by Bond, Ruskin
And the pony farting as it cantered along,
Wheels creaking, seat shifting,
Hood slipping off, the entire contraption
Always about to disintegrate, collapse,
But never quite doing so—like the man himself. . . .
All this was music,
And the ragtime-raga lingers in my mind.
Nostalgia comes swiftly when one is forty,
Looking back at boyhood years.
Even unhappiness acquires a certain glow.
It was shady in the cemetery, and the mango trees
Did well there, nourished by the bones
Of long-dead Colonels, Collectors, Magistrates and Memsahibs.
For here, in dusty splendour, lay the graves
Of those who’d brought their English dust
To lie with Ganges soil: some tombs were temples,
Some were cenotaphs; and one, a tiny Taj.
Here lay sundry relatives, including Uncle Henry,
Who’d been for many years a missionary.
‘Sacred to the Memory
Of Henry C. Wagstaff,
Who translated the Gospels into Pashtu,
And was murdered by his own Chowkidar.
‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant’—
So ran his epitaph.
The gardener, who looked after the trees,
Also dug graves. One day
I found him working at the bottom of a new cavity,
‘They never let me know in time,’ he grumbled.
‘Last week I dug two graves, and now, without warning,
Here’s another. It isn’t even the season for dying.
There’s enough work all summer, when cholera’s about—
Why can’t they keep alive through the winter?’
Near the railway-lines, watching the trains
(There were six every day, coming or going),
And across the line, the leper colony . . .
I did not know they were lepers till later
But I knew they were different: some
Were without fingers or toes
And one had no nose
And a few had holes in their faces
And yet some were beautiful
They had their children with them
And the children were no different
From other children.
I made friends with some
And won most of their marbles
And carried them home in my pockets.
One day my parents found me
Playing near the leper colony.
There was a big scene.
My mother shouted at the lepers
And they hung their heads as though it was all their fault,
And the children had nothing to say.
I was taken home in disgrace
And told all about leprosy and given a bath.
My clothes were thrown away
And the servants wouldn’t touch me for days.
So I took the marbles I’d won
And put them in my stepfather’s cupboard,
Hoping he’d catch leprosy from them.
6
A slim dark youth with quiet
Eyes and a gentle quizzical smile,
Manohar. Fifteen, working in a small hotel.
He’d come from the hills and wanted to return,
I forget how we met
But I remember walking the dusty roads
With this gentle boy, who held my hand
And told me about his home, his mother,
His village, and the little river
At the bottom of the hill where the water
Ran blue and white and wonderful,
‘When I go home, I’ll take you with me.’
But we hadn’t enough money.
So I sold my bicycle for thirty rupees
And left a note in the dining room:
‘Going away. Don’t worry—(hoping they would)—
I’ll come home
When I’ve grown up.’
We crossed the rushing waters of the Ganga
Where they issued from the doors of Vishnu
Then took the pilgrim road, in those days
Just a stony footpath into the mountains:
Not all who ventured forth returned;
Some came to die, of course,
Near the sacred waters or at their source.
We took this route and spent a night
At a wayside inn, wrapped tight
In the single blanket I’d brought along;
Even then we were cold
It was not the season for pilgrim
And the inn was empty, except for the locals
Drinking a local brew.
We drank a little and listened
To an old soldier from the hills
Talking of the women he’d known
In the first Great War, when stationed in Rome;
His memories were good for many drinks
In many inns; his face pickled in the suns
Of many mountain summers.
The mule-drivers slept in one room
And talked all night over hookahs.
Manohar slept bravely, but I lay watching
A bright star through the tiny window
And wished upon it, already knowing that wishes
Had no power, but wishing all the same. . . .
And next morning we set off again
Leaving the pilgrim-route to march
Down a valley, above a smaller river,
Walking until I felt
We’d walk and walk for ever.
Late at night, on a cold mountain,
Two lonely figures, we saw the lights
Of scattered houses and knew we had arrived.
7
‘Not death, but a summing-up of life,’
Said the village patriarch, as we watched him
Treasure a patch of winter sunshine
On his string cot in the courtyard.
I remember his wisdom.
And I remember faces.
For it’s faces I remember best.
The people were poor, and the patriarch said:
‘I have heard it told that the sun
Sets in splendour in Himalaya—
But who can eat sunsets?’
The patriarch was old in years,
But some grew old at their mother’s breasts.
Perhaps, if I’d stayed longer,
I would have yearned for creature comforts.
We were hungry sometimes, eating wild berries
Or slyly milking another’s goat,
Or catching small fish in the river. . . .
But I did not long for home.
Could I have grown up a village boy,
Grazing sheep and cattle, while the Collected Works
Of W. Shakespeare lay gathering dust
In Dehra? Who knows? But it was nice
Of my stepfather to send his office manager
Into the mountains to bring me home!
Manohar.
