by Ruskin Bond
‘Now—now do you realize—I am a Punjabi?’ gasped the stranger.
‘Do you know I am a Rajput?’ said Ranji with difficulty.
They gave a moment’s consideration to each other’s answers, and in that moment of silence there was only their heavy breathing and the rapid beating of their hearts.
‘Then you will not leave the pool?’ said the Punjabi boy.
‘I will not leave it,’ said Ranji.
‘Then we shall have to continue the fight,’ said the other.
‘All right,’ said Ranji.
But neither boy moved, neither took the initiative.
The Punjabi boy had an inspiration.
‘We will continue the fight tomorrow,’ he said. ‘If you dare to come here again tomorrow, we will continue this fight, and I will not show you mercy as I have done today.’
‘I will come tomorrow,’ said Ranji. ‘I will be ready for you.’
They turned from each other then and, going to their respective rocks, put on their clothes, and left the forest by different routes.
When Ranji got home, he found it difficult to explain the cuts and bruises that showed on his face, leg and arms. It was difficult to conceal the fact that he had been in an unusually violent fight, and his mother insisted on his staying at home for the rest of the day. That evening, though, he slipped out of the house and went to the bazaar, where he found comfort and solace in a bottle of vividly coloured lemonade and a banana leaf full of hot, sweet jalebis. He had just finished the lemonade when he saw his adversary coming down the road. His first impulse was to turn away and look elsewhere, his second to throw the lemonade bottle at his enemy. But he did neither of these things. Instead, he stood his ground and scowled at his passing adversary. And the Punjabi boy said nothing either, but scowled back with equal ferocity.
The next day was as hot as the previous one. Ranji felt weak and lazy and not at all eager for a fight. His body was stiff and sore after the previous day’s encounter. But he could not refuse the challenge. Not to turn up at the pool would be an acknowledgement of defeat. From the way he felt just then, he knew he would be beaten in another fight. But he could not acquiesce in his own defeat. He must defy his enemy to the last, or outwit him, for only then could he gain his respect. If he surrendered now, he would be beaten for all time; but to fight and be beaten today left him free to fight and be beaten again. As long as he fought, he had a right to the pool in the forest.
He was half hoping that the Punjabi boy would have forgotten the challenge, but these hopes were dashed when he saw his opponent sitting, stripped to the waist, on a rock on the other side of the pool. The Punjabi boy was rubbing oil on his body, massaging it into his broad thighs. He saw Ranji beneath the sal trees, and called a challenge across the waters of the pool.
‘Come over on this side and fight!’ he shouted.
But Ranji was not going to submit to any conditions laid down by his opponent.
‘Come this side and fight!’ he shouted back with equal vigour.
‘Swim across and fight me here!’ called the other. ‘Or perhaps you cannot swim the length of this pool?’
But Ranji could have swum the length of the pool a dozen times without tiring, and here he would show the Punjabi boy his superiority. So, slipping out of his vest and shorts, he dived straight into the water, cutting through it like a knife, and surfaced with hardly a splash. The Punjabi boy’s mouth hung open in amazement.
‘You can dive!’ he exclaimed.
‘It is easy,’ said Ranji, treading water, waiting for a further challenge. ‘Can’t you dive?’
‘No,’ said the other. ‘I jump straight in. But if you will tell me how, I will make a dive.’
‘It is easy,’ said Ranji. ‘Stand on the rock, stretch your arms out and allow your head to displace your feet.’
The Punjabi boy stood up, stiff and straight, stretched out his arms, and threw himself into the water. He landed flat on his belly, with a crash that sent the birds screaming out of the trees.
Ranji dissolved into laughter.
‘Are you trying to empty the pool?’ he asked, as the Punjabi boy came to the surface, spouting water like a small whale.
‘Wasn’t it good?’ asked the boy, evidently proud of his feat.
‘Not very good,’ said Ranji. ‘You should have more practice. See, I will do it again.’
