by Ruskin Bond
‘“We are not planting it for people to see,” said my father. “We are planting it for the earth—and for the birds and animals who live on it and need more food and shelter.”
‘Father told me why mankind, and not only wild creatures, need trees—for keeping the desert away, for attracting rain, for preventing the banks of rivers from being washed away. But everywhere people are cutting down trees without planting new ones. If this continues, then one day there will be no forests at all and the world will become one great desert!
‘The thought of a world without trees became a sort of nightmare for me. It’s one reason why I shall never want to live on a treeless moon! I helped my father in his tree-planting with even greater enthusiasm.
“‘One day the trees will move again,” he said. “They have been standing still for thousands of years, but one day they will move again. There was a time when trees could walk about like people. Then, along came a terrible demon and cast a spell over them, rooting them to one place. But they are always trying to move—see how they reach out with their arms!”
‘On one of our walks along the river bank about a mile upstream from here, we found an island, a small rocky island in the middle of the riverbed. You know what this riverbed is like—dry during summers but flooded during the monsoons. A young tamarind tree was growing in the middle of the island, and my father said, “If a tamarind can grow here, so can other trees.”
‘As soon as the monsoon arrived—and while the river could still be crossed—we set out with a number of mango, laburnum, hibiscus and coral tree saplings and cuttings, and spent the better part of a day planting them on the little island. We made one more visit to the island before the monsoon finally set in. Most of the plants looked quite healthy.
‘The monsoon season is the best time for rambling about. At every turn there is something new to see. Out of earth and rock and leafless bough, the magic touch of the summer rain brings forth new life and verdure. You can almost see the broad-leaved vines growing. Plants spring up in the most unlikely places. A peepul took root on the roof; a mango sprouted on the windowsill. My father and I did not want to remove them, but they had to go if the house was to be prevented from falling down!
“If you two want to live in a tree, that’s all right by me,” said my mother. “But I like having a roof over my head, and I’m not going to have it brought down by a hanging forest. Already I can see roots breaking in through the ceiling!”
‘The visiting trees were carefully removed and transplanted in the garden. Whenever we came indoors from our gardening and sat down to a meal, a ladybird or a caterpillar would invariably walk off our sleeves and wander about the kitchen, much to my mother’s annoyance.
‘There were flowers in the garden, too; my mother loved fragrant flowers, like roses and sweet peas and jasmine and queen of the night. But my father and I found trees more exciting. They kept growing and changing and attracting birds and other visitors.
‘The banyan tree really came to life during the monsoon. The branches were thick with scarlet figs. We couldn’t eat the berries, but the many birds that gathered in the tree—gossipy rosy pastors, quarrelsome mynas, cheerful bulbuls and coppersmiths, and sometimes a noisy, bullying crow—would feast on them. And when night fell and the birds were resting, the dark flying foxes flapped heavily about the tree, chewing and munching loudly as they clambered over the branches.
‘The tree crickets were a band of willing artists who would start singing at almost any time of the day. At the height of the monsoon, the banyan tree was like an orchestra with the musicians constantly tuning up. A small flute in my hand, I would add my shrill piping to that of the crickets and cicadas. But they must have thought poorly of my piping because whenever I played, the insects fell silent!
‘When I grew up, I was married and went to live with your grandfather in Bombay. We were there for many years, and I could only visit my parents here once or twice in all that time. I had no brothers, so when my parents died, they left the house to me. It will be yours one day. Would you rather live here or in that poky little house in the town?’
‘Here,’ said Koki. ‘But only if you are here too, Grandmother.’
‘The trees will be here,’ said Grandmother.
‘And what about the island?’ asked Koki. ‘The trees you planted with your father—are they still there?’
‘You can see them for yourself if you feel like a walk. But I’ll tell you what I found when I came to live here again after twenty years or more. I walked out of the old house and took the same path that my father and I used to take during our walks.
