by Ruskin Bond
We noticed that the water on the floor was beginning to subside a little.
‘Where is it going?’ asked Dolly, for we could see no outlet. ‘Through the floor,’ said Mukesh. ‘Down to the rooms below.’ He was right, too. Cries of consternation from our neighbours told us that they were now having their share of the flood.
Our feet were freezing because there hadn’t been time to put on enough protective footwear, and in any case, shoes and slippers were awash. Tables and chairs were also piled high with books. I hadn’t realized the considerable size of my library until that night!
The available beds were pushed into the driest corner of the children’s room and there, huddled in blankets and quilts, we spent the remaining hours of the night, while the storm continued to threaten further mayhem.
But then the wind fell, and it began to snow. Through the door to the sitting-room I could see snowflakes drifting through the gaps in the ceiling, settling on picture frames, statuettes and miscellaneous ornaments. Mundane things like a glue-bottle and a plastic doll took on a certain beauty when covered with soft snow. The clock on the wall had stopped and with its covering of snow reminded me of a painting by Salvador Dali. And my shaving-brush looked ready for use!
Most of us dozed off.
I sensed that the direction of the wind had changed, and that it was now blowing from the west; it was making a rushing sound in the trees rather than in what remained of our roof. The clouds were scurrying away.
When the dawn broke, we found the window-panes encrusted with snow and icicles. Then the rising sun struck through the gaps in the ceiling and turned everything to gold. Snow crystals glinted like diamonds on the empty bookshelves. I crept into my abandoned bedroom to find the philodendron looking like a Christmas tree.
Prem went out to find a carpenter and a tin-smith, while the rest of us started putting things in the sun to dry out. And by evening, we’d put much of the roof on again. Vacant houses are impossible to find in Mussoorie, so there was no question of moving.
But it’s a much-improved roof now, and I look forward to approaching storms with some confidence!
Garhwal Himalaya
Deep in the crouching mist, lie the mountains.
Climbing the mountains are forests
Of rhododendron, spruce and deodar—
Trees of God, we call them—soughing
In the wind from the passes of Garhwal;
And the snow-leopard moans softly
Where the herdsmen pass, their lean sheep cropping
Short winter grass.
And clinging to the sides of the mountains,
The small stone houses of Garhwal,
Their thin fields of calcinated soil torn
From the old spirit-haunted rocks.
Pale women plough, they laugh at the thunder,
As their men go down to the plains:
Little grows on the beautiful mountains
In the east wind.
There is hunger of children at noon; and yet
There are those who sing of the sunset
And the gods and glories of Himaal,
Forgetting no one eats sunsets.
Wonder, then, at the absence of old men;
For some grow old at their mother’s breasts,
In cold Garhwal.
Mountains are Kind to Writers
IT’S HARD TO realize that I’ve been here all these years—twentyfive summers and monsoons and winters and Himalayan springs (there is no spring in the plains)—because, when I look back to the time of my first coming here, it does seem like yesterday.
That probably sums it all up. Time passes, and yet it doesn’t pass; 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 currents; or make tunnels and roads and bridges; but no matter how hard they try, humans cannot actually get rid of their 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 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 a 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. 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, 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 left 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 would live quite cheaply. There were few cars and everyone walked about. The cottage was on the edge of the oak and maple forest and I spent eight or nine years in it, most of them happy, writing stories, essays, poems, and 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. He and his wife had taken on the job of looking after the house and all practical matters (I remain helpless with fuses, clogged cisterns, leaking gas cylinders, ruptured water pipes, tin roofs that blow away when there’s a storm, and the do-it-yourself world of small-town India). They made it possible for me to write. Their sons Rakesh and Mukesh, and daughter Savitri grew up in Maplewood Cottage and then in other houses when we moved.
Naturally I grew attached to them and became a part of the family, an adopted grandfather. For Rakesh I wrote a story about a cherry tree that had difficulty in growing up; for Mukesh, who liked upheavals, I wrote a story about an earthquake and put him in it; and for Savitri, I wrote 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, insects, ferns. The nearby villages and their good-natured people 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 a village school.
