Tales of the Open Road

by Ruskin Bond

  The stones were quite slippery underfoot, and we stumbled, hindering rather than helping each other. We stopped in midstream, waist-deep, hesitating about going any further for fear of being swept off our feet.

  ‘I can hardly stand,’ said Daljit.

  ‘It shouldn’t get worse,’ I said hopefully. But the current was strong, and I felt very wobbly at the knees.

  Daljit tried to move forward, but slipped and went over backwards into the water, bringing me down too. He began kicking and thrashing about in fear, but eventually, using me as a support, he came up spouting water like a whale.

  When we found we were not being swept away, we stopped struggling and cautiously made our way to the opposite bank, but we had been thrust about twenty yards downstream.

  We rested on warm sand, while a hot sun beat down on us. Daljit sucked at a cut in his hand. But we were soon up and walking again, hungry now, and munching biscuits.

  ‘We haven’t far to go,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t want to think about it,’ said Daljit.

  We shuffled along the forest path, tired but not discouraged.

  Soon we were on the main road again, and there were fields and villages on either side. A cool breeze came across the open plain, blowing down from the hills. In the fields there was a gentle swaying movement as the wind stirred the sugarcane. Then the breeze came down the road, and dust began to swirl and eddy around us. Out of the dust, behind us, came the rumble of cart wheels.

  ‘Ho! Heeyah! Heeyah!’ shouted the driver of the cart. The bullocks snorted and came lumbering through the dust. We moved to the side of the road.

  ‘Are you going to Raiwala?’ called Daljit. ‘Can you take us with you?’

  ‘Climb up!’ said the man, and we ran through the dust and clambered on to the back of the moving cart.

  The cart lurched forward and rattled and bumped so much that we had to cling to its sides to avoid falling off. It smelt of grass and mint and cow-dung cakes. The driver had a red cloth tied round his head, and wore a tight vest and a dhoti. He was smoking a beedi and yelling at his bullocks, and he seemed to have forgotten our presence. We were too busy clinging to the sides of the cart to bother about making conversation. Before long we were involved in the traffic of Raiwala—a small but busy market town. We jumped off the bullock cart and walked beside it.

  ‘Should we offer him any money?’ I asked.

  ‘No. He will be offended. He is not a taxi driver.’

  ‘All right, we’ll just say thank you.’

  We called out our thanks to the cart driver, but he didn’t look back. He appeared to be talking to his bullocks.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ declared Daljit. ‘We haven’t had a proper meal since last night.’

  ‘Then let’s eat,’ I said. ‘Come on, Daljit.’

  We walked through the small Raiwala bazaar, looking in at the tea and sweet shops until we found the cheapest-looking dhaba. A servant-boy brought us rice and dal and Daljit ordered an ounce of ghee which he poured over the curry. The meal cost us two rupees but we could have as much dal as we wanted, and between us we finished four bowls of it.

  ‘We’ll rest at the station,’ I said, as we emerged from the dhaba. ‘We’ll buy second-class tickets, and rest in the first-class waiting room. No one will check on us. We look first class, don’t we?’

  ‘Not after that walk through the jungle,’ replied Daljit.

  But we did occupy the best waiting room and Daljit made himself comfortable in an armchair. A train eventually came chugging in, and we were soon on our way to Delhi.

  It didn’t take us long to find a hotel once we got off at the Old Delhi Railway Station. It was called the Great Oriental Hotel, and was just behind the police station in Chandni Chowk. It didn’t pretend to be even a third-class hotel, and for five rupees we were given a small back room which had a window overlooking the godown of an Afghan spice merchant. The powerful smell of asafoetida came up from the courtyard below.

  We were tired and hot, so we tossed our belongings down on the floor and took turns at the bathroom tap. Then we stretched out on the only cot in the room and slept through the afternoon, oblivious to the noises from the street, the attentions of the insect population in the hotel mattress, and the creaking of the old fan overhead.

  It was late evening when we woke up, and we were hungry again. Daljit opened the door and shouted. Presently a servant-boy appeared.

  ‘Bring us tea, toast, two big omelettes, and a bottle of tomato sauce,’ ordered Daljit with a confidence that I wished I had.

