by Ruskin Bond
Gopal hurried off and soon returned with a basket full of guavas.
‘Help yourselves,’ he said. ‘But don’t eat too many, you’ll get sick.’
So they munched guavas and listened to Gopal tell them about the time he was waylaid by three bandits and how he threw them all into the village pond.
‘Will you come again tomorrow?’ asked Gopal eagerly, when the guavas were finished and the children got up to leave. ‘Come tomorrow and I’ll tell you another story.’
‘We’ll come tomorrow,’ said Teju, looking at all the guava trees laden with fruit.
Somehow it seemed very important to Gopal that they should come again. It was lonely in the orchard. Koki sensed this, and said, ‘We like your stories.’
‘They are good stories,’ said Ranji, even if they were not entirely true, he thought…
They climbed over the wall and waved goodbye to Gopal.
They came again the next day.
And even when the guava season was over and Gopal had nothing to offer them but his stories, they went to see him because by that time they had grown to like him.
THE NIGHT TRAIN AT DEOLI
When I was at college I used to spend my summer vacations in Dehra, at my grandmother’s place. I would leave the plains early in May and return late in July. Deoli was a small station about thirty miles from Dehra. It marked the beginning of the heavy jungles of the Indian terai.
The train would reach Deoli 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. The platform boasted a tea stall, a fruit vendor and a few stray dogs; not much else because the train stopped there for only ten minutes before rushing on into the forests.
Why it stopped at Deoli, I don’t know. Nothing ever happened there. Nobody got off the train and nobody got on. There were never any coolies on the platform. But the train would halt there a full ten minutes and then a bell would sound, the guard would blow his whistle, and presently Deoli would be left behind and forgotten.
I used to wonder what happened in Deoli behind the station walls. I always felt sorry for that lonely little platform and for the place that nobody wanted to visit. I decided that one day I would get off the train at Deoli and spend the day there just to please the town.
I was eighteen, visiting my grandmother, and the night train 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 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 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 stayed awake for the rest of the journey. I could not rid my mind of the picture of the girl’s face and her dark, 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, two months later, 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. We 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.
This time I did not forget her. She was with me for the remainder of the journey and for long after. All that year she was a bright, living thing. And when the college term finished, I packed in haste and left for Dehra earlier than usual. My grandmother would be pleased at my eagerness to see her.
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 was determined that I wouldn’t stand helplessly before her, hardly able to speak or do anything about my feelings.
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.’
But I paced up and down the platform and stared over the railings at the station yard. All I saw was a mango tree and a dusty road leading into the jungle. Where did the road go? The train was moving out of the station and I had to run up the platform and jump for the door of my compartment. Then, as the train gathered speed and rushed through the forests, I sat brooding in front of the window.
What could I do about finding a girl I had seen only twice, who had hardly spoken to me, and about whom I knew nothing—absolutely nothing—but for whom I felt a tenderness and responsibility that I had never felt before?
My grandmother was not pleased with my visit after all, because I didn’t stay at her place more than a couple of weeks. I felt restless and ill at ease. So I took the train back to the plains, meaning to ask further questions of the stationmaster at Deoli.
But at Deoli there was a new stationmaster. The previous man had been transferred to another post within the past week. The new man didn’t know anything about the girl who sold baskets. I found the owner of the tea stall, a small, shrivelled-up man, wearing greasy clothes, and asked him if he knew anythin
g 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?’
‘How should I know?’ said the man. ‘She was nothing to me.’
And once again I had to run for the train.
As Deoli platform receded, I decided that one day I would have to break journey there, spend a day in the town, make enquiries, and find the girl who had stolen my heart with nothing but a look from her dark, impatient eyes.
With this thought I consoled myself throughout my last term in college. I went to Dehra again in the summer and when, in the early hours of the morning, the night train drew into Deoli station, I looked up and down the platform for signs of the girl, knowing I wouldn’t find her but hoping just the same.
Somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to break journey at Deoli and spend a day there. (If it was all fiction or a film, I reflected, I would have got down and cleared up the mystery and reached a suitable ending to the whole thing.) I think I was afraid to do this.
I was afraid of discovering what really happened to the girl. Perhaps she was no longer in Deoli, perhaps she was married, perhaps she had fallen ill…
In the last few years I have passed through Deoli many times, and I always look out of the carriage window half expecting to see the same unchanged face smiling up at me. I wonder what happens in Deoli, behind the station walls. But I will never break my journey there. I prefer to keep hoping and dreaming and looking out of the window up and down that lonely platform, waiting for the girl with the baskets.
I never break my journey at Deoli but I pass through as often as I can.
THE VISITOR
Amir was sitting on his bed, staring out of the door that opened out onto the roof. The bald myna that was perched on the roof stared back at him. Then he heard someone calling from downstairs.
‘Does anyone live up there?’
‘No,’ shouted Amir. ‘Nobody lives up here.’
‘Then can I come up?’ asked the person below.
Amir didn’t answer. Presently he heard footsteps coming up. The myna flew away and settled in a mango tree.
A boy stood in the doorway, smiling at Amir. He was a little taller than Amir, and much thinner. He wore a white shirt and striped pyjamas. On his feet were open slippers. A tray hung from his shoulders, filled with an assortment of goods.
‘Would you like to buy something?’ he asked.
In his tray were combs, buttons, reels of thread, shoelaces and little vials of cheap perfume.
‘I have everything you need,’ he said.
‘I don’t need anything,’ said Amir.
‘You need buttons.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Your top button is missing.’
Amir felt for the top button of his shirt and was surprised to find it missing.
‘I don’t like buttoning my shirt,’ he said.
‘That’s different,’ said his visitor, and looked him up and down for further signs of wear and tear. ‘You’d better buy a new pair of shoelaces.’
Amit looked down at his shoes and said, ‘I’ve got laces.’
‘Very poor quality,’ said the boy and, taking hold of one of the laces, he tugged at it and snapped it in two. ‘See how easily it breaks? Now you need laces.’
‘Well, I’m not buying any,’ said Amir.
The boy sighed, shrugged, and moved towards the door. As he walked slowly down the steps, Amir stood in the doorway watching him go. On an impulse, he called out, ‘What’s your name?’
‘Mohan,’ replied the boy.
‘Well, come again in a week,’ said Amir. ‘I might need something then.’
Amir went downstairs for lunch. He returned to his room to study, but dozed off instead. Towards evening he felt hungry and restless. He could not remain in his room when everyone else was pouring into the streets to shop and talk and eat and visit the cinema.
From the roof he could see the bazaar lights coming on, and hear the jingle of tonga bells and the blare of bus horns. It was a cool evening and he put on his coat before going downstairs.
It was not easy to walk fast on the road to the bazaar. Apart from the great number of pedestrians, there were cyclists and scooter-rickshaws, handcarts and cows, all making movement difficult. A little tea shop played film music over a loudspeaker, adding noise to the general confusion.
The balloon man was having a trying time. He was surrounded by a swarm of children who were more intent on bursting his balloons than on buying any. One or two got loose and went sailing over the heads of the crowd to burst over the fire in the chaat shop.
Amir stood outside the chaat shop and ate a variety of spicy snacks. Then he wiped his fingers on the banana leaves on which he had been served, and moved on down the bazaar road.
Towards the clock tower the road grew wider and less crowded. There was a street lamp at the corner of the road. A boy was sitting on the pavement beneath the lamp, bent over a book, absorbed in what he was reading. He seemed not to notice the noise of the bazaar or the chill in the air. As Amir came nearer, he saw that the boy was Mohan.
He did not know whether to stop and talk to him, or carry on down the road. After walking some distance, he felt ashamed at not having stopped to greet the boy, so he retraced his steps. But when he came to the lamp post, Mohan had gone.
