by Ruskin Bond
‘Or buy three bottles of beer,’ I said.
But there were no more windfalls that morning, and I had to go to the old Allahabad Bank—where my grandmother had kept her savings until they had dwindled away—and withdraw one hundred rupees.
‘Can you tell me my balance?’ I asked Mr Jain, the elderly clerk who remembered my maternal grandmother.
‘Two hundred and fifty rupees,’ he said with a smile. ‘Try to save something!’
I had no relatives to support, but here was William Matheson waiting for me under the old peepul tree. His hands were shaking.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
‘Haven’t had a cigarette for a week. Come on, buy me a packet of Charminar.’
Sitaram went out and bought samosas and jalebis and little cakes with icing made from solidified ghee. I fetched a few bottles of beer, some orangeades and lemonades and a syrupy cold drink called Vimto which was all the rage then. My landlady, hearing that I was throwing a party, sent me pakoras made with green chillies.
The party, when it happened, was something of an anticlimax:
Jai Shankar turned up promptly and ate all the jalebis.
William arrived with Suresh Mathur, finished the beer, and demanded more.
Nobody paid much attention to Sitaram, he seemed so much at home. Caste didn’t count for much in a fairly modern town, as Dehra was in those days. In any case, from the way Sitaram was strutting around, acting as though he owned the place, it was generally presumed that he was the landlady’s son. He brought up a second relay of the lady’s pakoras, hotter than the first lot, and they arrived just as the Maharani and Indu appeared in the doorway.
‘Happy birthday, dear boy,’ boomed the Maharani and seized the largest chilli pakora. Indu appeared behind her and gave me a box wrapped in gold and silver cellophane. I put it on my desk and hoped it contained chocolates, not studs and a tie-pin.
The chilli pakoras did not take long to violate the Maharani’s taste-buds.
‘Water, water!’ she cried, and seeing the bathroom door open, made a dash for the tap.
Alas, the bathroom was the least attractive aspect of my flat. It had yet to be equipped with anything resembling the newly-invented Sit-Safe. But the lid of the thunderbox was fortunately down, as this particular safe hadn’t been emptied for a couple of days. It was crowned by a rusty old tin mug. On the wall hung a towel that had seen better days, remnants of a cake of Lifebuoy soap stood near a washbasin. A lonely cockroach gave the Maharani a welcoming genuflection.
Taking all this in at a glance, she backed out, holding her hand to her mouth.
‘Try a Vimto,’ said William, holding out a bottle gone warm and sticky.
‘A glass of beer?’ asked Jai Shankar.
The Maharani grabbed a glass of beer and swallowed it in one long gulp. She came up gasping, gave me a reproachful look—as though the chilli pakora had been intended for her—and said, ‘Must go now, just stopped by to greet you. Thank you very much—you must come to Indu’s birthday party. Next year.’
Next year seemed a long way off. ‘Thank you for the present,’ I said.
And then they were gone, and I was left to entertain my cronies.
Suresh Mathur was demanding something stronger than beer, and as I felt that way myself, we trooped off to the Royal Cafe; all of us, except Sitaram, who had better things to do.
After two rounds of drinks, I’d gone through what remained of my money. And so I left William and Suresh to cadge drinks off one of the latter’s clients, while I bid Jai Shankar goodbye on the edge of the parade-ground. As it was still light, I did not have to see him home.
Some workmen were out on the parade-ground, digging holes for tent-pegs.
Two children were discussing the coming attraction.
‘The circus is coming!’
‘Is it big?’
‘It’s the biggest! Tigers, elephants, horses, chimpanzees! Tight-rope walkers, acrobats, strong men …’
‘Is there a clown?’
‘There has to be a clown. How can you have a circus without a clown?’
I hurried home to tell Sitaram about the circus. It would make a change from the cinema. The room had been tidied up, and the Maharani’s present stood on my desk, still in its wrapper.
‘Let’s see what’s inside,’ I said, tearing open the packet.
It was a small box of nuts—almonds, pistachios, cashew nuts, along with a few dried figs.
