by Ruskin Bond
The rain swept over the town, cleansing the sky and earth. The trees bent beneath the force of wind and water. The field was a bog, flowers flattened to the ground.
Rusty returned to the room, exhilarated, his body weeping. He was confronted by a flood. The water had come in through the door and the window and the skylight, and the floor was flooded ankle-deep. He took to his bed.
The bed took on the glamour of a deserted island in the middle of the ocean. He dried himself on the sheets, conscious of a warm, sensuous glow. Then he sat on his haunches and gazed out through the window.
The rain thickened, the tempo quickened. There was the banging of a door, the swelling of a gutter, the staccato splutter of the rain rhythmically persistent on the roof. The drain-pipe coughed and choked, the curtain flew to its limit; the lean trees swayed, swayed, bowed with the burden of wind and weather. The road was a rushing torrent, the gravel path inundated with little rivers. The monsoon had arrived!
But the rain stopped as unexpectedly as it had begun.
Suddenly it slackened, dwindled to a shower, petered out. Stillness. The dripping of water from the drain-pipe drilled into the drain. Frogs croaked, hopping around in the slush.
The sun came out with a vengeance. On leaves and petals, drops of water sparkled like silver and gold. A cat emerged from a dry corner of the building, blinking sleepily, unperturbed and unenthusiastic.
The children came running out of their houses.
‘Barsaat, barsaat!’ they shouted.‘The rains have come!’
The rains had come. And the roof became a general bathing-place. The children, the night-watchmen, the dogs, all trooped up the steps to sample the novelty of a freshwater shower on the roof.
The maidan became alive with footballs. The game was called monsoon football, it was played in slush, in mud that was ankle-deep; and the football was heavy and slippery and difficult to kick with bare feet. The bazaar youths played barefooted because, in the first place, boots were too cumbersome for monsoon football, and in the second place they couldn’t be afforded.
But the rains brought Rusty only a momentary elation, just as the first shower had seemed fiercer and fresher than those which followed; for now it rained every day ….
Nothing could be more depressing than the dampness, the mildew, and the sunless heat that wrapped itself round the steaming land. Had Somi or Kishen been with Rusty, he might have derived some pleasure from the elements; had Ranbir been with him, he might have found adventure; but alone, he found only boredom.
He spent an idle hour watching the slow dripping from the pipe outside the door: where do I belong, he wondered, what am I doing, what is going to happen to me …
He was determined to break away from the atmosphere of timelessness and resignation that surrounded him, and decided to leave Dehra.
‘I must go,’ he told himself.‘I do not want to rot like the mangoes at the end of the season, or burn out like the sun at the end of the day. I cannot live like the gardener, the cook and the water-carrier, doing the same task every day of my life. I am not interested in today, I want tomorrow. I cannot live in this same small room all my life, with a family of lizards, living in other people’s homes and never having one of my own. I have to break away. I want to be either somebody or nobody. I don’t want to be anybody.’
He decided to go to Delhi and see the High Commissioner for the United Kingdom, who was sure to give him an assisted passage to England; and he wrote to Somi, telling him of this plan. On his way he would have to pass through Hardwar, and there he would see Kishen; he had the aunt’s address.
At night he slept brokenly, thinking and worrying about the future. He would listen to the vibrant song of the frog who wallowed in the drain at the bottom of the steps, and to the unearthly cry of the jackal, and questions would come to him, disturbing questions about loving and leaving and living and dying, questions that crowded out his sleep.
But on the night before he left Dehra, it was not the croaking of the frog or the cry of the jackal that kept him awake, or the persistent questioning; but a premonition of crisis and of an end to something.
20
The postman brought a letter from Somi.
Dear Rusty, best favourite friend,
Do not ever travel in a third-class compartment. All the way to Amritsar I had to sleep standing up, the carriage was so crowded.