  The omelettes, when they arrived twenty minutes later, were tiny. Both had obviously been made from one egg. The sauce had been diluted with water, and the toasts were burnt. The salt was damp, and we had to prise open the salt-cellar to get to it. The pepper, however, came out in a generous rush and made up the major portion of the meal. As our hunger had not been satisfied by this poor fare, we ordered eggs again, boiled eggs this time. No matter how tiny, they would have to be whole.

  ‘Let’s go out,’ said Daljit after we had eaten the eggs. ‘It’s stuffy in here.’

  ‘I’m still sleepy,’ I said.

  ‘Then I’ll go out for a little while. I may go to the gurdwara.’

  ‘All right, but don’t get lost.’

  Drowsy, I closed my eyes, but the sounds of the city’s unceasing traffic came through the window. Ships and distant ports seemed very far away but so did hills and mountain streams.

  I fell asleep and woke up only when Daljit returned.

  ‘I’ve solved our problem!’ he said, beaming. ‘We won’t bother with the train. I met a truck driver, and he has offered to take us as far as Jaipur. That’s more than a hundred miles. It will be quite safe to take a train from Jaipur.’

  ‘When can your friend take us?’

  ‘The truck leaves at four o’clock in the morning.’

  ‘There’s no rest for the wicked,’ I said. ‘Still, the less time we lose the better. It’s Wednesday, and my uncle’s ship might sail on Saturday. What will we have to pay?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s a free ride. The driver is a Sikh, and I persuaded him that we are related to each other through the marriage of my brother-in-law to his sister-in-law’s niece!’

  At four the next morning we made our way towards the Red Fort, its ramparts dark against the starry sky. The streets which had been teeming with so much life the previous evening were now deserted. The street lamps shed lonely pools of light on the pavements. The occasional car glided silently past, but it belonged to another kind of world altogether.

  Near the Fort we found a couple of dhabas which were still open. They did business with the truck drivers who slept by day and drove by night.

  Our driver, a tall, bearded Sikh, loomed over us out of the darkness. He had a companion with him, also a Sikh, who was still in his underwear.

  ‘You can get in at the back,’ said the driver in his thick Punjabi which I could follow sufficiently well. ‘We’ll be off in a few minutes.’

  The truck was parked beneath a peepul tree. We pulled ourselves up into the back of the open truck, only to find our way barred by what seemed at first to be a prehistoric monster.

  The monster snorted once, stamped heavily on the boards, and sent us tumbling backwards.

  ‘Bhaiyyaji!’ cried Daljit to the driver. ‘There’s some kind of animal in here!’

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s only Mumta,’ said our friend.

  ‘But what is it doing in here?’

  ‘She is going with us. I am taking her to the market in Jaipur. So get in with her boys, and make yourselves comfortable.’

  There was now enough light to enable us to take a closer look at our travelling companion. She was a full-grown buffalo from the Punjab.

  ‘An excellent buffalo,’ said Daljit, who appeared to be familiar with the finer points of these animals. ‘Notice her blue eyes!’

  ‘I didn’t know buffaloes had blue eyes,’ I said dryly.


  ‘Only the best buffaloes have them,’ said Daljit. ‘Blue-eyed buffaloes give more milk than brown-eyed ones.’

  Fortunately for us, the Sardarji started the truck and an early morning breeze, blowing across the river, swept away some of the stench so typical of buffaloes.

  We were soon out of Delhi and bowling along at a fair speed on the road to Jaipur. The recent rain had waterlogged low-lying areas, and the herons, cranes and snipe were numerous. Fields and trees were alive with strange, beautiful birds: the long-tailed king crow, blue jays and weaver birds, and occasionally the great white-headed kite, which is said to be Garuda, Lord Vishnu’s famous steed.

  As we travelled further into Rajasthan, the peacocks became more numerous; so did the camels loping along the side of the road in straight, orderly lines. And, as the vegetation grew less and the desert took over, the people themselves grew more colourful, as though to make up for the absence of colour in the landscape. The women wore wide red skirts, and gold and silver ornaments. They were handsome, tall, fair and strong. The men were tall too and the older among them had flowing white beards.