‘Just a handful of nuts,’ said Sitaram, sampling a fig and screwing up his face.
I tried an almond, found it was bitter and spat it out.
‘Must have saved them from her wedding day,’ said Sitaram
‘Appropriate in a way,’ I said. ‘Nuts for a bunch of nuts.’
Landour Days
I am trying to recall that morning, forty-five years ago, when I saw my first novel in print. I was nineteen that year, and I had recently returned from England, where I had spent three years of drudgery in an office. I had done my writing in the evenings and at weekends, bombarding editors and publishers with my literary efforts. Eventually I had found a publisher. But on that sultry summer morning in Dehradun it wasn’t the book I was looking out for (that came later), it was something else.
I was up a little earlier than usual, well before sunrise, well before my buxom landlady, Bibiji, called up to me to come down for my tea and paratha. It was going to be a special day and I wanted to tell the world about it. But when you’re nineteen the world isn’t really listening to you.
I bathed at the tap, put on a clean (but unpressed) shirt, trousers that needed cleaning, shoes that needed polishing. I never cared much about appearances. But I did have a nice leather belt with studs! I tightened it to the last rung. I was a slim boy, just a little undernourished.
On the streets, the milkmen on their bicycles were making their rounds, reminding me of William Saroyan, who sold newspapers as a boy, and recounted his experiences in The Bicycle Rider in Beverley Hills. Stray dogs and cows were nosing at dustbins. A truck loaded with bananas was slowly making its way towards the mandi. In the distance there was the whistle of an approaching train.
One or two small tea shops had just opened, and I stopped at one of them for a cup of tea. As it was a special day, I decided to treat myself to an omelette. The shopkeeper placed a record on his new electric record player, and the strains of a popular film tune served to wake up all the neighbours—a song about a girl’s red dupatta being blown away by a gust of wind and then retrieved by a handsome but unemployed youth. I finished my omelette and set off down the road to the bazaar.
It was a little too early for most of the shops to be open, but the news agency would be the first and that was where I was heading.
And there it was: the National News Agency, with piles of fresh newspapers piled up at the entrance. The Leader of Allahabad, the Pioneer of Lucknow, the Tribune of Ambala, and the bigger national dailies. But where was the latest Illustrated Weekly of India? Was it late this week? I did not always get up at six in the morning to pick up the Weekly, but this week’s issue was a special one. It was my issue, my special bow to the readers of India and the whole wide beautiful wonderful world. My novel was to be published in England, but first it would be serialized in India!
Mr Gupta popped his head out of the half-open shop door and smiled at me.
‘What brings you here so early this morning?’
‘Has the Weekly arrived?’
‘Come in. It’s here. I can’t leave it on the pavement.’
I produced a rupee. ‘Give me two copies.’
‘Something special in it? Did you win first prize in the crossword competition?’
My hands were not exactly trembling as I opened the magazine, but my heart was in my mouth as I flipped through the pages of that revered journal—the one and only family magazine of the 1950s, the gateway to literary success—edited by a quirky Irishman, Shaun Mandy.
And there it was: th
e first instalment of The Room on the Roof, that naïve, youthful novel on which I had toiled for a couple of years. It had lively, evocative illustrations by Mario, who wasn’t much older than me. And a picture of the young author, looking gauche and gaunt and far from intellectual.
I waved the magazine in front of Mr Gupta. ‘My novel!’ I told him. ‘In this and the next five issues!’
He wasn’t too impressed. ‘Well, I hope circulation won’t drop,’ he said. ‘And you should have sent them a better photograph.’
Expansively, I bought a third copy.
‘Circulation is going up!’ said Mr Gupta with a smile.
