by Ruskin Bond
I was an uneasy observer of the scene. I felt that I ought to do something to put a stop to it, but lacked the courage to interfere. It was only when a stone struck the boy on the face, cutting open his cheek, that I lost my normal discretion and ran in amongst the boys, shouting at them and clouting those I could reach. They scattered like defeated soldiery.
I was surprised at my own daring, and rather relieved when the boys did not return. I took the frightened, angry boy by the hand, and asked him where he lived. He drew away from me, but I held on to his fat little fingers and told him I would take him home. He mumbled something incoherent and pointed down a narrow lane. I led him away from the bazaar.
I said very little to the boy because it was obvious that he had some defect of speech. When he stopped outside a door set in a high wall, I presumed that we had come to his house.
The door was opened by a young woman. The boy immediately threw his arms around her and burst into tears. I had not been prepared for the boy’s mother. Not only did she look perfectly normal physically, but she was also strikingly handsome. She must have been about thirty-five.
She thanked me for bringing her son home, and asked me into the house. The boy withdrew into a corner of the sitting room, and sat on his haunches in gloomy silence, his bow legs looking even more grotesque in this posture. His mother offered me tea, but I asked for a glass of water. She asked the boy to fetch it, and he did so, thrusting the glass into my hands without looking me in the face.
‘Suresh is my only son,’ she said. ‘My husband is disappointed in him, but I love my son. Do you think he is very ugly?’
‘Ugly is just a word,’ I said. ‘Like beauty. They mean different things to different people. What did the poet say?—“Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” But if beauty and truth are the same thing, why have different words? There are no absolutes except birth and death.’
The boy squatted down at her feet, cradling his head in her lap. With the end of her sari, she began wiping his face.
‘Have you tried teaching him to talk properly?’ I asked.
‘He has been like this since childhood. The doctors can do nothing.’
While we were talking the father came in, and the boy slunk away to the kitchen. The man thanked me curtly for bringing the boy home, and seemed at once to dismiss the whole matter from his mind. He seemed preoccupied with business matters. I got the impression that he had long since resigned himself to having a deformed son, and his early disappointment had changed to indifference. When I got up to leave, his wife accompanied me to the front door.
‘Please do not mind if my husband is a little rude,’ she said. ‘His business is not going too well. If you would like to come again, please do. Suresh does not meet many people who treat him like a normal person.’
I knew that I wanted to visit them again—more out of sympathy for the mother than out of pity for the boy. But I realized that she was not interested in me personally, except as a possible mentor for her son.
After about a week I went to the house again.
Suresh’s father was away on a business trip, and I stayed for lunch. The boy’s mother made some delicious paranthas stuffed with grated radish, and served it with pickle and curds. If Suresh ate like an animal, gobbling his food, I was not far behind him. His mother encouraged him to overeat. He was morose and uncommunicative when he ate, but when I suggested that he come with me for a walk, he looked up eagerly. At the same time a look of fear passed across his mother’s face.
‘Will it be all right?’ she asked. ‘You have seen how other children treat him. That day he had slipped out of the house without telling anyone.’
‘We won’t go towards the bazaar,’ I said. ‘I was thinking of a walk in the fields.’
Suresh made encouraging noises and thumped the table with his fists to show that he wanted to go. Finally his mother consented, and the boy and I set off down the road.
He could not walk very fast because of his awkward legs, but this gave me a chance to point out to him anything that I thought might arouse his interest— parrots squabbling in a banyan tree, buffaloes wallowing in a muddy pond, a group of hermaphrodite musicians strolling down the road. Suresh took a keen interest in the hermaphrodites, perhaps because they were grotesque in their own way: tall, masculine-looking people dressed in women’s garments, ankle bells jingling on their heavy feet, and their long, gaunt faces made up with rouge and mascara. For the first time, I heard Suresh laugh. Apparently he had discovered that there were human beings even odder than him. And like any human being, he lost no time in deriding them.
‘Don’t laugh,’ I said. ‘They were born that way, just as you were born the way you are.’
But he did not take me seriously and grinned, his wide mouth revealing surprisingly strong teeth.
We reached the dry riverbed on the outskirts of the town and crossing it entered a field of yellow mustard flowers. The mustard stretched away towards the edge of a subtropical forest. Seeing trees in the distance, Suresh began to run towards them, shouting and clapping his hands. He had never been out of town before. The courtyard of his house and, occasionally, the road to the bazaar, were all that he had seen of the world. Now the trees beckoned him.
We found a small stream running through the forest and I took off my clothes and leapt into the cool water, inviting Suresh to join me. He hesitated about taking off his clothes, but after watching me for a while, his eagerness to join me overcame his self-consciousness, and he exposed his misshapen little body to the soft spring sunshine.
He waded clumsily towards me. The water which came only to my knees reached up to his chest.
‘Come, I’ll teach you to swim,’ I said. And lifting him up from the waist, I held him afloat. He spluttered and thrashed around, but stopped struggling when he found that he could stay afloat.