And pulling himself up on a rock, he executed another perfect dive. The other boy waited for him to come up, but, swimming under water, Ranji circled him and came upon him from behind.
‘How did you do that?’ asked the astonished youth.
‘Can’t you swim under water?’ asked Ranji. ‘No, but I will try it.’
The Punjabi boy made a tremendous effort to plunge to the bottom of the pool and indeed he thought he had gone right down, though his bottom, like a duck’s, remained above the surface.
Ranji, however, did not discourage him.
‘It was not bad,’ he said. ‘But you need a lot of practice.’
‘Will you teach me?’ asked his enemy.
‘If you like, I will teach you.’
‘You must teach me. If you do not teach me, I will beat you. Will you come here every day and teach me?’
‘If you like,’ said Ranji. They had pulled themselves out of the water, and were sitting side by side on a smooth grey rock.
‘My name is Suraj,’ said the Punjabi boy. ‘What is yours?’
‘It is Ranji.’
‘I am strong, am I not?’ asked Suraj, bending his arm so that a ball of muscle stood up stretching the white of his flesh.
‘You are strong,’ said Ranji. ‘You are a real pahelwan.’
‘One day I will be the world’s champion wrestler,’ said Suraj, slapping his thighs, which shook with the impact of his hand. He looked critically at Ranji’s hard thin body. ‘You are quite strong yourself,’ he conceded. ‘But you are too bony. I know, you people do not eat enough. You must come and have your food with me. I drink one seer of milk every day. We have got our own cow! Be my friend, and I will make you a pahelwan like me! I know—if you teach me to dive and swim underwater, I will make you a pahelwan! That is fair, isn’t it?’
‘That is fair!’ said Ranji, though he doubted if he was getting the better of the exchange.
Suraj put his arm around the younger boy and said, ‘We are friends now, yes?’
They looked at each other with honest, unflinching eyes, and in that moment love and understanding were born.
‘We are friends,’ said Ranji.
The birds had settled again in their branches, and the pool was quiet and limpid in the shade of the sal trees.
‘It is our pool,’ said Suraj. ‘Nobody else can come here without our permission.
‘Who would dare?’ said Ranji, smiling with the knowledge that he had won the day.
The Crooked Tree
‘You must pass your exams and go to college, but do not feel that if you fail, you will be able to do nothing.’
y room in Shahganj was very small. I had paced about in it so often that I knew its exact measurements: twelve feet by ten. The string of my cot needed tightening. The dip in the middle was so pronounced that I invariably woke up in the morning with a backache; but I was hopeless at tightening charpoy strings.
Under the cot was my tin trunk. Its contents ranged from old, rejected manuscripts to clothes and letters and photographs. I had resolved that one day, when I had made some money with a book, I would throw the trunk and everything else out of the window, and leave Shahganj forever. But until then I was a prisoner. The rent was nominal, the window had a view of the bus stop and rickshaw stand, and I had nowhere else to go.
I did not live entirely alone. Sometimes a beggar spent the night on the balcony; and, during cold or wet weather, the boys from the tea shop, who normally slept on the pavement, crowded into the room.
Usually I woke early in the mornings, as sleep was fitful, uneasy, crowded with dreams.
I knew it was five o’clock when I heard the first upcountry bus leaving its shed. I would then get up and take a walk in the fields beyond the railroad tracks.
One morning, while I was walking in the fields, I noticed someone lying across the pathway, his head and shoulders hidden by the stalks of young sugar cane. When I came near, I saw he was a boy of about sixteen. His body was twitching convulsively, his face was very white, except where a little blood had trickled down his chin. His legs kept moving and his hands fluttered restlessly, helplessly.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ I asked, kneeling down beside him.
But he was still unconscious and could not answer me. I ran down the footpath to a well and, dipping the end of my shirt in a shallow trough of water, ran back and sponged the boy’s face. The twitching ceased and, though he still breathed heavily his hands became still and his face calm. He opened his eyes and stared at me without any immediate comprehension.