  As the day grew older, and the sun rose higher in the sky, the traffic on the road increased; but our truck driver, instead of slowing down, drove faster. Perhaps he was in a hurry to dispose of the buffalo. Soon he was trying to overtake another truck.

  The truck in front was moving fast too, and its driver had no intention of giving up the middle of the road. It was piled high with stacks of sugarcane.

  ‘It’s going to be a race!’ cried Daljit excitedly, standing up against the buffalo, in order to get a better view.

  The road was not wide enough to take two large vehicles at once, and as the other truck wouldn’t make way, ours had to fall in behind it, almost suffocating us with the exhaust fumes. We were thrown to the floorboards as the truck lurched over the ruts in the rough road, and Mumta, getting nervous, almost trampled upon us. Then there was a tremendous bump, a grinding of brakes, and we came to a stop.

  As the dust cleared, we made out our driver’s bearded face gazing anxiously down at us.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked gruffly.

  ‘I think so,’ I said.

  ‘Did you overtake the other truck?’ asked Daljit.

  ‘No,’ grunted our friend. ‘He would not give way. You had better come in front.’

  We agreed without any hesitation and his assistant rather grudgingly joined the buffalo.

  After a few miles, the driver became friendly and told us that his name was Gurnam Singh.

  It was getting dark by the time we reached Jaipur, so we were not able to see much of the city. We spent the night in the truck, sleeping in the back with Gurnam Singh. Mumta had been disposed of on the way. Jaipur nights can be chilly, even in summer, so Gurnam Singh considerately shared his bedding with us. Because he was accustomed to sleeping in the body of the truck, he was soon asleep, snoring loudly and rhythmically. Daljit and I tossed and turned restlessly. He kicked me several times in the night. The floor of the truck was hard, and retained various buffalo smells.

  We had hardly fallen asleep (or so it seemed), when Gurnam Singh woke us up, saying that it was almost four o’clock and that he had to start on his return journey, this time with a load of red sandstone.

  ‘What a life!’ exclaimed Daljit, sleepily rubbing his eyes with one hand. ‘I’d hate to be a truck driver.’

  ‘One has to live somehow,’ philosophized Gurnam Singh. ‘I like driving. I knew how to drive when I was merely six or seven. The money is not so bad, either. Now, when I get back to Delhi, I will have two days off, which I will spend with my wife and children. Goodbye friends, and if you pass through Delhi again, you will find me near the walls of the Red Fort.’

  We waved to him as he shot off in his truck, throwing up huge clouds of dust, making a great noise and probably waking the local inhabitants. Dogs barked, and a cock began to crow.

  We were on the outskirts of the city, facing a large lake. On the other side was open country, bare hills and desert. We could also make out the ruins of a building—probably a palace or a hunting lodge—among some thorn bushes and babul trees.

  ‘Let’s go out there,’ suggested Daljit. ‘We can bathe in the lake and rest. Then later in the morning we can come into the city and find out about trains.’

  We set out along the shores of the lake, and it was a good half-hour before we reached the opposite bank.

  There was no one in the fields, but a camel was going round and round a well, drawing up water in small trays. Smoke rose from houses in a nearby village, and the notes of a flute floated over to us on the still morning air.

  It took us about twenty minutes to reach the ruin, which seemed like an old hunting lodge put up by some Rajput prince when game must have been plentiful.

  The gate of the lodge was blocked with rubble, but part of the wall had crumbled apart and we climbed through the gap and found ourselves in a stone-paved courtyard in the centre of which stood a dry, disused stone fountain. A small peepul tree was growing from the crack in the floor of the fountain. Finding nothing to do there, we made our way to the railway tracks again.

  Daljit and I snuck on to a goods train. It was a hard night’s journey. The train was agonizingly slow and stopped at many places. At one small station, a number of sacks filled with what must have been cattle-fodder were tossed into the wagon, almost burying us in our fitful sleep. But we found they were comfortable to rest on and lay stretched out on top of them until the first light of morning.

  As the sky cleared, we knew we were not far from our journey’s end. The landscape had undergone a complete change. We had left the desert for the coastal plain.

