by Ruskin Bond
‘Goodbye!’ I called.
‘Goodbye!’ called the girl.
The ribbon had come loose from her pigtail and lay on the ground with the coral blossoms.
And she was fresh and clean like the rain and the red earth.
Love and Cricket
IT WAS a quiet day in New Delhi. Everyone was indoors, watching an India-Pakistan cricket match on TV. Even the hotel seemed understaffed. I’d given up on cricket years ago, after a long and uninteresting career as twelfth man for the Chutmalpur Club team. Carrying out the drinks or fielding in the hot sun on behalf of others had finally soured my attitude towards the game. Now my greatest pleasure was sitting in a shady spot, sipping a cool drink brought to me by an agile young waiter, who would no doubt have preferred to be out on a cricket field.
It was an elderly waiter who brought me the nimbu-pani. The younger ones were probably crowded around a TV set in the kitchen. I relaxed in the easy chair of the hotel’s garden restaurant, here I was an occasional customer. Sweet-peas filled the air with their heady perfume. Snapdragons snapped in the mid-March sunshine. A carpet of soft pink phlox was soothing to the eyes. New Delhi in the spring is kind to flower gardens.
I had the place to myself. I felt at peace with the world. The garden was quiet and restful—until two noisy children, a boy who must have been about twelve, and a girl a little younger, came charging out of the shadows, kicking a rubber ball around. Having played football myself once, I looked at their game with amused tolerance; that is, until the boy, bending it like Beckham, sent the ball crashing on to my table, upsetting my nimbu-pani.
The elderly waiter came running to my rescue. The children fled concealing themselves behind some potted palms. Their mother appeared on the steps, threatening them with dire consequences. She walked over to me, apologizing. ‘I’m so sorry. They are very naughty.’ ‘That’s all right,’ I said, ‘just high spirits. And it seems to be the season for ball games.’
The sun was in my eyes and I couldn’t see her very well. She was about forty, on the plump side, dark and quite attractive. ‘It’s perfectly all right,’ I said again, as the waiter brought me another nimbu-pani.
She just stood there, staring at me ‘Weren’t you—aren’t you—Rusty?’
I looked at her more closely then. It was a long time since anyone had called me Rusty. I stood up so that the sun wouldn’t be in my eyes. There was something about her eyes, soft and gentle, and her hair, still lustrous, and her lips of course, that reminded me of—
‘Sushila?’ I said hesitantly. Could it really be her—grown chubby and middle-aged and maternal? Sushila, my lost love of twenty plus years ago...
‘Yes, I am Sushila. And you are Rusty. A little older now.
‘And grown quite rusty over the years.’ I took her hand and asked her to join me. ‘And call the children over.’ But the children had made themselves scarce.
‘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 t
hat well-remembered song.
The Night the Roof Blew off
WE ARE used to sudden storms up here on the first range of the Himalayas. The old building in which we live has, for more than a hundred years, received the full force of the wind as it sweeps across the hills from the east.
We’d lived in the building for more than ten years without a disaster. It had even taken the shock of a severe earthquake. As my granddaughter Dolly said, ‘It’s difficult to tell the new cracks from the old!’
It’s a two-storey building, and I live on the upper floor with my family: my three grandchildren and their parents. The roof is made of corrugated tin sheets, the ceiling of wooden boards. That’s the traditional Mussoorie roof.
Looking back at the experience, it was the sort of thing that should have happened in a James Thurber story, like the dam that burst or the ghost who got in. But I wasn’t thinking of Thurber at the time, although a few of his books were among the many I was trying to save from the icy rain pouring into my bedroom.
Our roof had held fast in many a storm, but the wind that night was really fierce. It came rushing at us with a high-pitched, eerie wail. The old roof groaned and protested. It took a battering for several hours while the rain lashed against the windows and the lights kept coming and going.
There was no question of sleeping, but we remained in bed for warmth and comfort. The fire had long since gone out as the chimney had collapsed, bringing down a shower of sooty rainwater.
After about four hours of buffeting, the roof could take it no longer. My bedroom faces east, so my portion of the roof was the first to go.
The wind got under it and kept pushing until, with a ripping, groaning sound, the metal sheets shifted and slid off the rafters, some of them dropping with claps like thunder on to the road below.
So that’s it, I thought. Nothing worse can happen. As long as the ceiling stays on, I’m not getting out of bed. We’ll collect our roof in the morning.
Icy water splashing down on my face made me change my mind in a hurry. Leaping from the bed, I found that much of the ceiling had gone, too. Water was pouring on my open typewriter as well as on the bedside radio and bed cover.
Picking up my precious typewriter (my companion for forty years), I stumbled into the front sitting room (and library), only to find a similar situation there. Water was pouring through the slats of the wooden ceiling, raining down on the open bookshelves.
By now I had been joined by the children, who had come to my rescue. Their section of the roof hadn’t gone as yet. Their parents were struggling to close a window against the driving rain.
‘Save the books!’ shouted Dolly, the youngest, and that became our rallying cry for the next hour or two.
Dolly and her brother Mukesh picked up armfuls of books and carried them into their room. But the floor was awash, so the books had to be piled on their beds. Dolly was helping me gather some of my papers when a large field rat jumped on to the desk in front of her. Dolly squealed and ran for the door.
‘It’s all right,’ said Mukesh, whose love of animals extends even to field rats. ‘It’s only sheltering from the storm.’
Big brother Rakesh whistled for our dog, Tony, but Tony wasn’t interested in rats just then. He had taken shelter in the kitchen, the only dry spot in the house.
Two rooms were now practically roofless, and we could see the sky lit up by flashes of lightning.