‘You have bitten your tongue,’ I said, wiping the blood from his mouth. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll stay with you until you feel better.’
He sat up now and said, ‘I’m all right, thank you.’
‘What happened?’ I asked, sitting down beside him.
‘Oh, nothing much. It often happens, I don’t know why. But I cannot control it.’
‘Have you seen a doctor?’
‘I went to the hospital in the beginning. They gave me some pills, which I had to take every day. But the pills made me so tired and sleepy that I couldn’t work properly. So I stopped taking them. Now this happens once or twice a month. But what does it matter? I’m all right when it’s over, and I don’t feel anything while it is happening.’
He got to his feet, dusting his clothes and smiling at me. He was slim, long-limbed and bony. There was a little fluff on his cheeks and the promise of a moustache.
‘Where do you live?’ I asked. ‘I’ll walk back with you.’
‘I don’t live anywhere,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I sleep in the temple, sometimes in the gurdwara. In summer months I sleep in the municipal gardens.’
‘Well, then let me come with you as far as the gardens.’
He told me that his name was Kamal, that he studied at the Shahganj High School, and that he hoped to pass his examinations in a few months’ time. He was studying hard and, if he passed with a good division, he hoped to attend a college. If he failed, there was only the prospect of continuing to live in the municipal gardens…
He carried with him a small tray of merchandise, supported by straps that went round his shoulders. In it were combs and buttons and cheap toys and little vials of perfume. All day he walked about Shahganj, selling odds and ends to people in the bazaar or at their houses. He made, on an average, two rupees a day, which was enough for his food and his school fees.
He told me all this while we walked back to the bus stand. I returned to my room, to try and write something, while Kamal went on to the bazaar to try and sell his wares. There was nothing very unusual about Kamal’s being an orphan and a refugee. During the communal holocaust of 1947, thousands of homes had been broken up, and women and children had been killed. What was unusual in Kamal was his sensitivity, a quality I thought rare in a Punjabi youth who had grown up in the Frontier provinces during a period of hate and violence. And it was not so much his positive attitude to life that appealed to me (most people in Shahganj were completely resigned to their lot) as his gentleness, his quiet voice and the smile that flickered across his face regardless of whether he was sad or happy. In the morning, when I opened my door, I found Kamal asleep at the top of the steps. His tray lay a few feet away. I shook him gently, and he woke at once.
‘Have you been sleeping here all night?’ I asked. ‘Why didn’t you come inside?’
‘It was very late,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want to disturb you.’
‘Someone could have stolen your things while you slept.’
‘Oh, I sleep quite lightly. Besides, I have nothing of special value. But I came to ask you something.’
‘Do you need any money?’
‘No. I want you to take your meal with me tonight.’
‘But where? You don’t have a place of your own. It will be too expensive in a restaurant.’
‘In your room,’ said Kamal. ‘I will bring the food and cook it here. You have a stove?’
‘I think so,’ I said. ‘I will have to look for it.’
‘I will come at seven,’ said Kamal, strapping on his tray. ‘Don’t worry. I know how to cook!’
He ran down the steps and made for the bazaar. I began to look for the oil stove, found it at the bottom of my tin trunk, and then discovered I hadn’t any pots or pans or dishes. Finally, I borrowed these from Deep Chand, the barber.
Kamal brought a chicken for our dinner. This was a costly luxury in Shahganj, to be taken only two or three times a year. He had bought the bird for three rupees, which was cheap, considering it was not too skinny. While Kamal set about roasting it, I went down to the bazaar and procured a bottle of beer on credit, and this served as an appetizer.
‘We are having an expensive meal,’ I observed. ‘Three rupees for the chicken and three rupees for the beer. But I wish we could do it more often.’
‘We should do it at least once a month,’ said Kamal. ‘It should be possible if we work hard.’
‘You know how to work. You work from morning to night.’
