Uncles, Aunts and Elephants

by Ruskin Bond

  When the colonel’s new wife heard the story, she was naturally upset. Her husband did not give any credence to the tale, but when he saw how troubled his new wife looked, he decided to do something about it. And so one day, when the pigeon appeared, he took his rifle and slipped out of the house, quietly making his way down the verandah steps. When he saw the pigeon on the rose bush, he raised his gun, took aim, and fired.

  There was a high-pitched woman’s scream. And then the pigeon flew away unsteadily, its white breast dark with blood. Where it fell, no one knew.

  That same night the colonel died in his sleep. The doctor put it down to heart failure, which was true enough; but the servants said that their master had always kept good health, and they were sure his death had something to do with the killing of the white pigeon.

  The colonel’s widow left Dehradun, and the beautiful bungalow fell into ruin. The garden became a jungle, and jackals passed through the abandoned rooms. The colonel had been buried in the grounds of his estate, and the gravestone can still be found, although the inscription has long since disappeared.

  Few people pass that way. But those who do, say that they have often seen a white pigeon resting on the grave, a white pigeon with a crimson stain on its breast.

  The Parrot Who Wouldn’t Talk

  ‘You’re no beauty! Can’t talk, can’t sing, can’t dance!’

  With these words Aunt Ruby would taunt the unfortunate parakeet, who glared morosely at everyone from his ornamental cage at one end of the long veranda of Grandmother’s bungalow in north India.

  In those distant days, almost everyone — Indian or European — kept a pet parrot or parakeet, or ‘lovebird’ as some of the smaller ones were called. Sometimes these birds became great talkers, or rather mimics, and would learn to recite entire mantras or admonitions to the children of the house, such as ‘Padho, beta, padho!’ or, for the benefit of boys like me, ‘Don’t be greedy, don’t be greedy!’

  These expressions were, of course, picked up by the parrot over a period of time, after many repetitions by some member of the household who had taken on the task of teaching the bird to talk.

  But our parrot refused to talk.

  He’d been bought by Aunt Ruby from a bird-catcher who’d visited all the houses on our road, selling caged birds ranging from colourful budgerigars to chirpy little munnias and even common sparrows that had been dabbed with paint and passed off as some exotic species. Neither Granny nor Grandfather were keen on keeping caged birds as pets, but Aunt Ruby threatened to throw a tantrum if she did not get her way — and Aunt Ruby’s tantrums were dreadful to behold!

  Anyway, she insisted on keeping the parrot and teaching it to talk. But the bird took an instant dislike to my aunt and resisted all her blandishments.

  ‘Kiss, kiss!’ Aunt Ruby would coo, putting her face close to the bars of the cage. But the parrot would back away, its beady little eyes getting even smaller with anger at the prospect of being kissed by Aunt Ruby. And on one occasion it lunged forward without warning and knocked my aunt’s spectacles off her nose.

  After that Aunt Ruby gave up her endearments and became quite hostile towards the poor bird, making faces at it and calling out ‘can’t talk, can’t sing, can’t dance’ and other nasty comments.

  It fell upon me, then ten years old, to feed the parrot, and it seemed quite happy to receive green chillies and ripe tomatoes from my hands, these delicacies being supplemented by slices of mango, for it was then the mango season. This also gave me an opportunity to consume a couple of mangoes while feeding the parrot!

  One afternoon, while everyone was indoors enjoying a siesta, I gave the parrot its lunch and then deliberately left the cage door open. Seconds later, the bird was winging its way to the freedom of the mango orchard.

  At the same time Grandfather came to the veranda and remarked, ‘I see your aunt’s parrot has escaped!’

  ‘The door was quite loose,’ I said with a shrug. ‘Well, I don’t suppose we’ll see it again.’

  Aunt Ruby was upset at first, and threatened to buy another bird. We put her off by promising to buy her a bowl of goldfish.

  ‘But goldfish don’t talk!’ she protested.

  ‘Well, neither did your bird,’ said Grandfather. ‘So we’ll get you a gramophone. You can listen to Clara Cluck all day. They say she sings like a nightingale.’

  I thought we’d never see the parrot again, but it probably missed its green chillies, because a few days later I found the bird sitting on the veranda railing, looking expectantly at me with its head cocked to one side. Unselfishly I gave the parrot half of my mango.