  The tall waving palms parted, and then I spotted the sea.

  It was the sea as I had always dreamt of it ever since my days in Kathiawar with my father. It was vast, lonely and blue, blue as the sky was blue, and the first ship I saw was a sailing-ship, an Arab dhow, listing slightly in the mild breeze that blew onto the shore.

  The train stopped at a small bridge spanning a stream which wound its way across the plain down to the sea. We got down there and trudged the rest of the way to our destination.

  Two hours later we were at Jamnagar.

  We stopped near a small tea shop and watched other people eating laddoos and bhelpuri. We couldn’t even afford a coconut.

  ‘Where is the harbour?’ I asked the shopkeeper.

  ‘Two miles from here,’ he replied.

  ‘Are there any ships in the port?’ I asked, relieved yet anxious.

  ‘What do you want with a ship?’

  ‘What does anyone want with a ship?’

  ‘Well there’s only one and it sails today, so you had better hurry if you want to go away on it.’

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Daljit.

  ‘Wait!’ said a young man who was lounging against the counter. ‘It will take you almost an hour to get there if you walk. I will take you in my cart.’ He pointed to a shabby pony cart close by. The pony did not look as though it wanted to go anywhere.

  ‘My pony is fast!’ said the young man, following our glances. ‘Never go by appearances. She may look tired but she runs like a champion! Get in friends, I will charge you only one rupee.’

  ‘We don’t have any money,’ I said. ‘We’ll walk.’

  ‘Fifty paisa, then,’ he said. ‘Fifty paisa and a glass of tea. Jump in my friends!’

  ‘All right,’ agreed Daljit. ‘There’s no time to lose. Fifty paisa and buy your own tea.’

  We climbed into the cart, and the youth jumped up in front and cracked his whip. The pony lurched forward, the wheels rattled and shook, and we set off down the bazaar road at a tremendous trot.

  ‘I didn’t know you had fifty paisa left,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t,’ Daljit replied. ‘But we’ll worry about that later. Your uncle can pay!’

  As soon as we were out of the town and on the open road to the sea, the pony went faster. She coul
dn’t help doing so, as the road was downhill. The wind blew my hair across my eyes, and the salty tang of the sea was in the air.

  Daljit shook me in his excitement.

  ‘We will soon be at the harbour,’ he yelled joyfully. ‘And then away at last!’

  The driver called out endearments to his pony, and, exhilarated by the sea breeze and the comparative speed of his carriage, he burst into song. As we turned a bend in the road, the sea-front came into view. There were several small dhows close to the shore, and fishing-boats were beached on the sand. The fishermen were drying their nets while their children ran naked in the surf. A steamer stood out on the sea and though I could not make out its name from that distance, I was sure it was the Iris.

  The cart stopped at the beginning of the pier, and we tumbled out and began running along the pier. But even as we ran, it became clear to me that the ship was moving away from us, moving out to the sea. Its propeller sent small waves rippling back to the pier.

  ‘Captain!’ I shouted. ‘Uncle Jim! Wait for us!’

  A lascar standing in the stern waved to us; but that was all. I stood at the end of the pier, waving my hands and shouting into the wind.

  ‘Captain! Uncle Jim! Wait for us!’

  Nobody answered. The seagulls, wheeling in the wake of the steamer, seemed to take up the cry—‘Captain, Captain …’

  The ship drew further away, gaining speed. And still I called to it in a hoarse, pleading voice. Yokohama, San Diego, Valparaiso, London, all slipped away for ever …

  The Vanishing Tonga

  The tonga, the one-horse-drawn quick-moving and light vehicle, though still seen plying on roads in various parts of the country as a medium of transport, is losing fast its ground against scooters, motorcycles, cars and buses. The day is not far off when the tonga, once the undisputed ‘king of vehicles’, will disappear altogether from Indian roads.

  I remember that when I was very young, I travelled all of thirty miles from Dehra Dun to Hardwar in a tonga. There were cars in those days—this was in the late 1940s—but a tonga was considered just as good, almost as fast, and certainly more dependable when it came to getting across the Song river in the dry season.