by Ruskin Bond
Last week, as I was sitting down at my desk to write a long-deferred article, I was startled to see an emerald-green praying mantis sitting on my writing-pad. He peered at me with his protuberant glass-bead eyes, and I stared down at him through my glasses. When I gave him a prod, he moved off in a leisurely way. Later, I found him examining the binding of Leaves of Grass; perhaps he had found a succulent bookworm. He disappeared for a couple of days, and then I found him on my dressing-table, preening himself before the mirror.
Out in the garden, I spotted another mantis, perched on the jasmine bush. Its arms were raised like a boxer’s. Perhaps they are a pair, I thought, and went indoors, fetched my mantis and placed him on the jasmine bush opposite his fellow insect. He did not like what he saw—no comparison with his own image!—and made off in a hurry.
My most interesting visitor comes at night, when the lights are still burning—a tiny bat who prefers to fly in through the open door, and will use the window only if there is no alternative. His object is to snap up the moths who cluster round the lamps.
All the bats I have seen fly fairly high, keeping near the ceiling; but this particular bat flies in low like a dive bomber, zooming in and out of chair legs and under tables. Once he passed straight between my legs. Has his radar gone wrong, I wondered, or is he just plain mad?
I went to my shelves of natural history and looked up bats, but could find no explanation for this erratic behaviour. As a last resort I turned to an ancient volume, Sterndale’s Indian Mammalia (Calcutta, 1884), and in it, to my delight, found what I was looking for: ‘A bat found near Mussoorie by Captain Hutton, on the southern range of hills at 1,800 metres; head and body about three centimetres, skims close to the ground, instead of flying high as bats generally do. Habitat, Jharipani, north-west Himalayas.’ Apparently, the bat was rare even in 1884.
Perhaps I have come across one of the few surviving members of the species. Jharipani is only three kilometres from where I live. I am happy that this bat survives in my small corner of the woods, and I undertake to celebrate it in prose and verse. Once, I found it suspended upside down from the railing at the foot of my bed. I decided to leave it there. For a writer alone in the woods, even an eccentric bat is welcome company.
Monkey on the Roof
Quite often, I’m up with the lark; more often, with the sound of monkeys jumping on my tin roof. I’ve often wondered why hill-station houses must have these rusty red tin roofs, apart from an understandable human desire to make them look like battered old biscuit tins. Well, now I know they are there for the benefit of monkeys, langurs, field-rats, cats, crows, mynas, spiders and scorpions.
I don’t mind the spiders, they seem harmless enough. The scorpions are evil-looking but sluggish, unlike the dashing red scorpions of the Rajasthan desert. The other day I found a scorpion enjoying a nap on my pillow. I like to have my pillow to myself, so I tipped the slumbering creature out of the window and returned to my afternoon siesta. I do not take the lives of fellow creatures if I can help it. Cats are not so squeamish. At night they get between the tin roof and the wooden ceiling and create havoc among the rats and mice who dwell there. And early morning, if I leave a window open, the monkeys will finish anything they find on the breakfast table.
In spite of occasional rude awakenings, I enjoy sleeping late, especially on winter mornings when the sun struggles to penetrate banks of cloud or mist or drizzle. The bed is one of my favourite places. And even if I am wide awake, I can be there under the blanket and razai and enjoy the view without rising. The window in front of me looks out on the clouds or the clear sky; the window beside it gives me a view of upper Landour and the houses on the slopes; and the far window looks out on a thicket of oak trees. And if I sit up in bed, I can see the road and some of the people on it.
But to start with my bed, for that’s where the day begins and ends. There’s something to be said for beds. After all, we spend roughly half our lives stretched out upon them. The amount of time spent in sleep varies from one individual to another.
‘Five hours sleepeth a traveller, seven a scholar, eight a merchant, and eleven every knave.’
So goes an old proverb, and there is much truth in proverbs. I must fall somewhere between merchant and knave. There are times when I like to rise early and times when I enjoy sleeping late. If I fall asleep before midnight, I will rise early.