‘It was February, I remember, and as I looked across the dry riverbed, my eye was immediately caught by the spectacular red plumes of the coral blossom. In contrast with the dry riverbed, the island was a small green paradise. When I walked over to the trees, I noticed that a number of parrots had come to live in them. A small spotted deer scampered away to hide in a thicket. And a wild pheasant challenged me with a mellow “who-are-you, who-are-you?”
‘But the trees seemed to know me. I am sure they whispered among themselves and beckoned me nearer.
‘I ran my hands over their barks and it was like touching the hands of old friends. And looking around, I noticed that other small trees and wild plants and grasses had sprung up under the protection of those whom we had planted there.
‘The trees had multiplied! The forest was on the move! In one small corner of the world, my father’s dream was coming true, and trees were walking again!’
‘GOOD SHOT, MEHMOUD!’
t was a long, hot summer that year, but a summer in the plains has its compensations—such as mangoes and melons and lychees and custard apples. The fruit seller came to our house every day, a basket of fresh fruit balanced on his head. One morning, I entered the kitchen to find a bucket full of mangoes, and Mehmoud busy making a large jug of mango milkshake.
‘Pass me some ice, baba, you’ll find it in the bucket. You can have a milkshake now, and another with your lunch. Carpet-sahib thought highly of my milkshakes. During the mango season, he’d have two glasses of mango milkshake first thing in the morning, and then he’d go out and shoot a tiger!’
‘Did you ever shoot a tiger?’ I asked, accepting a glass from Mehmoud and adding a chunk of ice to the milkshake.
‘I shot a leopard once,’ said Mehmoud. ‘I wasn’t supposed to touch the guns, but one morning, after his milkshake, Carpet-sahib said I could accompany him into the jungle, provided I brought along a large thermos full of mango milkshake. It was a hot, humid morning and Carpet-sahib was soon feeling thirsty.
‘“Hold my rifle, Mehmoud, while I have a drink,” he said, and he handed me his gun and took the thermos. While he was quenching his thirst, a kakar—a barking deer—appeared in the open, just fifteen to twenty feet in front of us. ‘Shall I shoot it, sir?” I asked. I’d seen him shooting many times, and I knew how the rifle worked. “Go ahead, old chap,” he said. “Let’s have some venison for dinner.”
‘So I put the rifle to my shoulder, took aim, and fired. It was the first time I’d fired a gun, and the butt sprang back and hit me in the shoulder, while the bullet itself whizzed over the deer and into the tree beneath which it was standing.
‘Away went the kakar, while I held my shoulder in agony. I’d missed it by several feet. But then there was a terrible groan from the branches of the tree, and a huge leopard came crashing through the foliage, falling with a thud at our feet. It was quite dead, baba.
‘I’d missed the kakar and shot a leopard. It must have been watching the deer, waiting to pounce on it, when it was struck by my bullet.
‘“Good shot!” cried Carpet-sahib. ‘Well aimed, Mehmoud, I didn’t see the leopard.’
‘‘‘Nor did I, sir,” I said.
‘“But you shot it all the same,” said Carpet-sahib.
‘And since I did not want the skin, he rewarded me with five hundred rupees. The leopard was stuffed and kept
in his veranda, to scare away the monkeys. Of course he told everyone what a good shot I was, although it was the last time he asked me to hold his gun.’
‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘You shot the leopard, and you saved the life of the pretty deer. And your mango milkshake is the best in the world.’
‘Thank you, baba,’ said Mehmoud, refilling my glass. ‘This is a good year for mangoes.’
And it was a good year for mango milkshakes. As I discovered.
THE SNAKE
When, after days of rain,
The sun appears,
The snake emerges,
Green-gold on the grass.
Kept in so long,
He basks for hours,
Soaks up the hot bright sun.
Knowing how shy he is of me,
I walk a gentle pace,
Letting him doze in peace.
But to the snake, earth-bound,
Each step must sound like thunder.