‘Who goes to the Hills, goes to his Mother.’ So wrote Kipling, 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.
It has not always been happiness and light. 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 sometimes 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 in Canada like my brother; or even in a city like 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, then you have come very near the borders of heaven.
View from the Window
I’m in bed with fever
but the fever’s not high.
Beside my bed is a window
and I like looking out at all
that’s happening around me.
The cherry leaves are turning a dark green.
On the maple tree, winged seeds spin round and round.
There is fruit on the wild blackberry bushes.
Two mynah birds are building a nest in a hole—
They are very noisy about it.
Bits of grass keep falling on the window sill.
High up in the spruce tree, a hawk-cuckoo calls:
‘I slept so well, I slept so well!’
When the hawk-cuckoo is awake, no one else sleeps
That’s why it’s also known as the fever bird.
A small squirrel climbs on the window sill.
He’s been coming every day since I’ve been ill,
and I give him crumbs from my tray.
A boy on a mule passes by on the rough mountain track.
He sees my face at the window and waves to me.
I wave back to him.
When I’m better I’ll ask him to let me ride his mule.
Best of All Windows
THOSE WHO ADVERTISE rooms or flats to let often describe them as ‘room with bath’ or ‘room with tea and coffee-making facilities’. A more attractive proposition would be ‘room with window’, for without a view a room is hardly a living place— merely a place of transit.
As an itinerant young writer, I lived in many single-room apartments, or ‘bed-sitters’ as they were called, and I have to admit that the quality of my life was certainly enhanced if any window looked out on something a little more inspiring than a factory wall or someone’s backyard.
We cherish a romantic image of a starving young poet living in a garret and writing odes to skylarks, but, believe me, garrets don’t help. For six months in London I lived in a small attic room that had no view at all, except for the roofs of other houses—an endless vista of grey tiles and blackened chimneys, without so much as a proverbial cat to relieve the monotony. I did not write a single ode, for no self-respecting nightingale or lark ever found its way up there.
My next room, somewhere near Clapham Junction, had a ‘view of the railway’, but you couldn’t actually see the railway lines because of the rows of washing that were hung out to dry behind the building.
It was a working-class area, and there were no laundries around the corner. But if you couldn’t see the railway, you could certainly hear it. Every time a train thundered past, the building shuddered, and ornaments, crockery, and dishes rattled and rocked as though an earthquake were in progress. It was impossible to hang a picture on the wall; the nail (and with it the picture), fell out after a couple of days. But it reminded me a bit of my Uncle Fred’s railway quarters, just near Delhi’s main railway station, and I managed to write a couple of train stories while living in this particular room.
Train windows, naturally, have no equal when it comes to views, especially in India, where there’s an ever-changing panorama of mountain, forest, desert, village, town, and city— along with the colourful crowds at every railway station.
But good, personal windows—windows to live with—these were to prove elusive for several years. Even after returning to India, I had some difficulty finding the ideal window.
Moving briefly to a small town in northern India, I was directed to the Park View lodging house. There did happen to be a park in the vicinity, but no view of it could be had from my room or, indeed, from any room in the house. But I found, to my surprise, that the bathroom window actually looked out on the park. It provided a fine view! However, there is a limit to the length of time one can spend in the bath, gazing out at palm fronds waving in the distance. So I moved on again.
After a couple of claustrophobic years in New Delhi, I escaped to the hills, fully expecting that I would immediately find rooms or a cottage with windows facing the eternal snows. But it was not to be!
To see the snows I had to walk four miles from my lodgings to the highest point in the hill-station. My window looked out on a high stone rampart, built to prevent the steep hillside from collapsing. True, a number of wild things grew in the wall—bunches of red sorrel, dandelions, tough weeds of various kinds, and, at the base, a large clump of nettles. Now I am sure there are people who can grow ecstatic over nettles, but I am not one of them. I find that nettles sting me at the first opportunity. So I gave my nettles a wide berth.
And then, at last, persistence was rewarded. I found my present abode, a windswept, rather shaky old house on the edge of a spur. My bedroom window opened on to blue skies, mountains striding away into the far distance, winding rivers in the valley below, and, just to bring me down to earth, the local television tower. Like the Red Shadow in The Desert Song1 I could stand at my window and sing ‘Blue heaven, and you and I,’ even if the only listener was a startled policeman.
