Tales of the Open Road

by Ruskin Bond

  When the British consolidated their power in India, they found the Road, stretching as it did from Calcutta to Peshawar, a great line of communication. Kipling’s ‘regiment a-marchin’ down the GT Road’ was a common enough sight throughout the nineteenth century. During the 1857 uprising, after the British were ousted from Delhi, their army assembled at Ambala and came marching down the GT Road to lay siege to the city of Delhi. A few years later a junior officer, recalling the march, wrote:

  The stars were bright in the dark deep sky and the fireflies flashed from bush to bush … Along the road came the heavy roll of the guns, mixed with the jangling of bits and the clanking of the scabbards of the cavalry. The infantry marched behind with a deep, dull tread. Camels and bullock carts, with innumerable camp servants, toiled away for miles in the rear, while gigantic elephants, pulling the heavy guns, came lumbering down the road.

  Some thirty years after the 1857 uprising came the Afghan Wars, and the GT Road became an all-important route for the British army proceeding towards Peshawar and the Khyber Pass. Those were the days of military manoeuvres all over north India, and my grandfather, a foot-soldier in the mould of Kipling’s ‘soldiers three’, found himself ‘route marching’, that is, foot-slogging all over northern and central India. Wives and children followed the regiment wherever it was sent, and military camps and cantonments sprang up everywhere. Children were often born in the course of these marches and troop movements: my father at Shahjahanpur (not far from the Road), his brothers and sisters at places as far apart as Barrackpore, Campbellpur and Dera Ismail Khan!

  The tedium of the march was broken only by the sight of fields of golden corn stretching towards the horizon, with mango groves rising like islands from the flat plain; but for the most part it was monotonous tramping, exemplified in this marching song of Kipling’s:

  Oh, there’s them Indian temples to admire when you see,

  There’s the peacock round the corner

  An’ the monkey up the tree.

  With our best foot first

  And the Road a-sliding past,

  An’ every bloomin’ camping-ground

  Exactly like the last.

  Kipling immortalized the Road in Kim and Barrack-Room Ballads (he had a strong empathy with the common soldier), and but for him, few outside of India would have heard of the Grand Trunk Road. But Kipling would not recognize the Road today. Cars, buses, tractors, trucks, all thunder down the highway, and even the bullock carts are equipped with heavy tyres. It’s a very democratic mix. Nowhere else in the world are you likely to find such a variety of traffic, or so many impediments to vehicular progress—cows, cart-horses, buffaloes, cyclists, stray hens, stray villagers, stray policemen.

  ‘Proceed at Your Own Risk.’ You could call this the motto of the Road, a motto vividly illustrated by overturned lorries lying in ditches, buses upended against trees or dangling over culverts, fancy cars crushed into concertina shapes, squashed cats and dogs, mangled drivers and passengers. These are common sights, along with the endless panorama of field, factory, village or township.

  For the towns and cities grow bigger by the day. They spread octopus-like over the rural landscape, and the traffic spills out in an endless, honking procession of humankind on wheels. ‘OK Tata’, proclaims the truck in front of you, and it would be wise to keep your distance. What’s your choice of vehicle for making progress on the Road? Motorcycle, taxi, limousine, or buffalo cart? Mine’s a steamroller. No one pushes it around.

  I have never travelled the entire length of the Road, but I have driven along stretches of it. The most memorable one was with Gurbachan Singh.

  As his taxi weaved its way in and out of the Amritsar traffic, and headed for Delhi, Gurbachan Singh took his hand off the horn and gave me a brief triumphant look.

  ‘What do you think of my horn?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, it’s a fine horn,’ I said, wringing out my ears. ‘It couldn’t be louder.’

  ‘You can hear it half a mile ahead,’ said Gurbachan proudly, as he blasted off at two young men who were sharing a bicycle. They moved out of the way with alacrity.

  ‘It makes a lot of noise in the car, too,’ I said, and added hastily, ‘not that I object, you know …’

  ‘Doesn’t your horn have more than one tone of voice?’ asked a fellow traveller with a trace of irritation.