  While the bird was enjoying the mango, Aunt Ruby emerged from her room and, with a cry of surprise, called out, ‘Look, it’s my parrot come back! He must have missed me!’

  With a loud squawk, the parrot flew out of her reach and, perching on the nearest rose bush, glared at her and shrieked in my aunt’s familiar tones: ‘You’re no beauty! Can’t talk, can’t sing, can’t dance!’

  Aunt Ruby went ruby-red and dashed indoors.

  But that wasn’t the end of the affair. The parrot became a frequent visitor to the garden and veranda, and whenever it saw Aunt Ruby it would call out, ‘You’re no beauty, you’re no beauty! Can’t talk, can’t sing, can’t dance!’

  The parrot had learnt to talk after all!

  The Canal

  We loved to bathe there, on hot summer afternoons — Sushil and Raju and Pitamber and I — and there were others as well, but we were the regulars, the ones who met at other times too, eating at chaat shops or riding on bicycles into the tea gardens.

  The canal has disappeared — or rather, it has gone underground, having been covered over with concrete to widen the road to which it ran parallel for most of its way. Here and there it went through a couple of large properties, and it was at the extremity of one of these — just inside the boundaries of Miss Gamla’s house — that the canal went into a loop, where it was joined by another small canal, and this was the best place for bathing or just romping around. The smaller boys wore nothing, but we had just reached the years of puberty and kept our kacchas on. So Miss Gamla really had nothing to complain about.

  I’m not sure if this was her real name. I think we called her Miss Gamla because of the large number of gamlas or flowerpots that surrounded her house. They filled the veranda, decorated the windows, and lined the approach road. She had a mali who was always watering the pots. And there was no shortage of water, the canal being nearby.

  But Miss Gamla did not like small boys. Or big boys, for that matter. She placed us high on her list of Pests, along with monkeys (who raided her kitchen), sparrows (who shattered her sweet peas) and goats (who ate her geraniums). We did none of these things, being strictly fun-loving creatures; but we did make a lot of noise, spoiling her afternoon siesta. And I think she was offended by the sight of our near-naked bodies cavorting about on the boundaries of her estate. A spinster in her sixties, the proximity of naked flesh, no matter how immature, perhaps disturbed and upset her.

  She had a companion — a noisy peke, who followed her around everywhere and set up an ear-splitting barking at anyone who came near. It was the barking, rather than our play, that woke her in the afternoons. And then she would emerge from her back veranda, waving a stick at us, and shouting at us to be off.

  We would collect our clothes, and lurk behind a screen of lantana bushes, returning to the canal as soon as lady and dog were back in the house.

  The canal came down from the foothills, from a hill called Nalapani where a famous battle had taken place a hundred and fifty years back, between the British and the Gurkhas. But for some quirky reason, possibly because we were not very good at history, we called it the Panipat canal, after a more famous battle once fought north of Delhi.

  We had our own mock battles, wrestling on the grassy banks of the canal before plunging into the water — it was no more than waist-high — flailing around with shouts of joy, with no one
to hinder our animal spirits . . .

  Except Miss Gamla.

  Down the path she hobbled — she had a pronounced limp — waving her walnut-wood walking stick at us, while her bulging-eyed peke came yapping at her heels.

  ‘Be off, you chhokra-boys!’ she’d shout. ‘Off to your filthy homes, or I’ll put the police on to you!’

  And on one occasion she did report us to the local thana, and a couple of policemen came along, told us to get dressed and warned us off the property. But the Head Constable was Pitamber’s brother-in-law’s brother-in-law, so the ban did not last for more than a couple of days. We were soon back at our favourite stretch of canal.

  When Miss Gamla saw that we were back, as merry and disrespectful as ever, she was furious. She nearly had a fit when Raju — probably the most wicked of the four of us — did a jig in front of her, completely in the nude.

  When Miss Gamla advanced upon him, stick raised, Raju jumped into the canal.

  ‘Why don’t you join us?’ shouted Sushil, taunting the enraged woman.

  ‘Jump in and cool off,’ I called, not to be outdone in villainy.