One hour’s sleep before midnight is worth two after. When the moon is up, the night has its magic; but at two or three in the morning there is very little to offer, because by ten even cats, bats and field-rats are asleep. In summer, bird-song starts at dawn, somewhere between four and five o’clock and that’s a good time to be up and about, exercising mind or body.
The other morning I was up at five; wrote a couple of pages, opened my window and swallowed a portion of cloud; closed it, conscience clear, and returned to bed where presently a cup of tea materialised, prepared by Beena or Dolly or some other member of the family. But for that morning cup of tea, would I have survived all these years? Without it, the mornings would be one long, endless wasteland. Without it, I would not get up. I would refuse breakfast, lunch and dinner, and waste away. Looking back upon my life from the vantage point of seventy years, I cannot remember a time when I was deprived of that morning cup of tea. Except for when I was in boarding school. Now you know why I ran away.
Getting up and making my own tea is no fun either. It has to be brought to me by some gentle soul—man, woman or child—who has got up before everyone else in order to ensure that I get up too.
The best tea I’ve ever drunk was made by an ex-convict who worked for my landlady in Dehradun, many years ago. He told me that while he was in jail he was assigned to the task of making the warden’s tea. It was appreciated so much that they wouldn’t let him go even after he’d served his sentence. How, then, did he gain his freedom? Well, my landlady was the wife of the jail superintendent. So you see how well the system worked!
For a while in London, I had a Jewish landlady who brought me my breakfast on a tray. I don’t know if such civilised courtesies still exist. Back in the 1950s, English food was not very exciting; it had yet to be enriched by Indian curries and Chinese noodles. But breakfasts were always good—far superior to the skimpy fare served out by the French. Bacon and eggs, marmalade on toast, occasionally a kipper, a sausage, a slice of ham, grapefruit … what more could anyone ask for at the start of a busy day? And even now, when the days aren’t quite so busy, I might skip lunch or dinner but I’ll breakfast well.
So finally I’m out of bed and enjoying my breakfast. The children have gone to school and silence has descended on the house. A day in the life of Ruskin Bond is about to commence. I am at liberty to write a poem or a story or fill these pages with inconsequential thoughts. But first I must get dressed.
I am not fond of clothes, but I wouldn’t care to start the day’s work without at least wearing a clean shirt. When I was a struggling young writer, I did not possess more than two shirts at one time, but I would wash one every night in the hope that it would be dry by morning. Even today, I don’t have a large wardrobe. It isn’t possible, not with all these monkeys around. If you see a large red monkey wearing a blue and yellow check bush-shirt, please try and retrieve it for me; it’s my favourite shirt. Putting clothes out on the roof to dry is fairly common practice in hill stations, but not to be recommended. Only the other day, when a strong wind came up from the east, I saw my pyjamas floating away downhill to end up entangled in the branches of an oak tree. Fortunately the milkman’s son, who is good at climbing oak trees, rescued them for me. The milkman’s son does not pass his exams, but as long as he can climb trees, he’ll be a success in life. All of us need just one good accomplishment in order to get by. Obviously he can’t spend the rest of his life climbing trees, but it’s the agility and enterprise involved in the act that will make him a survivor.
Enough of bed and breakfast and getting ready for the long morning’s journe
y into day. When does this ageing writer sit down to write? Or does he simply dictate to a secretary or into a machine of some kind? Well, I wish that was the case, because I’m a lazy sort of writer, better in bed than out of it. Unfortunately, I get tongue-tied when I try to tell a story, make a speech, or conduct something as simple as a telephone or cell phone conversation.
Recently Dolly made me buy a mobile phone; it would make me more efficient and up-to-date, she said. I tried making a call, and when nothing happened, she said, ‘Dada, you’re holding it upside down!’ I got it the right way up and tried again, and when nothing happened, she said, ‘Not here. You have to go to the window’
I dutifully walked over and tried again. No luck. ‘Open the window,’ ordered Dolly. I opened the window just a crackle on the cell phone. ‘Now look out of the window!’ I looked out, and there were all these schoolgirls gazing up at me, wondering why I was staring down at them. ‘Good morning girls,’ I called out, and gave them a friendly wave. ‘No girls here,’ said a gruff voice on the cell phone. ‘This is your local thana.’