There were fireworks indoors, too, as water spluttered and crackled along a damaged wire. Then the lights went out altogether.
Rakesh, at his best in an emergency, had already lit two kerosene lamps. And by their light we continued to transfer books, papers, and clothes to the children’s room.
We noticed that the water on the floor was beginning to subside a little.
‘Where is it going?’ asked Dolly.
‘Through the floor,’ said Mukesh. ‘Down to the flat below!’
Cries of concern from our downstairs neighbours told us that they were having their share of the flood.
Our feet were freezing because there hadn’t been time to put on proper footwear. And besides, shoes and slippers were awash by now. All chairs and tables were piled high with books. I hadn’t realized the extent of my library until that night!
The available beds were pushed into the driest corner of the children’s room, and there, huddled in blankets and quilts, we spent the remaining hours of the night while the storm continued.
Towards morning the wind fell, and it began to snow. Through the door to the sitting room I could see snowflakes drifting through the gaps in the ceiling, settling on picture frames. Ordinary things like a glue bottle and a small clock took on a certain beauty when covered with soft snow.
Most of us dozed off.
When dawn came, we found the windowpanes encrusted with snow and icicles. The rising sun struck through the gaps in the ceiling and turned everything golden. Snow crystals glistened on the empty bookshelves. But the books had been saved.
Rakesh went out to find a carpenter and tinsmith, while the rest of us started putting things in the sun to dry. By evening, we’d put much of the roof back on.
It’s a much-improved roof now, and we look forward to the next storm with confidence!
The Photograph
I WAS ten years old. My grandmother sat on the string bed under the mango tree. It was late summer and there were sunflowers in the garden and a warm wind in the trees. My grandmother was knitting a woollen scarf for the winter months. She was very old, dressed in a plain white sari. Her eyes were not very strong now but her fingers moved quickly with the needles and the needles kept clicking all afternoon. Grandmother had white hair but there were very few wrinkles on her skin.
I had come home after playing cricket on the maidan. I had taken my meal and now I was rummaging through a box of old books and family heirlooms that had just that day been brought out of the attic by my mother. Nothing in the box interested me very much except for a book with colourful pictures of birds and butterflies. I was going through the book, looking at the pictures, when I found a small photograph between the pages. It was a faded picture, a little yellow and foggy. It was the picture of a girl standing against a wall and behind the wall there was nothing but sky. But from the other side a pair of hands reached up, as though someone was going to climb the wall. There were flowers growing near the girl but I couldn’t tell what they were. There was a creeper too but it was just a creeper.
I ran out into the garden. ‘Granny!’ I shouted. ‘Look at this picture! I found it in the box of old things. Whose picture is it?’
I jumped on the bed beside my grandmother and she walloped me on the bottom and said, ‘Now I’ve lost count of my stitches and the next time you do that I’ll make you finish the scarf yourself.’
Granny was always threatening to teach me how to knit which I thought was a disgraceful thing for a boy to do. It was a good deterrent for keeping me out of mischief. Once I had torn the drawing-room curtains and Granny had put a needle and thread in my hand and made me stitch the curtain together, even though I made long, two-inch stitches, which had to be taken out by my mother and done again.
She took the photograph from my hand and we both stared at it for quite a long time. The girl had long, loose hair and she wore a long dress that nearly covered her ankles, and sleeves that reached her wrists, and there were a lot of bangles on her hands. But despite all this drapery, the girl appeared to be full of freedom and movement. She stood with her legs apart and her hands on her hips and had a wide, almost devilish smile on her face.
‘Whose picture is it?’ I asked.
‘A little girl’s, of course,’ said Grandmother. ‘Can’t you tell?’
‘Yes, but did you know the girl?’
‘Yes, I knew her,’ said Granny, ‘but she was a very wicked girl and I shouldn’t tell you about her. But I’ll tell you about the photograph. It was taken in your grandfather’s house about sixty years ago. And that’s th
e garden wall and over the wall there was a road going to town.’
‘Whose hands are they,’ I asked, ‘coming up from the other side?’
Grandmother squinted and looked closely at the picture, and shook her head. ‘It’s the first time I’ve noticed,’ she said. ‘They must have been the sweeper boy’s. Or maybe they were your grandfather’s.’
‘They don’t look like Grandfather’s hands,’ I said. ‘His hands are all bony.’
‘Yes, but this was sixty years ago.’
‘Didn’t he climb up the wall after the photo?’
‘No, nobody climbed up. At least, I don’t remember.’
‘And you remember well, Granny.’
‘Yes, I remember... I remember what is not in the photograph. It was a spring day and there was a cool breeze blowing, nothing like this. Those flowers at the girl’s feet, they were marigolds, and the bougainvillea creeper, it was a mass of purple. You cannot see these colours in the photo and even if you could, as nowadays, you wouldn’t be able to smell the flowers or feel the breeze.’
‘And what about the girl?’ I said. ‘Tell me about the girl.’
‘Well, she was a wicked girl,’ said Granny. ‘You don’t know the trouble they had getting her into those fine clothes she’s wearing.’
‘I think they are terrible clothes,’ I said.
‘So did she. Most of the time, she hardly wore a thing. She used to go swimming in a muddy pool with a lot of ruffianly boys, and ride on the backs of buffaloes. No boy ever teased her, though, because she could kick and scratch and pull his hair out!’
‘She looks like it too,’ I said. ‘You can tell by the way she’s smiling. At any moment something’s going to happen.’
‘Something did happen,’ said Granny. ‘Her mother wouldn’t let her take off the clothes afterwards, so she went swimming in them and lay for half an hour in the mud.’
I laughed heartily and Grandmother laughed too.