  ‘Two!’ claimed Gurbachan. ‘Male and female. Just see!’ And he produced a high note and then a low note on the horn, both equally ear-shattering. Ahead of us, a tonga ran off the road and on to the cart track.

  ‘This is one terrific horn,’ said Gurbachan. ‘I have had it made especially for this taxi. No foreign horns for me. They are not loud enough. Indian horns are best.’

  ‘Indian noise is best,’ said the fellow traveller.

  In an interval of comparative quiet, I found myself reflecting on the nature of sound—the unpleasantness of some sounds, and the sweetness of others, and why certain sounds (like motor horns) can be sweet to some and hideous to others. The sweetest sound of all, I decided, was silence. There are many kinds of silence—the silence of an empty room, the silence of the mountains, the silence of prayer, or the enforced silence of loneliness—but the best kind of silence, I concluded, was the silence that comes after the cessation of noise.

  ‘It was made in the Jama Masjid area,’ continued Gurbachan, interrupting my thoughts. ‘Seventy-five rupees only. Made by hand, to my own specification. There’s only one drawback: it must not get wet!’

  As his hand settled down on the horn again, I thought of praying for rain, but the sky being clear and blue, I decided that a prayer would be an unreasonable demand on the Creator.

  ‘Ah, but you don’t know what it is to have a horn like this one. Try it, sir. Why don’t you try it for yourself?’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right,’ I assured him. ‘You have proved its excellence already.’

  ‘No, you must try it. I insist that you try it!’ He was like a big boy, suddenly generous, determined on sharing a new toy with a younger brother.

  He grabbed my hand and placed it on the horn, and, as I felt it give a little, a thrill of pleasure rushed up my arm. I pressed hard, and a stream of music flowed in and out of the car. Now I could understand the happiness and the supreme self-confidence of Gurbachan and all drivers like him; for, with a horn like his, one felt the power and glory that belongs to the kings of the Road.

  For the rest of the journey Gurbachan drove and I blew the horn.

  The fellow passenger, no doubt realizing that he was locked into a taxi with two lunatics, was too terrified to say a word.

  Running Away

  Once, during my schooldays, my friend Daljit and I decided to run away. The main reason for running away was not to get back to the bazaars of Dehra, which we both missed, but to reach my uncle’s ship in Jamnagar, Gujarat.

  Uncle Jim was one of my father’s cousins. He used to write to me off and on throughout the years. His letters came in envelopes that bore colourful stamps of different countries. They came from Valparaiso, San Diego, San Francisco, Buenos Aires, Dar-es-Salaam, Mombasa, Freetown, Singapore, Bombay, Marseilles, London … these were some of the places where Uncle Jim’s ship called. He was seldom on the same route, and seemed to move leisurely across the oceans of the earth, calling at ports which had only the most romantic associations for me, for I had already read Stevenson, Captain Marryat, some Conrad and W.W. Jacobs.

  In his letters, Uncle Jim often spoke of my joining him at sea—‘When you are a little older, Ruskin.’

  But I felt I was old enough then. I was sick of school and sick of my guardian. But that was not all. I was in love with the world. I wanted to see the world, every corner of it, the places I had read about in books—the junks and sampans of Hong Kong, the palm-fringed lagoons of the Indies, the streets of London, the beautiful ebony-skinned people of Africa, the bright birds and exotic plants of the Amazon …

  When Uncle Jim’s last letter
had arrived, telling me that his ship would call at Jamnagar towards the end of the month, I felt a deep thrill of anticipation. Here was my chance at last! True, Uncle Jim had said nothing about my joining him, but he was not to know that I was seriously considering it.

  It was not simply a question of walking out of school and taking a quick ride down to the docks. Jamnagar, on the west coast, was at least eight hundred miles from my school. I doubt if I would have made the attempt if Daljit had not agreed to come too. It isn’t much fun running away on your own. It is even worse if you have a companion who is full of enthusiasm at the beginning and who backs out at the last moment. This leaves one feeling defeated and crushed. Daljit was not that kind of companion. He meant the things he said. About a month earlier, when I had told him of my uncle’s ship and my wish to get to it, he had said, without a moment’s hesitation: ‘I’m coming too!’ Daljit lived impulsively. Sometimes he made mistakes. But he never went halfway and stopped. Someone had to stop him; otherwise he did whatever it was he set out to do.

