for eight or nine days. Everything damp and soggy. Nowhere to go. Pace the room, look out of the window at a few bobbing umbrellas. At least it isn’t cold rain. The hillsides are lush as late-monsoon flowers begin to appear—wild balsam, dahlias, begonias and ground orchids.

  The day’s routine carries on. Rakesh goes off in the taxi and gets a fare once in three days. Dolly and Siddharth go to school, come home wet. Prem takes his father to the Community hospital for a check-up. I sit at my desk, pen in hand, waiting for the elusive moment of inspiration, but all I get is a persistent mosquito hovering around my head. How did it get up here, to these cooling heights? In the taxi, possibly. Or trapped in the boot of a tourist’s car. My last visitor, three days ago, drove up from hot and steamy Saharanpur, and might well have brought a few mosquitoes with him. This one seems to like my room. Should I swat it? Or be the good Jain monk and let it live a little longer? If it’s a Saharanpur mosquito, it won’t survive up here. So I open my window and encourage it to fly back to Saharanpur. But it doesn’t care for the mist. It settles on the page of an open book. On an impulse, I snap the book shut. End of mosquito. I look at the title of the book. It’s called The Consolation of Philosophy.

  * * *

  Browsing through some of my old books (early Penguins, in fact) I came across this passage in Laura Knight’s autobiography, Oil Paint and Grease Paint (1936):

  ‘Something inside the artist drives him, a power transcends himself, and only in the soil of complete humility can an artist grow—I am blind, I would see; I am deaf, I would hear; I am a little child, I would know.

  ‘Conceived in humility and awe, born in pain— thus Art comes forth.’

  * * *

  A few years ago, I found myself under arrest. A story I had written had offended the guardians of our morals, and the result was a criminal charge. But this is not an account of how I was pursued by the law because of my sensual literary style. Unpleasant experiences are best forgotten if one is not to become a bitter old cynic. And, in any case, I was finally acquitted.

  No one who is under arrest is likely to enjoy the experience. Warrants make bad rea
ding, except in detective stories. So how does a writer of essays and light verse take it? A nervous breakdown would not have been surprising, and did in fact seem likely. But I was saved from one by the swallows.

  Yes, the swallows.

  There I was, sitting on a hard bench on the police station veranda, waiting for a couple of friends to arrive and stand bail for me, when I noticed the swallows wheeling in and out of the veranda, busily building a nest in the eaves of the old building. Nothing unusual about that. Swallows love old police stations. But just because it was so usual, so commonplace, I took heart.

  The right word is reassuring. That is what we all need when we are in a tight corner—a little reassurance. Like a friendly, familiar face. Or the sleepy drone of a cricket commentary in the background. Or someone whistling cheerfully in a gloomy corridor. Something to let you know that even if things seem to be getting out of hand for a while, the rest of the world is still going on quite normally. And for me, nothing could have been more reassuring than the sight of several swallows—all oblivious to the terrors of the thana—going about their business.

  Business as usual. That’s what reassures. It bucked me up tremendously, just watching those little birds.

  Presently an official came along, took me into his office, and asked me to fill in a form. I remarked, ‘Have you noticed that the swallows are nesting in the veranda?’ He looked at me blankly. He hadn’t noticed any swallows. What were swallows, anyway? Obviously I was deranged—a candidate for an asylum and not for a jail.

  But I knew then, watching the blank look on his face, that I was equal to the situation—that I was dealing with a human being whose plight was worse than mine, because he would never be able to find reassurance so quickly or so easily.

  20th August

  The little rose begonia. It has a glossy chocolate leaf, a pretty rose-pink flower, and it grows and flowers in my bedroom—almost all the year round. What more can one ask for?

  Some plants become friends. Most garden flowers are fair-weather friends; gone in the winter when times are difficult up here in the mountains. Those who stand by you in adversity—plant or human—are your true friends; there aren’t many around, so cherish them and take care of them in all seasons.

  A loyal plant friend is the variegated ivy that has spread all over my bedroom wall. My small bedroom-cum-study gets plenty of light and sun, and when the windows are open, a cool breeze from the mountains floats in, rustling the leaves of the ivy. (This breeze can turn into a raging blizzard in winter— on one occasion, even blowing the roof away—but right now, it’s just a zephyr, gentle and balmy.) Ivy plants seem to like my room, and this one, which I brought up from Dehra Dun, took an instant liking to my desk and walls, so that I now have difficulty keeping it from trailing over my typewriter when I am at work.

  I like to take in other people’s sick or discarded plants and nurse or cajole them back to health. This has given me a bit of a reputation as a plant doctor. Actually, all I do is give an ailing plant a quiet corner where it can rest and recuperate from whatever ails it—they have usually been ill-treated in some way. Plant abuse, no less! And it’s wonderful how quickly a small tree or plant will recover if given a little encouragement.

  I rescued a dying asparagus fern from the portals of the Savoy Hotel, and now, six months later, its strong feathery fronds have taken over most of one window, so that I have no need of curtains. Nandu, the owner of the Savoy, now wants his fern back.

  Maya Banerjee’s sick geranium, never allowed to settle in one place—hence its stunted appearance— has, within a fortnight of being admitted to my plant ward, burst forth in such an array of new leaf and flower that I’m afraid it might pull a muscle or strain a ligament from too much activity.

