Love Stories

by Ruskin Bond

  "They must have gone to play video games." She sat down without any hesitation. "It will be nice to talk to you. It's so boring staying in these big hotels."

  I called the waiter over and she ordered an orange drink. I raised my glass and looked at her through the translucent liquid. She had worn well with the years—much better than I had! Although youth had flown, vestiges of youthfulness remained in her dimpled smile, full lips and lively glance. Her once slim hand was now a chubby hand; but all the same, it would be nice to touch it, and I did so, allowing my fingers to rest lightly against her palm. She drew her hand away, but not too quickly.

  "So, now you're a mother of two," I remarked, by way of making conversation.

  "Three," she said. "My eldest boy is at boarding. He's fifteen.

  You never married?"

  "Not after you turned me down."

  "I did not turn you down. It was my parents' wish."

  "I know. It wasn't your fault—and it wasn't theirs. I had no money, and no prospects. It wouldn't have been fair to you. And I would have had to give up my writing and take some miserable job."

  "Would you have done that for me?"

  "Of course, I loved you."

  "But now you are successful. Had you married me, you would not be so well-known."

  "Who knows? I might have done better. Your husband must be very successful to be staying here."

  "Ah, but he's in business. In Bombay, a stockbroker. I know nothing about it. I'm just a housewife."

  "Well, three children must keep you pretty busy."

  We were silent for some time. Traffic hummed along nearby Janpath, but it was quiet in the garden. You could even hear the cooing of doves from the verandah roof. A hoopoe hopped across the grass, looking for insects.

  Twenty years ago we had held hands and walked barefoot across the grass on the little hillock overlooking the stream that tumbled down to Mossy Falls. I still have photographs taken that day. Her cousin had gone paddling downstream, looking for coloured pebbles, and I had taken advantage of his absence by kissing her, first on the cheeks, and then, quite suddenly, on the lips.

  Now she seemed to be recalling the same incident because she said, "You were very romantic, Rusty."

  "I'm still romantic. But the modern world has no time for romance. It's all done on computers now. Make love by e-mail. It's much safer."

  "And you preferred the moonlight."

  "Ah, those full moon nights, do you remember them? The moon coming up over the top of Landour, and then pouring through the windows of Maplewood.... And you put your head against my shoulder and I held you there until a cloud came across the moon. And then you let me kiss you everywhere."

  "I don't remember that."

  "Of course you do."

  "What happened to your bicycle? The one you used to sing about."

  "The bicycle went the way of all machines. There were others. But the song still lingers on. My grandfather used to sing it to my grandmother, before they were married. There it is—" And I sang it again, sofly, with the old waiter listening intently in the background:

  'Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do!

  I'm half crazy all for the love of you!

  It won't be a stylish marriage,

  As I can't afford a carriage,

  But you'll look sweet upon the seat

  Of a bicycle built for two.'

  Sushila laughed and clapped her hands. The waiter smiled and nodded his approval.

  "And your grandparents—were they happy with a bicycle?" "Very happy. That's all they had for years. But I see you have a new BMW. Very nice."

  The children were waving to her from a parked car. "We have to go shopping," she said. "But not until the match is over."

  "Well, it's only lunch time. The game will finish at five."

  Something buzzed in her handbag, and she opened it and took out a mobile. Yes, my dear old Sushila, simple sweetheart of my youth, was now equipped with the latest technology. She listened carefully to what someone was saying, then switched off with a look of resignation.

  "No shopping?" I asked.

  "No shopping. He bet on Tendulkar making a duck."

  "And what did he score?"

  "A hundred. My husband lost a lakh. It's nothing. Would you like to have lunch with us? It's so boring here."

  "No," I said." I have to go."

  "Back to your lonely cottage in the hills?"

  "Yes, eventually. I come here sometimes, when I'm in Delhi. I like the flower garden. But I'm staying with friends." As I got up to go, she gave me her hand.

  "Will you come again?"

  "I can't say. But it was great meeting you, Sushila. You look lovelier than ever. Even when you're bored."