I gave the mobile to Dolly. She has no difficulty in getting through to her friends, or hearing from them. I’m no good at these things, except to pay the bill.
I’m strictly a man of the written word. Give me pen and paper and I manage to get something down, even if it’s only for my own amusement. An elderly reader once remarked, ‘How do you manage to write so much about nothing?’ to which I could only reply: ‘Well, it’s better than writing nothing about everything!’
That small red ant walking across my desk may mean nothing to the world at large, but to me it represents the world at large. It represents industry, single-mindedness, intricacy of design, the perfection of nature, the miracle of creation. So much so, that it inspires me to poetic composition:
You stride through the wasteland of my desk,
Pressing on over books and papers,
Down the wall and across the floor—
Small red ant, now crossing a sea of raindrops
At my open door.
Your destiny, your task to carry home
That heavy sunflower seed,
Waving it like a banner
Of victory!
Nothing is insignificant; nothing is without consequence in the intricate web of life.
Travels with my Bank Manager
1
You couldn’t ask for a livelier or more interesting companion than Ohri, my former bank manager. I say ‘former’, not because he is no longer with us, but because he has gone on to bigger and better things in Mumbai and Dubai where, I am given to understand, the streets are paved with gold. When I knew him he was a wildlife enthusiast with his heart in Corbett country and the Himalayan foothills.
Ohri liked travelling by road, preferably at dawn, the drive punctuated by halts to gaze at peacocks, nilghav, jackals and porcupines.
I’d accompany him occasionally, and one crisp winter morning we got into his battered old Fiat for a leisurely drive from Delhi to Dehradun. But Ohri had no intention of keeping to the main highway or doing anything in a leisurely manner.
‘From Roorkee we’ll take the Haridwar road, then take a diversion and get onto the forest road through the Rajaji Sanctuary. We’ll come out near the Mohand Pass. It is only about fifteen miles. Beautiful forest, lots of wildlife, tigers, herds of elephants, perfectly safe!’
‘If you say so,’ I said, not having much choice once he was behind the wheel.
By the time we had made it to the Rajaji forest road, dusk had fallen and the peahens were stridently calling up their mates.
There was three raos (dry river beds) to cross on the way to the pass, and at the first of these the front door threatened to come off its hinges.
‘Hang on to it!’ urged Ohri. ‘Keep it from falling off!’
I had an old football scarf with me—a gift from travel writer Bill Aitken, a fellow fan of bottom of the Scottish League club, Alloa Athletic—and I tied this to the door handle, making it easier for me to keep the door from falling open.
Ohri stopped the car and pointed enthusiastically at several hefty dung-cakes in the middle of the road.
‘Look, elephant dung!’ he cried. ‘Maybe we’ll be lucky and see some wild elephants.’
‘I’m quite content just viewing their leavings,’ I said.
‘Very good for making paper,’ observed Ohri.
‘Well, perhaps you could persuade the Reserve Bank to use the stuff for making notes, the large denominations.’
Undeterred by my sarcasm, Ohri started up and drove merrily into the second boulder-strewn rao. A bump, a bang, and we had a flat tyre.
‘We’ll soon fix it,’ said Ohri. ‘Will you get the spare tyre out of the dickey?’
Fortunately my struggle with the door prevented me from getting out, because just then a number of wild boars appeared at the side of the road. They had been in search of a little water in the rao and had now stopped in order to take a growing interest in the car and its occupants.
‘Better wait until they’ve gone,’ said Ohri. ‘Wild boars can be dangerous. Even a tiger will run from a charging boar. Don’t let the door fall off!’
I hung onto the door for dear life. I wasn’t about to run like a tiger.
We waited. The boars waited.
‘Would you like a drink?’ asked Ohri after some time. ‘There’s a bottle here somewhere.’