He called goodbye and waved
As I looked back from the bend in the road.
Bright boy on the mountainside,
Waving to me, calling, and I’ve loved you
All these years and looked for you everywhere,
In the mountains, in crowds at distant places,
In cities and villages, beside the sea.
And the trains roll on, every day
Hundreds of people coming or going or running away—
Goodbye, goodbye!
Into the forest’s silence,
Outside the dark tunnel,
Out of the tunnel, out of the dark. . . .
SCENES FROM THE NOVELS
Extract From A Flight Of Pigeons
The sun rose in a cloudless, shimmering sky, and only those who had risen at dawn had been lucky enough to enjoy the cool breeze that had blown across the river for a brief spell.
At seven o’clock the church bell began to toll, and people could be seen making their way towards the small, sturdily built cantonment church. Some, like Mr Labadoor and his daughter, were on foot, wearing their Sunday clothes. Others came in carriages, or were borne aloft in doolies manned by sweating doolie-bearers.
St Mary’s, the little church in Shahjahanpur, is situated on the southern boundary of the cantonment, near an ancient mangogrove. There are three entrances: one to the south, facing a large compound known as Buller’s; another to the west, below the steeple; and the vestry door opening to the north. A narrow staircase leads up to the steeple. To the east there were open fields sloping down to the river, cultivated with melon; to the west, lay an open plain bounded by the city; while the parade ground stretched away to the north until it reached the barracks of the sepoys. The bungalows scattered about the side of the parade ground belonged to the regimental officers, Englishmen who had slept soundly, quite unaware of an atmosphere charged with violence.
I will let Ruth take up the story. . . ..
At The Church
Father and I had just left the house when we saw several sepoys crossing the road, on their way to the river for their morning bath. They stared so fiercely at us that I pressed close to my father and whispered, ‘Papa, how strange they look!’ But their appearance did not strike him as unusual; the sepoys usually passed that way when going to the River Khannaut, and I suppose Father was used to meeting them on his way to office.
We entered the church from the south porch, and took our seats in the last pew to the right. A number of people had already arrived, but I did not particularly notice who they were. We had knelt down, and were in the middle of the Confession, when we heard a tumult outside and a lot of shouting, that seemed nearer every moment. Everyone in the church got up, and Father left our pew and went and stood at the door, where I joined him.
There were six or seven men on the porch. Their faces were covered up to their noses, and they wore tight loincloths as though they had prepared for a wrestling bout; but they held naked swords in their hands. As soon as they saw us, they sprang forward, and one of them made a cut at us. The sword missed us both and caught the side of the door where it buried itself in the wood. My father had his left hand against the door, and I rushed out from under it, and escaped into the church compound.
A second and third cut were made at my father by the others, both of which caught him on his right cheek. Father tried to seize the sword of one of his assailants, but he caught it high up on the blade, and so firmly, that he lost two fingers from his right hand. These were the only cuts he received; but though he did not fall, he was bleeding profusely. All this time I had stood looking on from the porch, completely bewildered and dazed by what had happened. I remember asking my father what had happened to make him bleed so much.
‘Take the handkerchief from my pocket and bandage my face,’ he said.
When I had made a bandage from both our handkerchiefs and tied it about his head, he said he wished to go home. I took him by the hand and tried to lead him out of the porch; but we had gone only a few steps when he began to feel faint, and said, ‘I can’t walk, Ruth. Let us go back to the church.’
The armed men had made only one rush through the church, and had then gone off through the vestry door. After wounding my father, they had run up the centre of the aisle, slashing right and left. They had taken a cut at Lieutenant Scott, but his mother threw herself over him and received the blow on her ribs; her tight clothes saved her from a serious injury. Mr Ricketts, Mr Jenkins, the Collector, and Mr MacCullam, the Minister, ran out through the vestry.
The rest of the congregation had climbed up to the belfry, and on my father’s urging me to do so, I joined them there. We saw Captain James riding up to the church, quite unaware of what was happening. We shouted him a warning, but as he looked up at us, one of the sepoys, who were scattered about on the parade ground, fired at him, and he fell from his horse. Now two other officers came running from the Mess, calling out to the sepoys: ‘Oh! children, what are you doing?’ They tried to pacify their men, but no one listened to them. They had, however, been popular officers with the sepoys, who did not prevent them from joining us in the turret with their pistols in their hands.
Just then we saw a carriage coming at full speed towards the church. It was Dr Bowling’s, and it carried him, his wife and child, and the nanny. The carriage had to cross the parade ground, and they were halfway across, when a bullet hit the doctor who was sitting on the coach box. He doubled up in his seat, but did not let go of the reins, and the carriage had almost reached the church, when a sepoy ran up and made a slash at Mrs Bowling, missing her by inches. When the carriage reached the church, some of the officers ran down to help Dr Bowling off the coach box. He struggled in their arms for a while, and was dead when they got him to the ground.