The bazaar was slowly coming to life. Spring was in the air, and there was a spring in my step as I sauntered down the road. I wanted to tell the world about my triumph, but was the world interested? I had no mentors in our sleepy little town. There was no one to whom I could go and confide: ‘Look what I’ve done. And it was all due to your encouragement, thanks!’ Because there hadn’t been anyone to encourage or help, not then nor in the receding past. The members of the local cricket team, to which I belonged, would certainly be interested, and one or two would exclaim: ‘Shabash! Now you can get us some new pads and a set of balls!’ And there were other friends who would demand a party at the chaat shop, which was fine, but would any of them read my book? Readers were not exactly thick on the ground, even in those pre-television, pre-computer days. But perhaps one or two would read it, out of loyalty.
A cow stood in the middle of the road, blocking my way.
‘See here, friend cow,’ I said, displaying the magazine to the ruminating animal. ‘Here’s the first instalment of my novel. What do you think of it?’
The cow looked at the magazine with definite interest. Those crisp new pages looked good to eat. She craned forward as if to accept my offer of breakfast, but I snatched the magazine away.
‘I’ll lend it to you another day,’ I said, and moved on.
I got on quite well with cows, especially stray ones. There was one that blocked the steps up to my room, sheltering there at night or when it rained. The cow had become used to me scrambling over her to get to the steps; my comings and goings did not bother her. But she was resentful of people who tried to prod or push her out of the way. To the delight of the other tenants, she had taken a dislike to the munshi, the property owner’s rent collector, and often chased him away.
I really don’t recall how the rest of that day passed, except that late evening, when the celebrations with friends were over, I found myself alone in my little room, trimming my kerosene lamp. It was too early to sleep, and I’d done enough walking that day. So I pulled out my writing pad and began a new story. I knew even then that the first wasn’t going to be enough. Scheherazade had to keep telling stories in order to put off her execution. I would have to keep writing them in order to keep that munshi at bay and put off my eviction.
Getting the Juices Flowing
It has been said that life begins at forty. Possibly. But I have found that it begins to sag at forty-five.
The other morning, stooping to tie my shoelaces, I found myself out of breath. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before. It was due, of course, to my stomach getting in the way and pressing against my chest. I was badly out of condition. And I decided that the best solution would be a daily jog around the hill-station where I live—Mussoorie.
I bought a new pair of keds; but, unable to find a pair of shorts of the right size, I gave a Gallic shrug and decided to do my jogging in my pyjamas—around the hill, past the waterworks, the rickshaw shed, and the cemetery. But I thought it would be unwise to jog on an empty stomach, so I consumed a mini-breakfast of a soft-boiled egg and toast.
At five in the morning there was no one to watch me, and it was a very slow jog. On my return, I was so famished that I ate a second breakfast—two fried eggs with several parathas—and felt as fit as an old fiddle. But after a week of slow jogs, accompanied by two breakfasts, I discovered that even my pyjamas were getting too tight.
Finally I came to the conclusion that my technique was all wrong. So I cut out the jogging and stuck to the two breakfasts.
Rai Singh, my milkman, thought it would be a good idea if I walked with him to his village, five miles from the station. I fell in with the suggestion and packed a hamper with buns, boiled eggs, fried potatoes, and two kinds of jam. As an afterthought, I added three varieties of churan digestive powder.
Rai Singh and I set out along the winding mountain path. By noon we had covered two-and-a-half miles, and I was feeling hungry. Besides, the hamper, which I had insisted on carrying as a form of yoga, was getting heavier by the minute. So we sat down in the shade of a pine tree, and I prepared an attractive spread for both of us. Rai Singh went off to wash his hands at a spring, a short distance away. As he seemed to be taking a long time, I went to see what delayed him. I found him gathering wild strawberries. We filled a shoulder-bag with wild strawberries and returned to the picnic spot.
All the food had disappeared. The hamper had gone too. Everything had been divided up equally by a band of monkeys. Several of the young ones had their faces smeared with jam. One large female had swallowed all the churan, and I couldn’t help thinking that she would be an unpopular monkey by the end of the day.
Rai Singh and I sat down on the grass and ate wild strawberries. ‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘I will prepare a meal for you as soon as we get to the village.’