He glides away,
Goes underground.
I’ve known him for some years:
A harmless green grass-snake,
Who, when he sees me on the path,
Uncoils and disappears.
THE ELEPHANT AND THE CASSOWARY BIRD
he baby elephant wasn’t out of place in our home in North India because India is where elephants belong, and in any case, our house was full of pets brought home by Grandfather, who was in the Forest Service. But the cassowary bird was different. No one had ever seen such a bird before—not in India, that is. Grandfather had picked it up on a voyage to Singapore, where he’d been given the bird by a rubber planter who’d got it from a Dutch trader who’d got it from a man in Indonesia.
Anyway, it ended up at our home in Dehra, and seemed to do quite well in the subtropical climate. It looked like a cross between a turkey and an ostrich, but bigger than the former and smaller than the latter—about five feet in height. It was not a beautiful bird, nor even a friendly one, but it had come to stay, and everyone was curious about it, especially the baby elephant.
Right from the start, the baby elephant took a great interest in the cassowary, a bird unlike any found in the Indian jungles. He would circle round the odd creature, and diffidently examine with his trunk the texture of its stumpy wings. Of course he suspected no evil, and his childlike curiosity encouraged him to take liberties which resulted in an unpleasant experience.
Noticing the baby elephant’s attempts to make friends with the rather morose cassowary, we felt a bit apprehensive. Self-contained and sullen, the big bird responded only by slowly and slyly raising one of its powerful legs, in the meantime gazing into space with an innocent air. We knew what the gesture meant; we had seen that treacherous leg raised on many an occasion, and suddenly shooting out with a force that would have done credit to a vicious camel. In fact, camel and cassowary kicks are delivered on the same plan, except that the camel kicks backward like a horse and the bird forward.
We wished to spare our baby elephant a painful experience, and led him away from the bird. But he persisted in his friendly overtures, and one morning, he received an ugly reward. Rapid as lightning, the cassowary hit straight from the hip and knee joints, and the elephant ran squealing to Grandfather.
For several days he avoided the cassowary, and we thought he had learnt his lesson. He crossed and recrossed the compound and the garden, swinging his trunk, thinking furiously. Then, a week later, he appeared on the veranda at breakfast time in his usual cheery, childlike fashion, sidling up to the cassowary as if nothing had happened.
We were struck with amazement at this and so, it seemed, was the bird. Had the painful lesson already been forgotten, and by a member of the elephant tribe noted for its ability to never forget? Another dose of the same medicine would serve the booby right.
The cassowary once more began to draw up its fighting leg with sinister determination. It was nearing the true position for the master kick, kung fu style, when all of a sudden the baby elephant seized with his trunk the cassowary’s other leg and pulled it down. There was a clumsy flapping of wings, a tremendous swelling of the bird’s wattle, and an undignified getting up, as if it were a floored boxer doing his best to beat the count of ten. The bird then marched off with an attempt to look stately and unconcerned, while we at the breakfast table were convulsed with laughter.
After this, the cassowary bird gave the baby elephant as wide a berth as possible. But they were not forced to coexist for very long. The baby elephant, getting bulky and cumbersome, was sold and now lives in a zoo where he is a favourite with young visitors who love to take rides on his back.
As for the cassowary, he continued to grace our veranda for many years, gaped at but not made much of, while entering on a rather friendless old age.
TIGERS FOREVER
May there always be tigers
In the jungles and tall grass.
May the tiger’s roar be heard,
May his thunder
Be known in the land.
At the forest pool, by moonlight,
May he drink and raise his head,
Scenting the night wind.
May he crouch low in the grass
When the herdsmen pass,
And slumber in dark caverns
When the sun is high.
May there always be tigers.
But not so many, that one of them
Might be tempted to come into my room
In search of a meal!