  I gave the waiter a generous tip, and he followed me out to the parking lot and very respectfully dusted off the seat of my bicycle. I wobbled down the road to Janpath, humming the tune of that well-remembered song.

  The Patang - Wallah

  BY JAISHANKAR KALA

  He had not forgotten his lost child-wife. And he knew she was still waiting for him, not far away... Tender and touching, this lyrical tale was written specially for this book. The author teaches European Literature and Philosophy at Oxford.

  he patang-wallah was knotty and twisted like the huge tree by the side of his shop. After making a really good patang, he would fly it personally, to test its balance and reliability.

  But as it soared up it was as if his own atmah was ascending to get a foretaste of heavenly things.

  "To fly these patangs from the mountain top, at your age, with the terrible winds that could sweep you off, and dash you against the rocks! You really have to be more careful, Bhola Ramji."

  Ramesh Chandra looked across the narrow road at someone trying the tiny post office door. He shouted, "Shut for lunch. Come at two." He was a middle-aged man, with curiously intense, distracted eyes, and an air of low distinction, as if his always selling stamps had marked him with respectability. He sat down on the raised cement platform built around the ancient banyan tree and said to the patang-wallah, "I've been meaning to ask you this for some time. How old are you?"

  But Bhola Ram, the patang-wallah, in his old achkan and narrow churidar pajamas, his hand to his white stubble, had flung his shrivelled head right back, adjusting his glasses with his other hand. He squirmed his head this way and that, as if to catch a glimpse of something right up in the tree half hidden by the swaying branches. "What is it? What is it?" A knocking sound in the branches above seemed to answer him; it was made by the bamboo framework of a kite caught by its own string. The patang-wallah gave a wave, picked up the gaudy patang he was making and went into his tiny cottage.

  A few minutes later, he came out with two glasses of tea in his shrivelled hands.

  "You asked about my age?" He interrupted himself to welcome a new arrival. "Namashkar. Come sit down Hanuman Prasad ji. Here is a stool."

  And then returned to his answer: "Do you see this tree Ramesh Chandraji? Well, ages are allegorical things, to do with growth, time's flight, death and life both in contest. Bhagwan's Leela being played out. And so such queries..."

  "No tea, Bhola Ramji?" The newcomer asked in jerky, humorous dismay. He was the local dawai-wallah, 'chemist' some people called him.

  "One minute. As I was saying, queries about one's age should be made in the context of the natural forces round us. So let me say that when I was born, in this very house, this magnificent tree was not a couple of years old."

  "Which means you must be over eighty. Because I do happen to have an estimate of the tree's age." Again Ramesh Chandra shouted across that the post office was closed for lunch. "Flying kites at your age, each gust of wind picking you up to hurl you over the precipice. You are an amazing person."

  The patang-wallah handed the chemist his tea. "There you are, Hanuman Prasadji." Sitting down cross-legged on a small chattai, he addressed himself to Ramesh Chandra:

  "Shall I tell you why I fly pat
angs? It's to practise going up to where Bhagwan is, and shantih." He gave an odd smile. "It ascends, your patang, and you watch, and it's right up, just a dot, no more, Like your atmah will soon go up. And you'll be flying it up. Like the patang. You're the navigator. Each time, it's my atmah I'm flying, to meet my Creator."

  Ramesh Chandra smiled and nodded; and Hanuman Prasad consulted his watch, saying, "You're a dreamer, and a poet. Before I forget, here are some pills for your heart flutter. Two a day. After meals."

  At two both the chemist and post master prepared to leave.

  "One more question, Bhola Ramji. Who is it you speak to? Is there a ghost perched on top of the tree?"

  Ramesh Chandra's question brought a change in the old man. He murmured inaudibly, "No ... no ...," broke into a thin smile, "Yes ... it's... nothing..." and started to cough. "Well, may Bhagwan protect you both."

  That night the wind rose.

  From far above the banyan tree, came knocking and whimpering. Under the tree the wind-blown patang-wallah's mutter could just be heard: "Coming, coming. Not long now."

  Bhola Ram did not sleep that night.

