The Lamp Is Lit

by Ruskin Bond

  Not that the hotel is exceptional. I have an alcoholic postman. And after ten p.m. almost half the town is drunk. Let’s put it down to global warming.

  3rd October

  We have gone straight from monsoon into winter rain. Snow at higher altitudes.

  After an evening hailstorm, the sky and hills are suffused with a beautiful golden light.

  18th October

  Monkey population has increased, probably faster than the human population, at least on this hillside. Got up in the morning, opened the door to the bathroom, and found one sitting on the loo. It wasn’t using the loo, just relaxing upon it. I shut the door hurriedly, then banged on it several times until the monkey left via the window.

  And a week ago I found one at the telephone, rifling through my phone book. It made off with the book and sat on the parapet wall, trying to chew it. When it found the book inedible, it flung it away. The sabziwala rescued the book, somewhat battered but still intact.

  I notice the phone bill has gone up this month. Maybe that monkey actually got through, long-distance, to some distant relative in the plains.

  * * *

  The spiders on my bedroom wall gave rise to the following lines:

  This little spider,

  His name is Paul;

  He loves to crawl all over my wall.

  This little spider,

  His name is Bhim;

  His legs are quite long,

  But he doesn’t swim.

  Here’s a third spider,

  Her name is Sue;

  And if she gets hungry,

  She’ll eat those two!

  * * *

  In a month of fluctuating moods, some of the things I have enjoyed:

  Three bright orange nasturtiums taking the sun at my window.

  Tuning in at random to a BBC request programme and hearing Nelson Eddy sing ‘Rose Marie’.

  Watching Shrishti grow quite pretty.

  Getting a cheque in the mail.

  15th November

  Scenes from a Writer’s Life was published and slipped quietly into a few bookshops, minus fanfare or any kind of pre-publicity. A copy went to my first publisher, Diana Athill, and I received the following response:

  ‘My dear Ruskin,

  I can’t imagine a better Christmas-cum-eightieth-birthday present than the arrival of the copy of Scenes from a Writer’s Life which you so kindly asked Penguin to send me. I was just about to leave London for the cottage in Norfolk which once belonged to an aunt of mine and which now her daughter and I share as a country retreat, when the parcel arrived; and the first thing I did when I got here was read it in one greedy gulp. I enjoyed—and of course still enjoy—it so much. That ‘simple and immensely moving’ style has remained untarnished, just with a nice little edge added to it at the appropriate moments—e.g. your account of Ms Manning and her fire-extinguishing lover, which made me laugh out loud. It was very interesting to be told about your childhood, rather an extraordinary sensation to come face to face with my past self, and enormously gratifying to be reminded that the dark horse (more like a little dark pony in those days!) on whom we placed our only-too-modest bet went on to establish himself so securely as a writer.

  I had conveniently forgotten, and blushed hotly at being reminded, how dreadfully we kept you hanging about. It was Andre’s worst habit—liking something well enough to want it on his list, then dragging his feet with it because of doubting its commercial viability. And I now think it was shockingly feeble of me not to fight him more fiercely whenever this happened (you were far from being the only victim). But at the time I suppose I lacked confidence in some way, because as I remember it I just felt helpless. Unhappy but helpless. May I now say Sorry! for that long-ago anxiety and frustration we caused you, and hope that subsequent success has made the scar fade . . .’

  23rd November

  Dinner party at an official’s residence in Dehra. Women were uniformly attractive; men looked as though they had seen better days. Best-looking male was the hired waiter.

  25th November

  I must be a very dull sort of fellow because whenever anyone meets me on the road past my home, they invariably ask after Victor or Tom or Steve or Sunny or any of the other celebrities who live up here or pop in and out of the hill station from time to time.

  Only last week a boy and a girl came up to me and asked, ‘Are you Victor Banerji?’

  ‘You must have seen my earlier films,’ I snarled, and hurried on before they could discover their mistake.

  And a day or two afterwards, a pretty girl wearing what looked like football stockings sidled up to me and asked, ‘Doesn’t Tom Alter live somewhere here?’

  ‘Only when he’s out of work,’ I said.

  Both Victor and Tom are delightful persons and I am more than happy to point out the way to their homes, knowing full well that they hate casual callers.

  One day Tom and I were talking about Junoon, a film based on my novella called A Flight of Pigeons. Tom had a small role in the film—about two or three minutes of acting—and he told me he received ten thousand rupees for doing the scene. This is exactly what I received for the entire story—a good example of the value Bollywood places on writers.

  Junoon wasn’t a bad film, but some of my experiences in the film world are memorable for all the wrong reasons. There was the producer who bought one of my wildlife stories and actually made the film; Tom Alter was in it again, this time as a wicked foreign shikari out to decimate the tiger population.

  Unfortunately, halfway through the film his fellow shikari actually got mauled by a tiger and the story had to be changed to fit the circumstances. This was all right, but then the circus tiger which was playing the main role of a tiger in the wild caught pneumonia and died and the film was completed with a substitute tiger which was a bad actor. The film was never released.

  About ten years ago the Children’s Film Society of India bought one of my stories. It is still under production. And I am told there is a shortage of good stories for children’s films.