  Should I return these and other plants when they have fully recovered? I don’t think they want to go back. And I should hate to see them suffering relapses on being returned to their former abodes. So I tell the owners that their plants need monitoring for a while . . . Perhaps, if I sent in doctor’s bills, the demands for their return would not be so strident?

  Loyalty in plants, as in friends, must be respected and rewarded. If dandelions show a tendency to do well on the steps of the house, then that is where they shall be encouraged to grow. If sorrel is happier on the window sill than on the hillside, then I shall let it stay, even if it means the window won’t close properly. And if the hydrangea does better in my neighbour’s garden than mine, then my neighbour shall be given the hydrangea. Among flower lovers, there must be no double standards. Generosity, not greed; sugar, not spite.

  And what of the rewards for me, apart from the soothing effect of fresh fronds and leaves at my place of work and rest? Well, the other evening I came home to find my room vibrating to the full-throated chorus of several crickets who had found the ivy to their liking. I thought they would keep me up all night with their music; but when I switched the light off, they immediately fell silent: So, crickets don’t sing in the dark, I surmised, and switched the light on again. Once more, I was treated to symphonic variations on a theme by Tchaikovsky.

  This reminded me that I hadn’t listened to Tchaikovsky for some time, so I played a tape or The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy’ from the Nutcracker Suite. The crickets maintained a respectful silence, even with the lights on.

  Last night, a beetle flew in at the open window and landed with a plop in my jug of drinking water. He didn’t appear to be a good swimmer, so I picked him up and flung him back into the night. One has to draw the line somewhere.

  21st August

  Sometimes I live with a deepening sense of failure. After forty years of writing, very little money and not much recognition outside India. But I have sung my songs and told my tales, and I doubt if I would have done any better in other circumstances.

  As a boy, reading was my religion. It helped me to discover my soul. Later, writing helped me to record its journey.

  24th August

  The sun comes out, and a yellow butterfly alights on the red dahlia.

  From my window I see that the Song river with a goodly flow of water is heading for its junction with the Ganga. All the streams and rivulets are in spate. Soon it will be flood time in the plains.

  Took Siddharth by the hand and walked home with him. Something I had often done with his father (Rakesh) just over twenty years ago. Now that’s an achievement! Just a small one . . .

  * * *

  At night, the lights of Dehra are spread all over the valley. Over the years, I’ve watched the town grow from a small cluster of lights to a city by night. It is at its prettiest from a distance. At close quarters, the odours from the rubbish dumps overpower the scent of the jasmine and raat-ki-rani. Mussoorie is not much better. Refuse, sewage and plastic all have to go somewhere—and that isn’t very far.

  6th September

  Three days of incessant rain. A powdery film of mildew covers the frayed old carpet in the Savoy Bar; it is now as green as the billiard table. A fusty, musty odour pervades the airless room. Ganesh and I do our best to imbue it with some life. There have been no visitors for days, unless you count the little shrew that meanders between the chairs and tables. People say the shrew (chhuchhunder) is lucky, or rather, brings luck. Maybe I’ll take it home one of these days. Nandu says to leave it—his need is greater than mine.

  To relieve the tedium, we visit HH who has already informed me (on the phone) that she is severely depressed by Princess Diana’s funeral which she has been following on TV. We find her cheerful enough, and she enlarges on her favourite theme of violent death, giving us tales of murder, suicide and misadventure in various princely families she has known. Poisonings were popular, followed by ‘hunting’ accidents.

  Today, violent crime has shifted to political, business and entertainment circles. And poisonings and accidental deaths are passé. You simply contact a gang of hired killers (or kidnappers) who do the job for you. Rates are negotiable. And of course you might end up as o
ne of their victims one day.

  We shall miss HH when she leaves next week.

  Speaking of an old flame, she remarks, ‘It was Y — who taught me to drink.’

  ‘And you were a quick learner,’ adds Bill.

  For which remark he will have to hide in the shrubbery for a day.

  15th September

  Glorious hot sunshine greets us this morning, and I resolve to do nothing but bask in it.

  Twelve noon: Resolve has been undertaken.

  One p.m. Clouds move in.

  Thought HH had gone, but received a merry call from her to say goodbye once again and to continue, ‘Let me tell you about the latest tragedies that have taken place.’

  First, Bill’s mother had died, as well as one of his aunts, but as they were both over ninety, Bill wasn’t too upset.

  Second, her caretaker’s TB treatment in Delhi had cost over ten thousand rupees and he still had the disease!

  In spite of the recent horrendous train accident, HH is travelling by train to Delhi. Look forward to seeing her next year.

  21st September

  Nandu and old Negi running the Savoy almost by themselves, as most of the staff have rendered themselves hors de combat due to various alcohol-related incidents.

  Ram Singh, the driver, had an all-night booze session with the night chowkidar, as a result of which the chowkidar has a black eye and Ram Singh has injuries to his ribcage. Then the gardener went for the masalchi who, being younger, knocked the old man down. The gardener got stitches in his forehead and lodged a report with the police, as a result of which the masalchi decided it was time to visit his ailing father in Bijnor.