I shall be coming back to Dehra in the spring, in time to watch you play Holi with Ranbir. I know you feel like leaving India and running off to England, but wait until you see me again, all right? You are afraid to die without having done something.You are afraid to die, Rusty, but you have hardly begun to live.
I know you are not happy in Dehra, and you must be lonely. But wait a little, be patient, and the bad days will pass.We don’t know why we live. It is no use trying to know. But we have to live, Rusty, because we really want to. And as long as we want to, we have got to find something to live for, and even die for it. Mother is keeping well and sends you her greetings. Tell me whatever you need.
Somi
Rusty folded the letter carefully, and put it in his shirt pocket; he meant to keep it for ever. He could not wait for Somi’s return; but he knew that their friendship would last a lifetime, and that the beauty of it would always be with him. In and out of Rusty’s life, his turban at an angle, Somi would go, his slippers slapping against his heels for ever …
Rusty had no case or bedding-roll to pack, no belongings at all; only the clothes he wore, which were Somi’s, and about fifty rupees, for which he had to thank Kishen. He had made no preparations for the journey; he would slip away without fuss or bother; insignificant, unnoticed …
An hour before leaving for the station, he lay down to rest. He gazed up at the ceiling, where the lizards scuttled about: callous creatures, unconcerned with his departure: one human was just the same as any other. And the bald maina, hopping on and off the window-sill, would continue to fight and lose more feathers; and the crows and the squirrels in the mango tree, they would be missed by Rusty, but they would not miss him. It was true, one human was no different to any other—except to a dog or a human …
When Rusty left the room, there was activity at the water-tank; clothes were being beaten on the stone, and the ayah’s trinkets were jingling away. Rusty couldn’t bear to say goodbye to the people at the water-tank, so he didn’t close his door, lest they suspect him of leaving. He descended the steps—twenty-two of them, he counted for the last time— and crossed the drain, and walked slowly down the gravel path until he was out of the compound.
He crossed the maidan, where a group of students were playing cricket, whilst another group wrestled; prams were wheeled in and out of the sporting youths; young girls gossiped away the morning. And Rusty remembered his first night on the maidan, when he had been frightened and wet and lonely; and now, though the maidan was crowded, he felt the same loneliness, the same isolation. In the bazaar, he walked with a heavy heart. From the chaat shop came the familiar smell of spices and the crackle of frying fat. And the children bumped him, and the cows blocked the road; and, though he knew they always did these things, it was only now that he noticed them. They all seemed to be holding him, pulling him back.
But he could not return; he was afraid of what lay ahead, he dreaded the unknown, but it was easier to walk forwards than backwards.
The toy-seller made his way through the crowd, children clustering round him, tearing at his pole. Rusty fingered a two-anna piece, and his eye picked out a little plume of red feathers, that seemed to have no useful purpose, and he was determined to buy it.
But before he could make the purchase, someone plucked at his shirt-sleeve.
‘Chotta sahib, chotta sahib,’ said the sweeper boy, Mr Harrison’s servant.
Rusty could not mistake the shaved head and the sparkle of white teeth, and wanted to turn away; ignore the sweeper boy, who was linked up with a past that was distant and yet uncomfortably close. But the h
and plucked at his sleeve, and Rusty felt ashamed, angry with himself for trying to ignore someone who had never harmed him and who couldn’t have been friendlier. Rusty was a sahib no longer, no one was his servant; and he was not an Indian, he had no caste, he could not call another untouchable …
‘You are not at work?’ asked Rusty.
‘No work.’ The sweeper boy smiled, a flash of white in the darkness of his face.
‘What of Mr Harrison, the sahib?’
‘Gone.’
‘Gone,’ said Rusty, and was surprised at not being surprised.‘Where has he gone?’
‘Don’t know, but he gone for good. Before he go, I get sack. I drop the bathroom-water on veranda, and the sahib, he hit me on the head with his hand, put! … I say, Sahib you are cruel, and he say cruelty to animals, no? Then he tell me I get sack, he leaving anyway. I lose two days pay.’