  He was anxious he might not finish the patangs ordered in time. He felt his life nearing its end, he couldn't say why. It was not so much his age, or his heart complaint. Someone was calling him. Could he blame her? Had she not waited long enough?

  "Coming, Kanta, coming," he mumbled, applying glue on stretches of green and crimson paper. This particular patang had been constructed very intricately. It was ordered by the District Magistrate of Shrinagar as a present for his only child's birthday in a couple of days' time. By dawn he had applied the finishing touches. He placed it against the wall beside two others. They were all big, unusually festive-looking with a competitive air about them; as if eager to be judged the best of all.

  He brewed himself pahari tea in a saucepan. Then pouring the hot tea in the metal tumbler, he sank slowly into the sagging charpai.

  His room was on the first floor. Its door was a bit open. Through it he had a view of the house opposite, where the local halwai lived. A little girl, black hair flying, rushed along the outside balcony She reminded him of Kanta, his beloved wife, dead now for almost sixty years. Each morning they had gone to school together, meeting with other kids on the way

  It was at the Ras Lila that they had fallen in love. She was then just thirteen, a couple of years his junior.

  The Ras Lila, commemorating the life of Shri Krishna at the Badrinath temple, was renowned all over the hills. In the play of the God's life, Bhola Ram had been chosen one year to act the part of Krishna. Kanta was Radha, the God's beloved. The performance was given to a large crowd. After his lengthy courtship of Radha, Krishna bent over her; unlike the rehearsals when a desired distance was preserved, his lips touched her soft mouth. As he danced away to the music of dholaks and the harmonium, he was aware of her lit-up eyes on his back. After the play, when their eyes met, she stuck out her tongue to scold him.

  When he asked for her hand, her parents hesitated. His profession of kite-maker was a bit odd, and would he earn enough to support a wife and family? But they liked him and in the end agreed. Their decision may have been prompted by Kanta's severe asthma, which lessened her chances of making a better match. They had not even an inkling, of course, of Kanta's passionate feelings for him.

  Months before the wedding Bhola Ram had started to make a kite. It was to be her portrait—an expression of his love, and her essence. It was to be his own personal present to his future wife. It was dominated by pinks, purples, blues and yellows.

  The morning after their wedding, Bhola Ram took his wife and the patang to the hillside.

  He flew it.

  And then they held the string together.

  She looked up at it, and said in a reflective, dreamy tone:

  "It's as if my whole being, my atmah was going up, not to return. Up ... up. What will you do, you poor thing?" She was breathing with difficulty.

  The patang, a tiny dot, tugged in the wind. The string snapped. It flew away.

  The patang-wallah howled: "Kanta! Kanta!"

  She had collapsed writhing like a fish out of water. Her wide mouth, unrefined and uncouth in its friendliness, was grey. 'Til keep watch. I'll return..." she said, and her eyes closed.

  He carried her body home. She was cremated the same evening.

  The morning after the funeral, Bhola was woken by a commotion outside.

  He unbolted the door and stepped out. He turned his head up at the banyan tree.

  There was no doubt that the patang was back, caught in the top of the tree. There was not a tear in it; it may have been the wind, making the branches creak and the patang flutter, but he believed he could hear her voice,

  For sixty years it perched in the top of the tree, all of its beautiful exterior ripped away, just the skeletal framework knocking and clattering its whimpering speech to him. The patang-wallah had risen. He was very tired. Another glass of tea, and then he would sink into his sagging charpai to sleep soundly.

  He could hear the voices of the local kids. Come for their early morning marble games.

  As the kids drew nearer, the banyan tree began to move, though there was not a hint of wind. In the dark of dawn, not the old decaying bamboo frame but a dazzling patang with a wild feminine appearance adorned in every conceivable colour, was writhing in the middle of swaying branches. And then the scared children laughed because the patang's furious struggle to break free had succeeded and it flew slowly up into the sky.

  They began playing marbles.

  They thought it odd that Bhola Ramji didn't open his door as he did daily by six o'clock, dispersing them.