  But the most memorable experience was the children’s film made here by an Australian director of dubious credentials. I can’t complain about the fee because the film, when completed, bore little or no resemblance to the story. Nor did the actors even resemble themselves.

  The producer hadn’t done his homework, because he had neglected to ascertain that the leading lady was in fact three or four months pregnant. Now the action of the entire story (a simple one when I wrote it) all took place in the course of a single day, but of course they took three months to make the film and all the while the leading lady grew more and more rotund, rather like Alice in Wonderland on the wrong pills.

  When the completed film was previewed, she was seen to change shape in a rapid succession of takes— shapely as Garbo in one scene, round as a barrel in the next. This, too, was never released.

  * * *

  If mice could roar

  And elephants soar

  And trees grow up in the sky;

  If tigers could dine

  On biscuits and wine,

  And the fattest of men could fly!

  If pebbles could sing

  and bells never ring

  And teachers were lost in the post;

  If a tortoise could run

  And losses be won,

  And bullies be buttered on toast;

  If a song brought a shower,

  And a gun grew a flower,

  This world would be nicer than most!

  ENVOI

  THE LAMP IS LIT

  When the Lamp Is Lit

  ‘Love thy art, poor as it may be, which thou hast learned, and be content with it; and pass through the rest of life like one who has entrusted to the gods with his whole soul and all that he has, making thyself neither the tyrant nor the slave of any man.’

  Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180), the last of the great Antonine emperors, speaks to us across the centuries through his Meditations, those
nuggets of wisdom jotted down during a crowded and adventurous life.

  Being unable to find much comfort or wisdom in the utterances of present-day teachers, preachers, or godmen (be they of the Eastern or Western variety), I frequently turn for advice and reassurance to the early Greek and Roman philosophers—Epicurus, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca and others—those Stoics and Epicureans whose precepts are as relevant today as they were during the finest flowering of the Greek and Roman civilizations.

  ‘Love thy art, poor as it may be . . .’ I have never regretted following this precept; for, no matter how skilful one is with words, it is only drudgery to have to use them in the more mundane spheres of journalism. I have tried to use words creatively and lovingly. The gift for putting together words and sentences to make stories or poems or essays has carried me through life with a certain serenity and inner harmony which could not have come from any unloved vocation.

  Within my own ‘art’ I think I have known my limitations and worked within them, thus sparing myself the bitter disappointment that comes to those whose ambitions stretch far beyond their talents. Do what you know best, and do it well. Act impeccably. Everything will then fall into place.

  I was looking for a living example to try and illustrate this precept, and came across it in the persons of Mahboob Khan and Ramji Mal, stonemasons who were engaged in restoring Shah Jahan’s Hall of Mirrors in the Agra Fort. They had been at work for ten years, slowly but deftly bringing their epic task to completion.

  The restoration work was so intricate that these two skilled craftsmen could restore only about six inches in a day. In recreating the original stucco-work on walls and ceiling, everything had to be done impeccably: millions of pieces of tiny mirrors and coloured glass had to find their exact place in order to reflect just the right amount of light and, at the same time, conform to a certain pattern.

  It is a small art, theirs, but it requires infinite patience, skill and dedication. No fame for them, no great material reward. Their greatest reward comes from the very act of taking pains in the pursuit of perfection.

  Surely they must be happy, or at least contented men. In truth, I am yet to meet a neurotic carpenter or stonemason or clay-worker or bangle-maker or master craftsman of any kind. Those who work with wood or stone or glass are usually well-balanced people. Working with the hands is in itself a therapy. Those of us who work with our minds—composers or artists or writers—must try to emulate these craftsmen’s methods, paying attention to every detail and working with loving care.

  The trouble is that creative people are cerebral creatures with fluctuations of mood that make life exhilarating at one moment and depressing the next. And this is often reflected in their work unless they have become mechanical, turning out books or paintings like samosas.

  Yet there are times when I do love my art. And because I have loved it, I think I have been able to pass through life without being any man’s slave or tyrant. I doubt if I have ever written a story or essay or workaday article unless I have really wanted to write it. And in this way I have probably suffered materially, because I have never attempted a blockbuster of a novel, or a biography of a celebrity, or a soap opera that goes on for ever. The prospect of spinning out thousands of words of little or no consequence seems a dull and dreary way of earning a living.

  ‘Writing is easy,’ said Red Smith. ‘All you have to do is sit at your typewriter till little drops of blood appear on your forehead.’ That’s true for some of us. But I refuse to suffer. At the first sign of drops of blood or perspiration, I get up from my desk and do something totally different—make myself a sandwich, water my ferns, take a walk, or discuss politics with the milkman. If the writing isn’t easy, if I’m not enjoying it, I know I’m better off doing something else.