  Running away from school! It is not to be recommended to everyone. Parents and teachers would disapprove. Or would they, deep down in their hearts? Everyone has wanted to run away, at some time in his life: if not from a bad school or an unhappy home, then from something equally unpleasant. Running away seems to be in the best of traditions. Huck Finn did it. So did Master Copperfield and Oliver Twist. So did Kim. Various enterprising young men have run away to sea. Most great men have run away from school at some stage in their lives; and if they haven’t, then perhaps it is something they should have done.

  Anyway, Daljit and I ran away from school, and we did it quite successfully too, up to a point. But then, all this happened in India, which, though it forms only two per cent of the world’s land mass, has 15 per cent of its population, and so it is an easy place to hide in, or be lost in, or disappear in, and never be seen or heard of again!

  Not that we intended to disappear. We were headed for a particular place, and as soon as I took my first step into the unknown, that first step on the slippery pine needles below the school, I knew quite definitely that I wasn’t running away from anything, but that I was running towards something. Call it a dream, if you like. I was running towards a dream.

  A narrow path ran downhill from the school to the road to Dehra, and we followed it until it levelled out, running parallel with the small stream that rumbled down the mountainside. We followed the stream for a mile, walking swiftly and silently, until we met the bridle-path which was little more than a mule-track going steeply down the last hills to the valley.

  The going was easy. We knew the road well. And by the time we reached the last foothills it was beginning to rain, not heavily, but as a light, thin drizzle.

  We took shelter in a small dhaba on the outskirts of a village. The dhabawallah was sleeping, and his dog, a mangy pariah with only one ear, sniffed at us in a friendly way instead of chasing us off the premises. We sat down on an old bench and watched the sun rising over the distant mountains.

  This is something I have always remembered. Not because it was a more beautiful sunrise than on any other day, but because the special importance of that morning made me look at everything in a new way, hence the details still stand out in my memory.

  As the sky grew lighter, the pines and deodars stood out clearly, and the birds came to life. A black-bird started it all with a low, mellow call, and then the thrushes began chattering in the bushes. A barbet shrieked monotonously at the top of a spruce tree, and, as the sky grew lighter still, a flock of bright green parrots flew low over the trees.

  The drizzle continued and there was a bright crimson glow in the east. And then, quite suddenly, the sun shot through a gap in the clouds, and the lush green monsoon grass sprang into relief. Both Daljit and I were wonderstruck. Never before had we been up so early. Hundreds of spiderwebs, which were spun in trees and bushes and on the grass, where they would not normally have been noticed, were now clearly visible, spangled with gold and silver raindrops. The strong silk threads of the webs held the light rain and the sun, making each drop of water look like a tiny jewel.

  A great wild dahlia, its scarlet flowers drenched and heavy, sprawled over the hillside and an emerald-green grasshopper reclined on a petal, stretching its legs in the sunshine.

  The dhabawallah was now up. His dog, emboldened by his master’s presence, began to bark at us. The man lit a charcoal fire in a choolah, and put on it a kettle of water to boil.

  ‘Would you like to eat something?’ he asked conversationally in Hindi.

  ‘No, just tea for us,’ I said.

  He placed two brass tumblers on a table.

  ‘The milk hasn’t yet been delivered,’ he said. ‘You’re very early.’

  ‘We’ll take the tea without milk,’ said Daljit. ‘But give us lots of sugar.’

  ‘Sugar is costly these days. But because you are schoolboys, and need more, you can help yourselves.’

  ‘Oh, we are not schoolboys,’ I said hurriedly.

  ‘Not at all,’ added Daljit.

  ‘We are just tourists,’ I lied unconvincingly.

  ‘We have to catch the early train at Dehra,’ offered Daljit.

  ‘But there’s no train before ten o’clock,’ said the puzzled dhabawallah.