Rusty was filled with both relief and uncertainty, and for the same reason; now there could never be a return, whether he wanted to or not, he could never go back to his old home.
‘What about the others?’ asked Rusty.
‘They still there. Missionary’s wife a fine lady, she give me five rupees before I go.’
‘And you? You are working now?’
Again the sweeper boy flashed his smile.‘No work …’
Rusty didn’t dare offer the boy any money, though it would probably have been accepted; in the sweeper boy he saw nobility, and he could not belittle nobility.
‘I will try to get you work,’ he said, forgetting that he was on his way to the station to buy a one-way ticket, and telling the sweeper boy where he lived.
Instinctively, the sweeper boy did not believe him; he nodded his head automatically, but his eyes signified disbelief; and when Rusty left him, he was still nodding, and to nobody in particular.
*
On the station platform the coolies pushed and struggled, shouted incomprehensibly, lifted heavy trunks with apparent ease. Merchants cried their wares, trundling barrows up and down the platform: soda-water, oranges, betel-nut, halwai sweets … The files swarmed around the open stalls, clustered on glass-covered sweet boxes; the mongrel dogs, ownerless and unfed, roved the platform and railway lines, hunting for scraps of food and stealing at every opportunity.
Ignoring Somi’s advice, Rusty bought a third-class ticket and found an empty compartment. The guard blew his whistle, but nobody took any notice. People continued about their business, certain that the train wouldn’t start for another ten minutes: the Hardwar Mail never did start on time.
Rusty was the only person in the compartment until a fat lady, complaining volubly, oozed in through the door and spread herself across an entire bunk; her plan, it seemed, was to discourage other passengers from coming in. She had beady little eyes, set in a big moon face; and they looked at Rusty in curiosity, darting away whenever they met with his.
Others came in, in quick succession now, for the guard had blown his whistle a second time: a young woman with a baby, a soldier in uniform, a boy of about twelve … they were all poor people; except for the fat lady, who travelled third class in order to save money.
The guard’s whistle blew again, but the train still refused to start. Being the Hardwar Mail, this was but natural; no one ever expected the Hardwar Mail to start on time, for in all its history, it hadn’t done so (not even during the time of the British), and for it to do so now would be a blow to tradition. Everyone was for tradition, and so the Hardwar Mail was not permitted to arrive and depart at the appointed hour; though it was feared that one day some young fool would change the appointed hours. And imagine what would happen if the train did leave on time—the entire railway system would be thrown into confusion for, needless to say, every other train took its time from the Hardwar Mail …
So the guard kept blowing his whistle, and the vendors put their heads in at the windows, selling oranges and newspapers and soda-water …
‘Soda-water!’ exclaimed the fat lady. ‘Who wants soda-water! Why, our farmer here has with him a sohrai of pure cool water, and he will share it with us, will he not? Paanwalla! Call the man, quick, he is not even stopping at the window!’
The guard blew his whistle again.
And they were off.
The Hardwar Mail, true to tradition, pulled out of Dehra station half an hour late.
*
Perhaps it was because Rusty was leaving Dehra forever that he took an unusual interest in everything he saw and heard. Things that would not normally have been noticed by him, now made vivid impressions on his mind: the gesticulations of the coolies as the train drew out of the station, a dog licking a banana skin, a naked child alone amongst a pile of bundles crying its heart out …
The platform, fruit-stalls, advertisement boards, all slipped away.
The train gathered speed, the carriages groaned and creaked and rocked crazily. But, as they left the town and the station behind, the wheels found their rhythm, beating time with the rails and singing a song.
It was a sad song, persistent and fatalistic.
Another life was finishing.