‘But you are a writer, Rusty. That is different. You have to wait for a mood.’
‘Oh, I’m not a genius that I can afford the luxury of moods. No, I’m just lazy, that’s all.’
‘Perhaps you are writing the wrong things.’
‘I know I am. But I don’t know how I can write anything else.’
‘Have you tried?’
‘Yes, but there is no money in it. I wish I could make a living in some other way. Even if I repaired cycles, I would make more money.’
‘Then why not repair cycles?’
‘No, I will not repair cycles. I would rather be a bad writer than a good repairer of cycles. But let us not think of work. There is time enough for work. I want to know more about you.’
Kamal did not know if his parents were alive or dead. He had lost them, literally, when he was six. It happened at the Amritsar railroad station, where trains coming across the border disgorged thousands of refugees, or pulled into the station half-empty, drenched with blood and littered with corpses.
Kamal and his parents were lucky to escape the massacre. Had they travelled on an earlier train (they had tried desperately to get into one), they might well have been killed; but circumstances favoured them then, only to trick them later.
Kamal was clinging to his mother’s sari, while she remained close to her husband, who was elbowing his way through the frightened, bewildered throng of refugees. Glancing over his shoulder at a woman who lay on the ground, wailing and beating her breasts, Kamal collided with a burly Sikh and lost his grip on his mother’s sari.
The Sikh had a long curved sword at his waist; and Kamal stared up at him in awe and fascination—at his long hair, which had fallen loose, and his wild black beard, and the bloodstains on his white shirt. The Sikh pushed him out of the way and when Kamal looked around for his mother, she was not to be seen. She was hidden from him by a mass of restless bodies, pushed in different directions. He could hear her calling, ‘Kamal, where are you, Kamal?’ He tried to force his way through the crowd, in the direction of the voice, but he was carried the other way…
At night, when the platform was empty, he was still searching for his mother. Eventually, some soldiers took him away. They looked for his parents, but without success, and finally, they sent Kamal to a refugee camp. From there he went to an orphanage. But when he was eight, and felt himself a man, he ran away.
He worked for some time as a helper in a tea shop; but, when he started getting epileptic fits, the shopkeeper asked him to leave, and he found himself on the streets, begging for a living. He beg
ged for a year, moving from one town to another, and ended up finally at Shahganj. By then he was twelve and too old to beg; but he had saved some money, and with it he bought a small stock of combs, buttons, cheap perfumes and bangles; and, converting himself into a mobile shop, went from door to door, selling his wares.
Shahganj was a small town, and there was no house which Kamal hadn’t visited. Everyone recognized him, and there were some who offered him food and drink; the children knew him well, because he played on a small flute whenever he made his rounds, and they followed him to listen to the flute.
I began to look forward to Kamal’s presence. He dispelled some of my own loneliness. I found I could work better, knowing that I did not have to work alone. And Kamal came to me, perhaps because I was the first person to have taken a personal interest in his life, and because I saw nothing frightening in his sickness. Most people in Shahganj thought epilepsy was infectious; some considered it a form of divine punishment for sins committed in a former life. Except for children, those who knew of his condition generally gave him a wide berth.
At sixteen, a boy grows like young wheat, springing up so fast that he is unaware of what is taking place within him. His mind quickens, his gestures become more confident. Hair sprouts like young grass on his face and chest, and his muscles begin to mature. Never again will he experience so much change and growth in so short a time. He is full of currents and countercurrents.
Kamal combined the bloom of youth with the beauty of the short-lived. It made me sad even to look at his pale, slim body. It hurt me to look into his eyes. Life and death were always struggling in their depths.
‘Should I go to Delhi and take up a job?’ I asked.
‘Why not? You are always talking about it.’
‘Why don’t you come, too? Perhaps they can stop your fits.’
‘We will need money for that. When I have passed my examinations, I will come.’
‘Then I will wait,’ I said. I was twenty-two, and there was world enough and time for everything.