When Mohan came again he did not call out from below but came straight up to the room. He looked at Amir’s shirt and shoes and saw that one of the shoes was still done up with half a lace. With an air of triumph he dropped a pair of shoelaces on the desk.
‘I can’t pay for them now,’ said Amir.
‘You can pay me later.’
Amir sat on the edge of his table while Mohan leant against the wall.
‘Do you go to school?’ asked Amir.
‘Sometimes I go to evening classes,’ Mohan said. ‘I am sitting for my high school exams next month. If I pass…’
He stopped to think about the things he could do if he passed. The way to a career would be open to him, he could study further, become an engineer, or a scientist or an administrator. No more selling combs and buttons at street corners…
‘Where are your parents?’ asked Amir.
‘My father is dead. My mother is in our village in the hills. I have brothers and sisters at home, but I am the only one old enough to work.’
‘Then where do you stay?’
‘Anywhere. On somebody’s veranda, or on the maidan; it doesn’t matter much in the summer. These days I sleep on the station platform. It’s quite warm there.’
‘You can sleep here,’ said Amir.
One morning, when he opened the door of his room, Amir found Mohan asleep at the top of the steps. He had wrapped himself up in a thin blanket. His tray of merchandise lay a short distance away.
Amir shook him gently and he woke up immediately, blinking in the bright sunlight.
‘Why didn’t you come in?’ asked Amir. ‘Why didn’t you let me know you were here?’
‘It was late,’ said Mohan. ‘I did not want to wake you. Besides, it was a fine night, not too cold.’
‘Someone could have stolen your things.’
Amir made Mohan promise to sleep in the room that night. He came quite early. Amir lent him a blanket, and he lay down on the floor mat and slept soundly, while Amir stayed awake worrying if his guest was comfortable enough.
Mohan came quite often, leaving early in the morning before Amir could offer him a meal. He ate at little places in the bazaar.
The high school exams were nearing, and Mohan sat up late with his books. Apart from his occasional evening classes, he received no teaching.
The exams lasted for ten days, and during this time Mohan put aside his tray of odds and ends. He did his papers with confidence. He thought he had done rather well. And when it was over, he took up his tray again and walked all over the town, tryin
g to make up for lost sales.
On the day the exams results were due, Amir rose early. He got to the news agency at five o’clock, just as the morning papers arrived. Bharu gave him a paper to look at and he found the page on which the results were listed. He looked down the ‘passes’ column for the town, but couldn’t find Mohan’s number on the list. He looked twice to make sure, and then returned the paper to Bharu with a glum look.
‘Failed?’ said Bharu.
Amir nodded and turned away. When he returned to the room, he found Mohan sitting at the top of the steps. He didn’t have to tell him anything. Mohan knew by the look on his face.
Amir sat down beside him, and they said nothing for a while.
‘Never mind,’ said Mohan. ‘I’ll pass next year.’ It seemed that Amir was more in need of comforting than himself.
‘If only you’d had more time,’ said Amir.
‘I have plenty of time now. Another year… Can I still stay in your room?’
‘For as long as it’s my room. That means I shall have to work too, otherwise my grandfather will drag me downstairs again.’
Mohan laughed and went into the room. When he came out, the tray was hanging from his shoulders.
‘What would you like to buy?’ he asked. ‘I have everything you need.’
OF RIVERS AND PILGRIMS
It’s a funny thing, but long before I arrive at a place I can usually tell whether I am going to like it or not. Thus, while I was still some twenty miles from the district town of Pauri, I felt it was not going to be my sort of place, and sure enough it wasn’t. A seedy, overgrown place, with too many government offices. On the other hand, while Nandprayag was still out of sight, I knew I was going to like it. And I did.
Perhaps, it’s something on the wind—emanations of an atmosphere—that carry to me well before I arrive at my destination. I can’t really explain it, and of course it’s silly to make judgements in advance. But it does happen.