He produced a full bottle of strong army rum and we took swigs in turn. The boars came a little nearer.
‘If we’re going to be here all night let’s play Under a Scotsman’s Kilt,’ I suggested. ‘I learnt it at school.’
‘I didn’t know you were gay.’
‘I’m not. I’m serious. You give me the first line of a song or poem, and I’ll come in with the line “Under a Scotman’s Kilt.” It’s great fun. Don’t think too hard. The first song that comes to mind …’
‘Old Macdonald had a farm.’
‘Under a Scotsman’s kilt.’
‘I wandered lonely as a cloud.’
‘Under a Scotsman’s kilt.’
‘Tiger, tiger burning bright.’
‘Under a Scotsman’s kilt.’
We continued in this scatological vein for some time until, fortunately for our sanity, the silence of the night was broken by the roar of an approaching motor-cycle. To our amazement, two middle-aged Sikh gentlemen materialised in front of our headlights. The wild boars scattered and vanished into the night.
Our rescuers were in the habit of using the forest road as a short-cut to their farm in the Terai.
Elephants and wild boars did not faze them. They helped us change the tyre, and then they helped us finish the bottle of rum. They even offered to get us another bottle, courtesy a helpful forest guard; but we thanked them profusely and said we had to be on our way. Ohri’s wife was waiting for him in Dehradun, rolling pin at the ready. She would flatten him out along with the atta.
Ohri negotiated the remainder of the second rao and then, at the rao before Mohand, the door finally fell off, taking my Scottish football scarf with it.
Ever loyal to Alloa Athletic, I retrieved the scarf, but Ohri left the door behind in the river-bed.
‘We’ll come back for it another day,’ he vowed. I was sure he had another treat in store for me.
2
The next time we met, a few weeks later, Ohri had a new car one of the latest Marutis.
‘Come on, I’ll take you for a spin down Tehri Road,’ he said. ‘We’ll be back in time for lunch.’
‘Are you sure?’ I asked. ‘I don’t want to miss my afternoon siesta.’
‘Nothing better than a nap under a chestnut tree,’ said Ohri.
‘The last time I slept under a chestnut tree, the langurs kept dropping chestnuts on my head. And this is October and the chestnuts are ready.’
‘We’ll go no further than Suakholi,’ promised Ohri.
And so we set off in his new car, and on the way Ohri t
old me how he was having an ulcer problem and that Dr Bhist had told him to keep eating biscuits between meals. Apparently the biscuits soaked up the excess acid. On the seat between us I found three packets of biscuits—glucose, cream crackers and a third variety which I did not recognise.
‘And what are these?’ I asked.
‘Dog biscuits,’ he said.
‘You’re eating dog biscuits for your ulcer?’
‘No, of course not. We have a dog now, a Labrador. My wife told me to bring home some dog biscuits.’
Ohri kept munching biscuits on the way to Suakholi, where we stopped for tea and more biscuits. ‘Do we go home now?’ I asked.
‘Just a little further,’ he urged. ‘Don’t you want to see the phosphate mines?’
I said I had no particular interest in phosphate mines, but he said we were sure to see some pheasants along the way, and so I let him talk me into an extension of the drive. A little way after Suakholi, we took a turning to the right, and continued along a rough dirt road which was obviously resented by the springs of Ohri’s new car. We passed the phosphate mines, which appeared to have been shut down, and continued through a path of mixed forest in the general direction of the next mountain.
‘This is not the way home,’ I remarked.
‘There’s a forest rest house around the next bend,’ said Ohri. ‘Maybe the chowkidar can prepare some lunch for us.’
There was indeed a rest house around the bend, but it looked as though it hadn’t been occupied for years. Most of the roof was missing. A wildcat spat at us from a broken wall. There was no sign of a chowkidar or any other human being.
‘We’d better go back,’ said Ohri. We shared the cream crackers and washed them down with mineral water. Ohri hadn’t brought any rum along this time, which was just as well. He hadn’t brought enough petrol, either. We hadn’t gone very far when the over-taxed car spluttered to a stop.