He was as good as his word; and after a heavy meal of rice and beans, I slept the afternoon away in Rai Singh’s hut. Towards evening he brought me a jug of home-made wine. It had been made (he assured me) from wild strawberries. After two glasses of it, I felt that all my problems were solved; I was ready to climb Everest. But Rai Singh put me to bed instead.
Next morning I breakfasted on curds, pickle and parathas, and returned to the hill-station with a milk-can full of strawberry wine. I’d got my juices flowing again.
Rai Singh had promised me a can of the wonderful tonic every time I visited him, and already I was planning a bi-weekly fitness trek to the village.
All about My Walkabouts
All my life I’ve been a walking person. Up to this day, I have neither owned nor driven a car, bus, tractor, airplane, motorcycle, truck, or steamroller. Forced to make a choice. I would as soon drive a steamroller, because of its slow but solid progress and unhurried finality. And also because other vehicles don’t try hustling steamrollers off the road.
For a brief period in my early teens I had a bicycle, until I rode into a bullock cart and ruined my new cycle. The bullocks panicked and ran away with the cart while the furious cart driver was giving me a lecture on road sense. I have never bumped into a bullock cart while walking.
My earliest memories are of a place called Jamnagar, a small port on the west coast of India, then part of a princely state. My father was an English tutor to several young Indian princes and princesses. This was where my walking really began, because Jamnagar was full of spacious palaces, lawns, and gardens. By the time I was four, I was exploring much of this territory on my own, with the result that I encountered my first snake. Instead of striking me dead as snakes are supposed to do, it allowed me to pass.
Living as it did so close to the ground, and sensitive to every footfall, it must have known instinctively that I presented no threat, that I was just another small creature discovering the use of his legs. Envious of the snake’s swift gliding movements, I went indoors and tried crawling about on my belly. But I wasn’t much good at it. Legs were better.
My father’s schoolroom and our own residence were located on the grounds of one of the older palaces, which was full of turrets, stairways and mysterious dark passages. Right on top of the building I discovered a glass-covered room, each pane of glass stained with a different colour. This room fascinated me, as I could, by turn, look through the panes of glass at a green or rose-pink or orange or deep indigo world. It was nice to be able to decide for onese
lf what colour the world should be!
My father took his duties seriously and taught me to read and write long before I started attending a regular school. However, it would be true to say that I first learned to read upside down. This happened because I would sit on a stool in front of the three princesses, watching them read and write, and so the view I had of their books was an upside-down view, I still read that way occasionally, especially when a book becomes boring.
There was no boredom in the palace grounds. We were situated in the middle of a veritable jungle of a garden, where marigolds and cosmos grew rampant in the long grass. An old disused well was the home of countless pigeons, their gentle cooing by day contrasting with the shrill cries of the brain-fever bird (the hawk-cuckoo) at night. ‘How very hot it’s getting!’ the bird seems to say. And then, in a rising crescendo, ‘We feel it! We feel it! WE FEEL IT!’
Walking along a nearby beach, collecting seashells, I got into the habit of staring hard at the ground, a habit which has remained with me all my life. Apart from helping my thought processes, it also results in my picking up odd objects—coins, keys, broken bangles, marbles, pens, bits of crockery, pretty stones, feathers, ladybirds, seashells, snail-shells! Not to speak of old nails and horseshoes. Looking at my collection of miscellaneous objects picked up on these walks, my friends insist that I must be using a metal detector. But it’s only because I keep my nose to the ground, like a bloodhound.
Occasionally, of course, this habit results in my walking some way past my destination (if I happen to have one). And why not? It simply means discovering a new and different destination, sights and sounds that I might not have experienced had I ended my walk exactly where it was supposed to end. And I am not looking at the ground all the time. Sensitive like the snake to approaching footfalls, I look up from time to time to take note of the faces of passers-by, just in case they have something interesting to say.
A bird singing in a bush or tree has my immediate attention, so does any familiar flower or plant, particularly if it grows in an unusual place such as a crack in a wall or rooftop, or in a yard full of junk—where once I found a rosebush blooming on the roof of an old, abandoned Ford car.
