by Ruskin Bond
I have never been a fitness freak, and my figure would not get me into the chorus line of a Bollywood musical. I won't bore the reader with details of my eating habits except to say that I eat and drink what I like, and if I am still functioning reasonably well at seventy, it has more to do with the good fresh air of the hills than to any regimen of diet and exercie. "Honour your food," said Manu the law-giver, "receive it thankfully, do not hold it in contempt."
Living forever is not one of my ambitions. Life is wonderful and one would like to have as much of it as possible. But there comes a time when mind and body must succumb to the many years of strife and struggle. When I look in the mirror (something that is to be avoided as much as possible), I see definite signs of wear and tear. This is only natural. Flowers fade, wither away. So must humans. But if the seed is good, other flowers, other people will take our place.
Beware of second-hand mirrors. I bought one once, from Vinod's antique shop. He told me it had belonged to a wicked old Begum or Maharani who had done away with several of her paramours. As a result, whenever I looked in the mirror, I did not see my own reflection but rather the wicked, gloating eyes of its former owner, looking at me as though determined that I should be her next victim. I gave the mirror to Professor Ganesh Saili. He's immune to witches and spirits from the past.
I am a fearful, supernatural person, and I keep a horseshoe over my bed and a laughing Buddha on my desk. I love life, but I do not expect it to go on forever. Immortality is for the gods.
Judging from some of the movies I see on television, the Americans are obsessed with aliens, creatures from outer space who are immortal, indestructible. These are really projections of themselves, wishful thinking for they would love to be indestructible, forever young, perpetually in charge, running the show and turning us all into their own burger-eating images. Even now, there are scientists working on ways and means of extending human life indefinitely, even bringing the privileged few back from the dead. But nature has a few tricks of her own up her sleeve. Greater than human or alien is the underground force of nature that brings earthquake, tidal wave and typhoon to remind us that we are just puny mortals after all.
The pleasure, as well as the pathos of life, springs from the knowledge of its transitory nature. All our experiences are coloured by the thought that they may return no more. Those who have opted for perpetual life might find that the pleasure of loving has vanished along with the certainty of death. We are in no hurry to leave the world, but we like to know that there is an exit door.
It is rather like being a batsman at the wicket. He does not want to get out. When he has made his fifty, he strives to make his 100, and when he has made his 100, he is just as anxious to make 200. Who wouldn't want to be a Rahul Dravid or Tendulkar? But it is the knowledge that the innings will end, that every ball may be his last, that gives the game its zest. If you knew that you never could get out, that by some perversion of. nature you were to be at the wicket for the rest of your life, you would turn round and knock the stumps down in desperation.
The other day, when I was having a coffee at a little open-air café on Rajpur Road, I noticed a heavily-built man, bald, limping slightly come in and sit down at an adjoining table. There was something familiar about him, but it took me some time to place him. And then it was the way he raised his eyebrows and gestured with his hands that gave him away. It was an old schoolfellow, Nanda, who had been a star centre-forward in the school football team while I had been a goalkeeper. All of fifty years ago! The passing of time had left a criss-cross of rail and roadways across his cheeks and brows. I thought, 'How old he looks.' But refrained from saying so.
He looked up from his table, stared hard at me for a moment, recognized me, and exclaimed, "Bond! After all these years.... How nice to see you! But how old you look!"
It struck me then that the cartwheels of time had left their mark on me too.
"You look great!" I said with admirable restraint. "But what happened to the knee?"
"All that tennis, years ago", he explained. "Made it to Wimbledon, if you remember."
"Sure," I said, although I'd forgotten. "You athletic types usually give way at the knees."
"You've got at least three chins now," he commented, getting his own back.
"Bee stung me," I said.
"Ha!"
After a further exchange of pleasantries and mutual insults, we parted, promising to meet again. But of course, we never did. Too many years had passed and we'd never really had much in common except football.
How does one keep the passing of time at bay? One can't, really. Ageing is a natural process. But some people age quicker than others. Heredity, lifestyle, one's mental outlook, all play a part. A merry heart makes for a cheerful countenance. That old chestnut still rings true.
And of course, it helps to stay active and to continue doing good work. An artist must not abandon his canvas, a writer his habit of writing, a singer his song....
About five years ago, there was a knock on my door, I opened it cautiously, hoping it wasn't another curious tourist, and in bounced a little man, looking rather like a hobbit, who clasped my hand, shook it vigorously and introduced himself as Mulk Raj Anand.