THE TIGER IN THE TUNNEL
embu, the boy, opened his eyes in the dark and wondered if his father was ready to leave the hut on his nightly errand. There was no moon that night, and the deathly stillness of the surrounding jungle was broken only occasionally by the shrill cry of a cicada. Sometimes from far off came the hollow hammering of a woodpecker, carried along on the faint breeze. Or the grunt of a wild boar could be heard as he dug up a favourite root. But these sounds were rare, and the silence of the forest always returned to swallow them up.
Baldeo, the watchman, was awake. He stretched himself, slowly unwinding the heavy shawl that covered him like a shroud. It was close on midnight and the chilly air made him shiver. The station, a small shack backed by heavy jungle, was a station only in name; for trains only stopped there, if at all, for a few seconds before entering the deep cutting that led to the tunnel. Most trains merely slowed down before taking the sharp curve before the cutting.
Baldeo was responsible for signalling whether or not the tunnel was clear of obstruction, and his hand-worked signal stood before the entrance. At night, it was his duty to see that the lamp was burning, and that the overland mail passed through safely.
‘Shall I come too, Father?’ asked Tembu sleepily, still lying huddled in a corner of the hut.
‘No, it is cold tonight. Do not get up.’
Tembu, who was twelve, did not always sleep with his father at the station, for he also had to help in the home, where his mother and small sister were usually alone. They lived in a small tribal village on the outskirts of the forest, about three miles from the station. Their small rice fields did not provide them with more than a bare living, and Baldeo considered himself lucky to have got the job of khalasi at this small wayside signal-stop.
Still drowsy, Baldeo groped for his lamp in the darkness, then fumbled about in search of matches. When he had produced a light, he left the hut, closed the door behind him, and set off along the permanent way. Tembu had fallen asleep again.
Baldeo wondered whether the lamp on the signal post was still alight. Gathering his shawl closer about him, he stumbled on, sometimes along the rails, sometimes along the ballast. He longed to get back to his warm corner in the hut.
The eeriness of the place was increased by the neighbouring hills, which overhung the main line threateningly. On entering the cutting, with its sheer rock walls towering high above the rails, Baldeo could not help thinking about the wild animals he might encounter. He had heard many tales of the famous tu
nnel tiger, a man-eater who was supposed to frequent this spot; but he hardly believed these stories for, since his arrival at this place a month ago, he had not seen or even heard a tiger.
There had, of course, been panthers, and only a few days previously the villagers had killed one with their spears and axes. Baldeo had occasionally heard the sawing of a panther calling to its mate, but they had not come near the tunnel or shed.
Baldeo walked confidently for, being a tribal himself, he was used to the jungle and its ways. Like his forefathers, he carried a small axe, fragile to look at, but deadly when in use. With it, in three or four swift strokes, he could cut down a tree as neatly as if it had been sawn; and he prided himself on his skill in wielding it against wild animals. He had killed a young boar with it once, and the family had feasted on the flesh for three days. The axe-head of pure steel, thin but ringing true like a bell, had been made by his father over a charcoal fire. This axe was a part of himself, and wherever he went, be it to the local market seven miles away, or to a tribal dance, the axe was always in his hand. Occasionally an official who had come to the station had offered him good money for the weapon; but Baldeo had no intention of parting with it.
The cutting curved sharply, and in the darkness, the black entrance to the tunnel loomed up menacingly. The signal light was out. Baldeo set to work to haul the lamp down by its chain. If the oil had finished, he would have to return to the hut for more. The mail train was due in five minutes.
Once more he fumbled for his matches. Then suddenly he stood still and listened. The frightened cry of a barking deer, followed by a crashing sound in the undergrowth, made Baldeo hurry. There was still a little oil in the lamp, and after an instant’s hesitation he lit the lamp again and hoisted it back into position. Having done this, he walked quickly down the tunnel, swinging his own lamp, so that the shadows leapt up and down the soot-stained walls, and having made sure that the line was clear, he returned to the entrance and sat down to wait for the mail train.