Later, sitting on the banks of the stream, he discovered a small turtle sitting over a hole in the ground in which it had laid its eggs. He had never seen a turtle before, and watched it in fascination, while it drew its head into its shell and then thrust it out again with extreme circumspection. He must have felt that the turtle resembled him in some respects, with its squat legs, rounded back, and tendency to hide its head from the world.
After that I went to the boy’s house about twice a week, and we nearly always visited the stream. Before long Suresh was able to swim a short distance. Knowing how to swim—this was something the bazaar boys never learnt—gave him a certain confidence, made his life something more than a one-dimensional existence.
The more I saw Suresh, the less conscious was I of his deformities. For me, he was fast becoming the norm; while the children of the bazaar seemed abnormal in their very similarity to each other. That he was still conscious of his ugliness—and how could he ever cease to be—was made clear to me about two months after our first meeting.
We were coming home through the mustard fields, which had turned from yellow to green, when I noticed that we were being followed by a small goat. It appeared to have been separated from its mother, and now attached itself to us. Though I tried driving the kid away, it continued tripping along at our heels, and when Suresh found that it persisted in accompanying us, he picked it up and took it home.
The kid became his main obsession during the next few days. He fed it with his own hands and allowed it to sleep at the foot of his bed. It was a pretty little kid, with fairy horns and an engaging habit of doing a hop, skip and jump when moving about the house. Everyone admired the pet, and the boy’s mother and I both remarked on how pretty it was.
His resentment against the animal began to show when others started admiring it. He suspected that they found it better-looking than its owner. I remember finding him squatting in front of a low mirror, holding the kid in his arms, and studying their reflections in the glass. After a few minutes of this, Suresh thrust the goat away. When he noticed that I was watching him, he got up and left the room without looking at me.
&nbs
p; Two days later, when I called at the house, I found his mother looking very upset. I could see that she had been crying. But she seemed relieved to see me, and took me into the sitting room. When Suresh saw me, he got up from the floor and ran to the veranda.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
‘It was the little goat,’ she said. ‘Suresh killed it.’
She told me how Suresh, in a sudden and uncontrollable rage, had thrown a brick at the kid, breaking its skull. What had upset her more than the animal’s death was the fact that Suresh had shown no regret for what he had done.
‘I’ll talk to him,’ I said, and went out to the veranda, but the boy had disappeared.
‘He must have gone to the bazaar,’ said his mother anxiously. ‘He does that when he’s upset. Sometimes I think he likes to be teased and beaten.’
He was not in the bazaar. I found him near the stream, lying flat on his belly in the soft mud, chasing tadpoles with a stick.
‘Why did you kill the goat?’ I asked.
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘Did you enjoy killing it?’
He looked at me and smiled and nodded his head vigorously.
‘How very cruel,’ I said. But I did not mean it. I knew that his cruelty was no different from mine or anyone else’s; only his was an untrammelled cruelty, primitive, as yet undisguised by civilizing restraints.
He took a penknife from his shirt pocket, opened it, and held it out to me by the blade. He pointed to his bare stomach and motioned me to thrust the blade into his belly. He had such a mournful look on his face (the result of having offended me and not in remorse for the goat-sacrifice) that I had to burst out laughing.
‘You are a funny fellow,’ I said, taking the knife from him and throwing it into the stream. ‘Come, let’s have a swim.’
We swam all afternoon, and Suresh went home smiling. His mother and I conspired to keep the whole affair a secret from his father—who had not in any case been aware of the goat’s presence.
Suresh seemed quite contented during the following weeks. And then I received a letter from Kamal in Delhi, inviting me to his wedding. I decided to attend it, and to move from Shahganj to Dehra. For some time now, nostalgic memories of Dehra had been occupying my mind, and I also felt that I had stayed long enough in Shahganj. It was time to move on, and what better place than my dear Dehra?
The boy’s mother was disappointed, even depressed, when I told her I would be going away. I think she had grown quite fond of me. But the boy, always unpredictable, displayed no feeling at all. I felt a little hurt by his apparent indifference. Did our weeks of companionship mean nothing to him? I told myself that he probably did not realize that he might never see me again.
On the evening my train was to leave, I went to the house to say goodbye. Ketan was accompanying me to Delhi, as he had never been there before. He planned to return to Shahganj after Kamal’s wedding. The boy’s mother made me promise to write to them, but Suresh seemed cold and distant, and refused to sit near me or take my hand. He made me feel like an outsider again—one of the mob throwing stones at odd and frightening people.
At eight o’clock that evening Ketan and I entered a third-class compartment and, after a brief scuffle with several other travellers, succeeded in securing a seat near a window. It enabled us to look down the length of the platform.
The guard had blown his whistle and the train was about to leave, when I saw Suresh standing near the station turnstile, looking up and down the platform.
‘Suresh!’ I shouted and he heard me and came hobbling along the platform. He had run the gauntlet of the bazaar during the busiest hour of the evening.
‘I’ll be back next year,’ I called.
The train had begun moving out of the station, and as I waved to Suresh, he broke into a stumbling run, waving his arms in frantic, restraining gestures.
I saw him stumble against someone’s bedding-roll and fall sprawling on the ground. The engine picked up speed and the platform receded.