  And yet writing is easy if I’m happy with my theme. Ask me to write a piece on petunias, and I’ll turn out an enthusiastic essay on this underrated flower. I might even write a story about someone who grows petunias, because such a person must obviously have sterling qualities. I might even delve into the love life of a petunia-grower because those who love flowers must, by their very nature, be loving, even sensual and passionate people. From The Rose Garden of Sa’adi to Wordsworth’s sea of golden daffodils, love poetry and song has been enriched by flowers—the rose, the jasmine, the lily, the daffodil, the honeysuckle . . . No sweeter scent than the honeysuckle’s. No more inviting name. Come, suckle up to your honey, it seems to say; and under my bower you’ll kiss the fleeting hours away.

  Of flowers, lovers, melons and moonbeams, I can write reams. But ask me to write the life story of a great leader or media tycoon or matchbox-maker, and I’m stumped and stymied. Those little drops of blood threaten to appear. I cannot breathe life into these subjects, noble though they might be. Their true personalities, the essence of their natures, somehow eludes me. It is not that they are too complicated, but rather that one has to peel off too many layers of protective armour to get at the flesh and blood that lies beneath the skin. In the case of the great leader, all those speeches—no matter how many fat volumes they may occupy—are just so many layers of onion peel. And the more you peel the less you find. We come no nearer to the heart and mind of our hero.

  As for the captains of industry, we have even less to go on. Factory chimneys, figures, television satellites, song charts, all go into your computers and come out neatly sanitized yet somehow faceless. What they felt like in their darker moments remains well hiddenfromposterity. Ittookthegenius of Shakespeare to reach into the darker recesses of the human mind, and he got no help from his subjects either; they were long dead when he wrote of their personal tragedies—for tragedy is usually the lot of those whose grasp exceeds their reach. Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon and other conquerors, when they forget that they are mortals must reckon with the gods: the gods being the self-destructive elements in their own natures.

  Why is humility so hard to come by? Most religions teach the wisdom of humility, but who listens? We all know that life is finite, that human civilization, for what it’s worth, is self-limiting. And yet the most educated of men will strut about their little world like actors on a stage; they assume the mantle of immortals, deluding themselves into thinking they are indispensable, until eventually they join all those other indispensables who have reached perfection in the form of dust or ashes.

  Why so much pride when a little humility can get us far more by way of love and peace and happiness? Better to efface yourself like the cricket who is heard but seldom seen than to flap your wings and crow like a cockbird before ending up as someone’s tandoori dinner.

  Happiness is an elusive state of mind, not to be gained by clumsy pursuit. It is given to those who do not sue for it: to be unconcerned about a desired good is probably the only way to possess it.

  ‘I enjoy life,’ said Seneca, ‘because I am ready to leave it.’

  If we can disencumber ourselves of nine-tenths of our worldly goods, it should not be difficult to leave the rest behind. But it’s amazing how most of us hang on to our bric-a-brac, hoping maybe that it will be treasured and valued by those who come after us. Yes, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor’s slice of wedding cake, preserved for over fifty years, recently fetched over thirty thousand dollars at an auction in New York. But did the original royal owners have that end in mind when they decided to hang on to a slice of the cake that symbolized their bittersweet romance? It certainly wasn’t put away as an investment. As a symbol of the sacrifice that Edward made in giving up the throne of England in exchange for Mrs Simpson, it certainly meant something to the ex-king and his wife; but to its subsequent and present owners it is merely a curiosity which has cost them a lot of money. Perhaps they will put it on display There are always people who will gaze in awe and wonder at such a thing. But I would like to see one of them eat it.

  ‘How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable!’ sighed Hamlet in another context, although he might well have been commenting on the values of our o
wn time, which sets more store on a pop singer’s toothbrush or a dead princess’s wardrobe than on the legacy of the truly great. It’s a world in which we elevate the second rate above the first rate. Will posterity set the record straight? Seedy politicians, swelling with self-importance, and the men who pull their strings, the medieval robber barons of today, will do their best to promote the second best, because that’s where the money lies, but Time has a way of taking the stuffing out of the bully, the braggart and of course the stuffed shirt.

  Recently a publishing giant and media tycoon refused to publish a book because he was afraid it would offend his customers in China. In doing so, he had curtailed his own freedom, made himself the victim of his own overriding ambitions. As his empire grows, his personal freedom shrinks. There is too much to lose. He is stuck on the point of his own glittering star, as he channels the second rate into the homes of helpless millions.

  Not long ago there was another media moghul (name forgotten now, as such names must be) who found his success so stale, flat and in the end unprofitable, that he threw himself off the stern of his expensive yacht, seeking oblivion in the ocean. His body was never found. A great many decent people lost their savings because of him, otherwise the world was no worse for his exit.

  Let us, for a change, turn to someone of real worth, whose name is imperishable. She made no money and did not live long enough to enjoy her fame. Riddled with tuberculosis she clung on to life until she finished her single masterpiece, Wuthering Heights, thereby giving to the world her very lifeblood along with the creative urge that justified her existence. Emily Brönte’s indifference to wealth, fame, and personal comfort would be rare in today’s world of high-powered literary agents and media hype. For her, writing was ecstasy. It was emancipation wrought in the soul. She and her sisters and others like them held only a brief tenure on this earth—no time to think of getting to the top of the ladder!—but their words, their thoughts, their songs are still with us. At least with those of us who would listen . . .