  The little peke ran up and down the banks of the canal, yapping furiously, dying to sink its teeth into our bottoms. Miss Gamla came right down to the edge of the canal, waving her stick, trying to connect with any part of Raju’s anatomy that could be reached. The ferrule of the stick caught him on the shoulder and he yelped in pain. Miss Gamla gave a shrill cry of delight. She had scored a hit!

  She made another lunge at Raju, and this time I caught the end of the stick and pulled. Instead of letting go of the stick, Miss Gamla hung on to it. I should have let go then, but on an impulse I gave it a short, sharp pull, and to my horror, both walking stick and Miss Gamla tumbled into the canal.

  Miss Gamla went under for a few seconds. Then she came to the surface, spluttering, and screamed. There was a frenzy of barking from the peke. Why had he been left out of the game? Wisely, he forbore from joining us.

  We went to the aid of Miss Gamla, with every intention of pulling her out of the canal, but she backed away, screaming, ‘Get away from me, get away!’ Fortunately, the walking stick had been carried away by the current.

  Miss Gamla was now in danger of being carried away too. Floundering about, she had backed away to a point where a secondary canal joined the first, and here the current was swift. All the boys, big and small, avoided that spot. It formed a little whirlpool before rushing on.

  ‘Memsahib, be careful!’ called out Pitamber.

  ‘Watch out!’ I shouted, ‘you won’t be able to stand against the current.’

  Raju and Sushil lunged forward to help, but with a look of hatred Miss Gamla turned away and tried to walk downstream. A surge in the current swept her off her legs. Her gown billowed up, turning her into a sailboat, and she moved slowly downstream, arms flailing as she tried to regain her balance.

  We scrambled out of the canal and ran along the bank, hoping to overtake her, but we were hindered by the peke who kept snapping at our heels, and by the fact that we were without our clothes and approaching the busy Dilaram Bazaar.

  Just before the Bazaar, the canal went underground, emerging about two hundred metres further on, at the junction of the Old Survey Road and the East Canal Road. To our horror, we saw Miss Gamla float into the narrow tunnel that carried the canal along its underground journey. If she didn’t get stuck somewhere in the channel, she would emerge — hopefully, still alive — at the other end of the passage.

  We raced back for our clothes, dressed, then ran through the bazaar, and did not stop running until we reached the exit point on the Canal Road. This must have taken ten to fifteen minutes.

  We took up our positions on the culvert where the canal emerged, and waited.

  We waited and waited.

  No sign of Miss Gamla.

  ‘She must be stuck somewhere,’ said Pitamber.

  ‘She’ll drown,’ said Sushil.

  ‘Not our fault,’ argued Raju. ‘If we tell anyone, we’ll get into trouble. They’ll think we pushed her in.’

  ‘We’ll wait a little longer,’ I suggested.

  So we hung about the canal banks, pretending to catch tadpoles, and hoping that Miss Gamla would emerge, preferably alive.

  Her walking stick floated past. We did not touch it. It would be evidence against us, warned Pitamber. The dog had gone home after seeing his mistress disappear down the tunnel.

  ‘Like Alice,’ I thought. Only that was a dream.’

  When it grew dark, we went our different ways, resolving not to mention the episode to anyone. We might be accused of murder! By now, we felt like murderers.

  A week passed, and nothing happened. No bloated body was found floating in the lower reaches of the canal. No memsahib was reported missing.

  They say the guilty always return to the scene of the crime. More out of curiosity than guilt, we came together one afternoon, just before the rains broke, and crept through the shrubbery behind Miss Gamla’s house.

  All was silent, all was still. No one was playing in the canal. The mango trees were unattended. No one touched Miss Gamla’s mangoes. Trespassers were more afraid of her than of her lathi-wielding mali.

  We crept out of the bushes and advanced towards the cool, welcoming water flowing past us.

  And then came a shout from the house.

  ‘Scoundrels! Goondas! Chhokra-boys! I’ll catch you this time!’

  And there stood Miss Gamla, tall and menacing, alive and well, flourishing a brand-new walking stick and advancing down her steps.

  ‘It’s her ghost!’ gasped Raju.

  ‘No, she’s real,’ said Sushil. ‘Must have got out of the canal somehow.’

  ‘Well, at least we aren’t murderers,’ said Pitamber.