And that was the last I saw of Suresh, lying alone on the crowded platform, alone in the great grey darkness of the world, crooked and bent and twisted—the most beautiful boy in the world.
The Night Train at Deoli
WOULD THERE BE any changes in Dehra? I’d been away for the past five years from this place that I loved so much, and I was eager to get back. Kamal’s wedding had been a grand affair (of course, Bhabiji had got her way and found a fair, educated and beautiful bride for him), and Ketan had gone back to Shahganj. And here I was, sitting in the train to Dehra. I was so excited with thoughts of meeting my old Dehra friends and acquaintances that I could hardly sleep.
The train would reach Deoli (which was about thirty miles from Dehra) at about five in the morning when the station would be dimly lit with electric bulbs and oil lamps and the jungle across the railway tracks would just be visible in the faint light of dawn. Deoli had only one platform, an office for the stationmaster and a waiting room. A tea stall, a fruit vendor, and a few stray dogs—that was all Deoli platform had; not much else because the train stopped there for only ten minutes before rushing on into the forests.
But I could never forget Deoli, not after that one night many years ago.
I was about twenty-three years old, and returning to Dehra after my stint abroad. I’d taken the same train from Delhi, and on that trip too, I’d been unable to sleep. The train had stopped at Deoli. A girl came down the platform selling baskets.
It was a cold morning and the girl had a shawl thrown across her shoulders. Her feet were bare and her clothes were old but she was a young girl, walking gracefully and with dignity.
When she came to my window, she stopped. She saw that I was looking at her intently but at first she pretended not to notice. She had a pale skin, set off by shiny black hair and dark, troubled eyes. And then those eyes, searching and eloquent, met mine.
She stood by my window for some time and neither of us said anything. But when she moved on, I found myself leaving my seat and going to the carriage door. I stood waiting on the platform looking the other way. I walked across to the tea stall. A kettle was boiling over on a small fire but the owner of the stall was busy serving tea somewhere on the train. The girl followed me behind the stall.
‘Do you want to buy a basket?’ she asked. ‘They are very strong, made of the finest cane . . .’
‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t want a basket.’
We stood looking at each other for what seemed a very long time and she said, ‘Are you sure you don’t want a basket?’
‘All right, give me one,’ I said and took the one on top and gave her a rupee, hardly daring to touch her fingers.
As she was about to speak, the guard blew his whistle. She said something but it was lost in the clanging of the bell and the hissing of the engine. I had to run back to my compartment. The carriage shuddered and jolted forward.
I watched her as the platform slipped away. She was alone on the platform and she did not move, but she was looking at me and smiling. I watched her until the signal box came in the way and then the jungle hid the station. But I could still see her standing there alone . . .
I could not rid my mind of the picture of the girl’s face and her smouldering eyes.
But when I reached Dehra the incident became blurred and distant, for there were other things to occupy my mind. It was only when I was making the return journey a few months later to enquire about a job in Delhi, that I remembered the girl.
I was looking out for her as the train drew into the station and I felt an unexpected thrill when I saw her walking up the platform. I sprang off the footboard and waved to her.
When she saw me, she smiled. She was pleased that I remembered her. I was pleased that she remembered me. We were both pleased and it was almost like a meeting of old friends.
She did not go down the length of the train selling baskets but came straight to the tea stall. Her dark eyes were suddenly filled with light. W
e said nothing for some time but we couldn’t have been more eloquent.
I felt the impulse to put her on the train there and then and take her away with me. I could not bear the thought of having to watch her recede into the distance of Deoli station. I took the baskets from her hand and put them down on the ground. She put out her hand for one of them but I caught her hand and held it.
‘I have to go to Delhi,’ I said.
She nodded. ‘I do not have to go anywhere.’
The guard blew his whistle for the train to leave and how I hated the guard for doing that.
‘I will come again,’ I said. ‘Will you be here?’
She nodded again and, as she nodded, the bell clanged and the train slid forward. I had to wrench my hand away from the girl and run for the moving train.
Now, after all these years, I was nervous and anxious as the train drew into Deoli because I was wondering what I should say to the girl and what I should do. I hadn’t ever forgotten her, and I wondered if she’d remember me. I was determined that I wouldn’t stand helplessly before her, hardly able to speak or do anything about my feelings. But what exactly did I feel for her now? A tender love, of that I was sure; but did she also feel the same? After all, a lot must have changed in these years . . .
The train came to Deoli and I looked up and down the platform but I could not see the girl anywhere.
I opened the door and stepped off the footboard. I was deeply disappointed and overcome by a sense of foreboding. I felt I had to do something and so I ran up to the stationmaster and said, ‘Do you know the girl who used to sell baskets here?’
‘No, I don’t,’ said the stationmaster. ‘And you’d better get on the train if you don’t want to be left behind.’
I found the owner of the tea stall, a small, shrivelledup man, wearing greasy clothes, and asked him if he knew anything about the girl with the baskets.
‘Yes, there was such a girl here. I remember quite well,’ he said. ‘But she has stopped coming now.’
‘Why?’ I asked. ‘What happened to her?’