I was astounded. Here was one of the idols of my youth, a writer whose books I'd read while I was still at school. Alive and in the flesh!
I did not ask him his age. I knew he was ninety-five or thereabouts. But of course, he was ageless. And brimming with ideas, curiosity, and joie-de-vivre. We talked for over an hour. When he left, he stuffed a note into Siddhartha's pocket. He was still writing, he told me, even if some of his work wasn't getting published.
This rather saddened me. Some of his finest novels (The Big Heart, Seven Summer, and others) were out of print, only Untouchable and Coolie were available. And this at a time when dozens of lesser talents were being published all over the place.
But that's the way of the world. You're up today and down tomorrow. Some of the finest writers of the last century — J.B. Priestley, Compton Mackenzie, John Galsworthy, Sinclair Lewis — are neglected by today's publishers and literary pundits.
This is the day of the literary agent, and you don't get published abroad unless you are represented by one of these middlemen, who like to think they know what's good for the reading public. In India, we are fortunate to be without them. The relationship between publisher and author is still important. But Indian publishing is making great strides, and as authors start making more money, the agents will get into the act.
Where there's life there's hope (or is it the either way round?) and Mulk Raj Anand's confidence in the future and in his own skills give me hope. He has now touched his century, and although frail and in failing health, I am sure he reaches for his pen whenever the creative urge possesses him.
Creative people don't age. Their bodies may let them down from time to time, but as long as their brains are ticking, they are good for another poem or tale or song.
And what of happiness, that bird on the wing, that most elusive of human conditions?
It has nothing to do with youth or old age. Religion and philosophy provide little or no relief for a toothache, and we are all equally grumpy when it comes to moving about in a heat wave or getting out of bed on a freezingly cold morning. I am a happy and reasonably contented man when I am sitting in the sun after a good breakfast; but at 6. 30 a.m. when I step onto the icy floor of the bathroom and turn on the tap to find the water in the pipe has frozen, I am not the cheerful person that people imagine me to be.
External conditions do play their part in individual happiness. But our essential happiness or unhappiness is really independent of these things. It is a matter of character, or nature, or even our biological make-up. There are prosperous, successful people, who are constantly depressed and miserable. And the less fortunate, those who must put up with discomfort, disability, and other disadvantages, who manage to be cheerful and good-natured in spite of everything. Some effort of co
urse, is needed. To take life lightly and in good humour, is to get the most fun out of it. But a sense of humour is not something you can cultivate. Either you have it or you don't.
Mr Pickwick, with his innocent good nature, would be happy at any time or place or era. But the self-doubting, guilt-ridden Hamlet? Never.
If you have the ability, or rather the gift of being able to see beauty in small things, then old age should hold no terrors.
I do not have to climb a mountain peak in order to appreciate the grandeur of this earth. There are wild dandelions flowering on the patch of wasteland just outside my windows. A wild rose bush will come to life in the spring rain, and on summer nights the honeysuckle will send its fragrance through the open windows.
I do not have to climb the Eiffel Tower to see a city spread out before me. Every night I see the lights of the Doon twinkling in the valley below; each night is a festive occasion.
I do not have to travel to the coast to see the ocean. A little way down the road there is a tiny spring, just a freshet of cool, clear water. Further down the hill it joins a small stream, and this stream, gathering momentum joins forces with another stream, and together they plunge down the mountain and become a small river and this river becomes a bigger river, until, it joins the Ganga, and the Ganga, singing its own song, wanders about the plains of India, attracting other rivers to its bosom, until it finally enters the sea. So this is where the ocean, or part of it, began. At that little spring in the mountain.
I do not have to take passage to the moon to experience the moonlight. On full moon nights, the moon pours through my windows, throwing my books and papers and desk into relief, caressing me as I lie there, bathing in its glow. I do not have to search for the moon. The moon seeks me out.
There's a time to rove and a time to rest, and if you have learnt to live with nature's magic, you will not grow restless.
All this, and more is precious, and we do not wish to lose any of it. As long as our faculties are intact, we do not want to give up everything and everyone we love. The presentiment of death is what makes life so appealing; and I can only echo the sentiments of the poet Ralph Hodgson —
Time, you old gypsy man,
Will you not stay,
Put up your caravan
Just for one day?