I had come down from the turret with the officers, and now ran to where my father lay. He was sitting against the wall, in a large pool of blood. He did not complain of any pain, but his lips were parched, and he kept his eyes open with an effort. He told me to go home, and to ask Mother to send someone with a cot, or a doolie, to carry him back. So much had happened so quickly that I was completely dazed, and though Mrs Bowling and the other women were weeping, there wasn’t a tear in my eye. There were two great wounds on my father’s face, and I was reluctant to leave him, but to run home and fetch a doolie seemed to be the only way in which I could help him.
Leaving him against the stone wall of the church, I ran round to the vestry side and almost fell over Mr Ricketts, who was lying about twelve feet from the vestry door. He had been attacked by an expert and powerful swordsman, whose blow had cut through the trunk from the left shoulder separating the head and right hand from the rest of the body. Sick with horror, I turned from the spot and began running home through Buller’s compound.
Nobody met me on the way. No one challenged me, or tried to intercept or molest me. The cantonment seemed empty and deserted; but just as I reached the end of Buller’s compound, I saw our house in flames. I stopped at the gate, looking about for my mother, but could not see her anywhere. Granny, too, was missing, and the servants. Then I saw Lala Ramjimal walking down the road towards me.
‘Don’t worry, my child,’ he said. ‘Mother, Granny and the others are all safe. Come, I will take you to them.’
There was no question of doubting Lala Ramjimal’s intentions. He had held me on his knee when I was a baby, and I had grown up under his eyes. He led me to a hut some thirty yards from our old home. It was a mud house, facing the road, and its door was closed. Lala knocked on the door, but received no answer; then he put his mouth to a chink and whispered, ‘Missy-baba is with me, open the door.’
The door opened, and I rushed into my mother’s arms.
‘Thank God!’ she cried. ‘At least one is spared to me.’
‘Papa is wounded at the church,’ I said. ‘Send someone to fetch him.’
Mother looked up at Lala and he could not resist the appeal in her eyes.
‘I will go,’ he said. ‘Do not move from here until I return.’
‘You don’t know where he is,’ I said. ‘Let me come with you and help you.’
‘No, you must not leave your mother now,’ said Lala. ‘If you are seen with me, we shall both be killed.’
He returned in the afternoon, after several hours. ‘Sahib is dead,’ he said, very simply. ‘I arrived in time to see him die. He had lost so much blood that it was impossible for him to live. He could not speak, and his eyes were becoming glazed, but he looked at me in such a way that I am sure he recognized me . . .’
Lata Ramjimal
Lala left us in the afternoon, promising to return when it grew dark, then he would take us to his own house. He ran a grave risk in doing so, but he had promised us his protection, and he was a man who, once he had decided on taking a certain course of action, could not be shaken from his purpose. He was not a Government se
rvant and owed no loyalties to the British; not had he conspired with the rebels, for his path never crossed theirs. He had been content always to go about his business (he owned several doolies and carriages, which he hired out to Europeans who could not buy their own) in a quiet and efficient manner, and was held in some respect by those he came into contact with; his motives were always personal, and if he helped us, it was not because we belonged to the ruling class—my father was probably the most junior officer in Shahjahanpur—but because he had known us for many years, and had grown fond of my mother, who had always treated him as a friend and equal.
I realized that I was now fatherless, and my mother, a widow; but we had no time to indulge in our private sorrow. Our own lives were in constant danger. From our hiding place we could hear the crackling of timber coming from our burning house. The road from the city to the cantonment was in an uproar, with people shouting on all sides. We heard the tramp of men passing up and down the road, just in front of our door; a moan or a sneeze would have betrayed us, and then we would have been at the mercy of the most ruffianly elements from the bazaar, whose swords flashed in the dazzling sunlight.
There were eight of us in the little room: Mother, Granny, myself; my cousin, Anet; my mother’s half-brother, Pilloo, who was about my age, and his mother; our servants, Champa and Lado; as well as two of our black and white spaniels, who had followed close on Mother’s heels when she fled from the house.
The mud hut in which we were sheltering was owned by Tirloki, a mason who had helped build our own house. He was well-known to us. Weeks before the outbreak, when Mother used to gossip with her servants and others about the possibility of trouble in Shahjahanpur, Tirloki had been one of those who had offered his house for shelter should she ever be in need of it. And Mother, as a precaution, had accepted his offer, and taken the key from him.
Mother afterwards told me that, as she sat on the veranda that morning, one of the gardener’s sons had come running to her in great haste, and had cried out: ‘Mutiny broken out, Sahib and Missy-baba killed!’ Hearing that we had both been killed, Mother’s first impulse was to throw herself into the nearest well; but Granny caught hold of her, and begged her not to be rash, saying,’ And what will become of the rest of us if you do such a thing?’ And so she had gone across the road, followed by the others, and had entered Tirloki’s house and chained the door from within.