The window was so positioned that I could lie on my bed and look at the sky, or sit at my desk and look at the hills, or stand at the window and look at the road below.
Which is the best of these views?
Some would say the hills, but the hills never change. Some would say the road, because the road is full of change and movement—tinkers, tailors, tourists, salesmen, cars, trucks and motor-cycles, mules, ponies, and even, on one occasion, an elephant. The elephant had no business being up here, but I suppose if Hannibal could take them over the Alps, an attempt could also be made on the Himalayan passes. (It returned to the plains the next day.)
The road is never dull, but, given a choice, I’d opt for the sky. The sky is never the same. Even when it’s cloudless, the sky colours are different. The morning sky, the daytime sky, the evening sky, the moonlit sky, the starry sky, these are all different skies. And there are almost always birds in the sky— eagles flying high, mountain swifts doing acrobatics, cheeky mynah birds meeting under the eaves of the roof, sparrows flitting in and out of the room at will. Sometimes a butterfly floats in on the breeze. And on summer nights, great moths enter at the open window, dazzled by my reading light. I have to catch them and put them out again, lest they injure themselves.
When the monsoon rains arrive, the window has to be closed, otherwise cloud and mist fill the room, and that isn’t good for my books. But the sky is even more fascinating at this time of the year.
From my desk I can, at this very moment, see the clouds advancing across the valley, rolling over the hills, ascending the next range Raindrops patter against the window panes, closed until the rain stops.
And when the shower passes and the clouds open up, the heavens are a deeper, darker blue. Truly magic casements these . . . for every time I see the sky I am aware of belonging to the universe rather than to just one corner of the earth.
Rain in the Hills
In the hushed silence of the house
when I am quite alone, and my friend, who was here,
has gone, it is very lonely, very quiet,
as I sit in a liquid silence, a silence within,
surrounded by the rhythm of rain
the steady drift
of water on leaves, on lemons, on roof,
drumming on drenched dahlias and window panes,
while the mist holds the house in a dark caress.
As I pause near a window, the rain stops.
And starts again.
And the trees, no longer green but grey,
menace me with their lonelines
s.
A Knock at the Door
FOR SHERLOCK HOLMES, it usually meant an impatient client waiting below in the street. For Nero Wolfe, it was the doorbell that rang, disturbing the great man in his orchid rooms. For Poe or Walter de la Mare, that knocking on a moonlit door could signify a ghostly visitor—no one outside!—or, even more mysterious, no one in the house . . . .
Well, clients I have none, and ghostly visitants don’t have to knock; but as I spend most of the day at home, writing, I have learnt to live with the occasional knock at the front door. I find doorbells even more startling than ghosts, and ornate brass knockers have a tendency to disappear when the price of brassware goes up; so my callers have to use their knuckles or fists on the solid mahogany door. It’s a small price to pay for disturbing me.
I hear the knocking quite distinctly, as the small front room adjoins my even smaller study-cum-bedroom. But sometimes I keep up a pretence of not hearing anything straight away. Mahogany is good for the knuckles! Eventually, I place a pencil between my teeth and holding a sheet of blank foolscap in one hand, move slowly and thoughtfully toward the front door, so that, when I open it, my caller can see that I have been disturbed in the throes of composition. Not that I have ever succeeded in making any one feel guilty about it; they stay as long as they like. And after they have gone, I can get back to listening to my tapes of old Hollywood operettas.
Impervious to both literature and music, my first caller is usually a boy from the village, wanting to sell me his cucumbers or ‘France-beans’. For some reason he won’t call them French beans. He is not impressed by the accoutrements of my trade. He thrusts a cucumber into my arms and empties the beans on a coffee-table book which has been sent to me for review. (There is no coffee-table, but the book makes a good one.) He is confident that I cannot resist his ‘France-beans’, even though this sub-Himalayan variety is extremely hard and stringy. Actually, I am a sucker for cucumbers, but I take the beans so I can get the cucumber cheap. In this fashion, authors survive.