  ‘No,’ I agreed. ‘But she’ll murder us if we stand here any longer.’

  Miss Gamla had been joined by her mali, the yelping peke, and a couple of other retainers.

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Raju.

  We fled the scene. And we never went there again. Miss Gamla had won the Battle of Panipat.

  White Mice

  Granny should never have entrusted my Uncle Ken with the job of taking me to the station and putting me on the train for Delhi. He got me to the station all right, but then proceeded to put me on the wrong train!

  I was nine or ten at the time, and I’d been spending part of my winter holidays with my grandparents in Dehra. Now it was time to go back to my parents in Delhi, before joining school again.

  ‘Just make sure that Ruskin gets into the right compartment,’ said Gran to her only son, Kenneth. ‘And make sure he has a berth to himself and a thermos of drinking water.’

  Uncle Ken carried out the instructions. He even bought me a bar of chocolate, consuming most of it himself while telling me how to pass my exams without too much study. (I’ll tell you the secret some day.) The train pulled out of the station and we waved fond goodbyes to each other.

  An hour and two small stations later, I discovered to my horror that I was not on the train to Delhi but on the night express to Lucknow, over 300 miles in the opposite direction. Someone in the compartment suggested that I get down at the next station; another said it would not be wise for a small boy to get off the train at a strange place in the middle of the night. ‘Wait till we get to Lucknow,’ advised another passenger, ‘then send a telegram to your parents.’

  Early next morning the train steamed into Lucknow. One of the passengers kindly took me to the stationmaster’s office. ‘Mr P.K. Ghosh, Stationmaster,’ said the sign over his door. When my predicament had been explained to him, Mr Ghosh looked down at me through his bifocals and said, ‘Yes, yes, we must send a telegram to your parents.’

  ‘I don’t have their address as yet,’ I said. ‘They were to meet me in Delhi. You’d better send a telegram to my grandfather in Dehra.’

  ‘Done, done,’ said Mr Ghosh, who was in the habit of repeating certain words. ‘And me
anwhile, I’ll take you home and introduce you to my family.’

  Mr Ghosh’s house was just behind the station. He had his cook bring me a cup of sweet, milky tea and two large rasgullas.

  ‘You like rasgullas, I hope, I hope?’

  ‘Oh yes, sir,’ I said. ‘Thank you very much.’

  ‘Now let me show you my family.’

  And he took me by the hand and led me to a boarded-up veranda at the back of the house. Here I was amazed to find a miniature railway, complete with a station, railway bungalows, signal boxes, and next to it a miniature fairground complete with swings, roundabout and a ferris wheel. Cavorting on the roundabout and ferris wheel were some fifteen to twenty white mice! Another dozen or so ran in and out of tunnels, and climbed up on a toy train. Mr Ghosh pressed a button and the little train, crowded with white mice, left the station and went rattling off to the far corner of the veranda.

  ‘My hobby for many years,’ said Mr Ghosh. ‘What do you think of it — think of it?’

  ‘I like the train, sir.’

  ‘But not the mice?’

  ‘There are an awful lot of them, sir. They must consume a great many rasgullas!’

  ‘No, no, I don’t give them rasgullas,’ snapped Mr Ghosh, a little annoyed. ‘Just railway biscuits, broken up. These old station biscuits are just the thing for them. Some of our biscuits haven’t been touched for years. Too hard for our teeth. Rasgullas are for you and me! Now I’ll leave you here while I return to the office and send a telegram to your grandfather. These new-fangled telephones never work properly!’

  *

  Grandfather arrived that evening, and in the meantime I helped feed the white mice with railways biscuits, then watched Mr Ghosh operate the toy train. Some of the mice took the train, some played on the swings and roundabouts, while some climbed in and out of Mr Ghosh’s pockets and ran up and down his uniform. By the time Grandfather arrived, I had consumed about a dozen rasgullas and fallen asleep in a huge railway armchair in Mr Ghosh’s living room. I woke up to find the stationmaster busy showing Grandfather his little railway colony of white mice. Grandfather, being a retired railwayman, was more interested in the toy train, but he said polite things about the mice, commending their pink eyes and pretty little feet. Mr Ghosh beamed with pleasure and sent out for more rasgullas.