One morning, months ago, Rusty had heard a drum in the forest, a single drum-beat, dhum-tap; and in the stillness of the morning it had been a call, a message, an irresistible force. He had cut away from his roots: he had been replanted, had sprung to life, new life. But it was too quick a growth, rootless, and he had withered. And now he had run away again. No drum now; instead, the pulsating throb and tremor of the train rushing him away; away from India, from Somi, from the chaat shop and the bazaar; and he did not know why, except that he was lost and lonely and tired and old: nearly seventeen, but old …
The little boy beside him knelt in front of the window, and counted the telegraph-posts as they flashed by; they seemed, after a while, to be hurtling past whilst the train stood stationary. Only the rocking of the carriage could be felt.
The train sang through the forests, and sometimes the child waved his hand excitedly and pointed out a deer, the sturdy sambar or delicate chital. Monkeys screamed from tree-tops, or loped beside the train, mothers with their young clinging to their breasts. The jungle was heavy, shutting off the sky, and it was like this for half an hour; then the train came into the open, and the sun struck through the carriage windows. They swung through cultivated land, maize and sugar-cane fields; past squat, mud-hut villages, and teams of bullocks ploughing up the soil; leaving behind only a trail of curling smoke.
Children ran out from the villages—brown, naked children—and waved to the train, crying words of greeting; and the little boy in the compartment waved back and shouted merrily, and then turned to look at his travelling companions, his eyes shining with pleasure.
The child began to chatter about this and that, and the others listened to him good-humouredly; the farmer with simplicity and a genuine interest, the fat lady with a tolerant smile, and the soldier with an air of condescension. The young woman and the baby were both asleep. Rusty felt sleepy himself, and was unable to listen to the small boy; vaguely, he thought of Kishen, and of how surprised and pleased Kishen would be to see him.
Presently he fell asleep.
*
When he awoke, the train was nearing Hardwar; he had slept for almost an hour, but to him it seemed like five minutes.
His throat was dry; and, though his shirt was soaked with perspiration, he shivered a little. His hands trembled, and he had to close his fists to stop the trembling.
At midday the train steamed into Hardwar station, and disgorged its passengers.
The fat lady, who was determined to be the first out of the compartment, jammed the doorway; but Rusty and the soldier outwitted her by climbing out of the window.
Rusty felt better once he was outside the station, but he knew he had a fever. The rocking of the train continued, and the song of the wheels and the rails kept beating in his head. He walked slowly away from the station, comforted by the thought that at Kishen’s aunt’s house there w
ould be food and rest. At night, he would catch the Delhi train.
21
The house was on top of a hill, and from the road Rusty could see the river below, and the temples, and hundreds of people moving about on the long graceful steps that sloped down to the water: for the river was holy, and Hardwar sacred, a place of pilgrimage.
He knocked on the door, and presently there was the sound of bare feet on a stone floor. The door was opened by a lady, but she was a stranger to Rusty, and they looked at each other with puzzled, questioning eyes.
‘Oh … namaste ji,’ faltered Rusty. ‘Does—does Mr Kapoor or his sister live here?’
The lady of the house did not answer immediately. She looked at the boy with a detached interest, trying to guess at his business and intentions. She was dressed simply and well, she had a look of refinement, and Rusty felt sure that her examination of him was no more than natural curiosity.
‘Who are you, please?’ she asked.
‘I am a friend from Dehra. I am leaving India and I want to see Mr Kapoor and his son before I go. Are they here?’
‘Only Mr Kapoor is here,’ she said.‘You can come in.’
Rusty wondered where Kishen and his aunt could be, but he did not want to ask this strange lady; he felt ill at ease in her presence; the house seemed to be hers. Coming straight into the front room from bright sunshine, his eyes took a little time to get used to the dark; but after a moment or two he made out the form of Mr Kapoor, sitting in a cushioned armchair.
‘Hullo, Mister Rusty,’ said Kapoor. ‘It is nice to see you.’
There was a glass of whisky on the table, but Kapoor was not drunk; he was shaved and dressed, and looked a good deal younger than when Rusty had last seen him. But something else was missing. His jovial friendliness, his enthusiasm, had gone. This Kapoor was a different man to the Kapoor of the beard and green dressing-gown.