  ‘It is the ten o’clock train we are catching!’ said Daljit smartly. ‘Do you think we will be down in time?’

  ‘Oh yes, there’s plenty of time …’

  The dhabawallah poured out steaming hot tea into the tumblers and placed the sugar bowl in front of us. ‘At first I thought you were schoolboys,’ he said with a laugh. ‘I thought you were running away.’

  Daljit almost gave us away by laughing nervously.

  ‘What made you think that?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, I’ve been here many years,’ the dhabawallah replied, gesturing towards the small clearing in which his little wooden stall stood, almost like a trading outpost in a wild country. ‘Schoolboys always pass this way when they’re running away!’

  ‘Do many run away?’ I asked. I felt a little downcast at the thought that Daljit and I were not the first to embark on such an adventure.

  ‘Not many. Just two or three every year. They get as far as the railway station in Dehra and there they’re caught!’

  ‘It is silly of them to get caught,’ said Daljit disgustedly.

  ‘Are they always caught?’ I asked.

  ‘Always! I give them a glass of tea on their way down, and I give them a glass of tea on their way up, when they are returning with their teachers.’

  ‘Well, you won’t be seeing us again,’ said Daljit, ignoring the warning look that I gave him.

  ‘Ah, but you aren’t schoolboys!’ said the shopkeeper, beaming at us. ‘And you aren’t running away!’

  We paid for our tea and hurried on down the path. The parrots flew over again, screeching loudly, and settled in a lichee tree. The sun was warmer now, and, as the altitude decreased, the temperature and humidity rose and we could almost smell the heat of the plains rising to meet us.

  The hills levelled out into the rolling countryside, patterned with fields. Rice had been planted out, and the sugarcane was waist-high.

  The path had become quite slushy. Removing our shoes and wrapping them in newspaper, we walked barefoot in the soft mud. All these little out-of-routine acts simply added to our excitement and thrill, making everything quite unforgettable for life.

  ‘It’s about three miles into Dehra,’ I said. ‘We must go round the town. By now, everyone in school will be up and they’ll have found out we’ve gone!’

  ‘We must avoid the Dehra station then,’ said Daljit.

  ‘We’ll walk to the next station, Raiwala. Then we’ll hop onto the first train that comes along.’

  ‘How far must we walk?’

  ‘About ten miles.’

  ‘Ten miles!’ Daljit looked dismayed. ‘It’ll take us all day!’

  ‘Well, we can’t
stop here nor can we wander about in Dehra, neither can we enter the station. We have to keep on walking.’

  ‘All right. We’ll keep on walking. I suppose the beginning of an adventure is always the most difficult part.’

  Soon, the fields were giving way to jungle. But there were still some fields of sugarcane stretching away from the railway lines.

  ‘How much further do we have to walk?’ asked Daljit impatiently. ‘Is Raiwala in the middle of the jungle?’

  ‘Yes, I think it is. We’ve covered about four miles I suppose. Six to go! It’s funny how some miles seem longer than others. It depends on what one is thinking about, I suppose. If our thoughts are pleasant, the miles are not so long.’

  ‘Then let’s keep thinking pleasant thoughts. Isn’t there a short cut anywhere? You’ve been in these forests before.’

  ‘We’ll take the fire-path through the jungle. It’ll save us three or four miles. But we’ll have to swim or wade across a small river. The rains have only just started, so the water shouldn’t be too swift or deep.’

  Heavy forests have paths cut through them at various places to prevent forest fires from spreading easily. These paths are not used much by people since they don’t lead anywhere in particular, but they are frequently used by the larger animals.

  We had gone about a mile along the path when we heard the sound of rushing water. The path emerged from the forest of sal trees and stopped on the banks of the small river I had mentioned earlier. The main bridge across the river stood on the main road, about three miles downstream.

  ‘It isn’t more than waist-deep anywhere,’ I said. ‘But the water is swift and the stones are slippery.’

  We removed our clothes and tied everything into two bundles which we carried on our heads. Daljit was a well-built boy, strong in the arms and thighs. I was slimmer. But I had quick reflexes.