by Ruskin Bond
We were home before dawn. Mrs Ohri gave us a splendid breakfast.
'Did you see anything?' she asked.
'Too many people about,' I said. 'No room left for leopards, black or spotted.'
'We heard it,' insisted Ohri. 'I heard it growling in the bushes.'
'How do you know it was a black panther?' asked Mrs Ohri. 'It may have been spotted.'
'Not only that,' I added, 'it was carrying an empty mineral water bottle in lieu of a lota!'
15
GRANNY'S TREE-CLIMBING
Granny was a genius. You'd like to know why?
Because she could climb trees. Spreading or high,
She'd be up their branches in a trice. And mind you,
When last she climbed a tree she was sixty-two.
Ever since childhood, she'd had this gift
For being happier in a tree than in a lift;
And though, as time went by, she would be told
That climbing trees should stop when one grew old—
And that growing old should be gone about gracefully—
She'd laugh and say, 'Well, I'll grow old disgracefully!
I can do it better.' And we had to agree;
For in all the garden there wasn't a tree
She hadn't been up at one time or another—
(Having learned to climb from a loving brother
When she was six)—but it was feared by all
That one day she'd suffer a terrible fall.
The outcome was different—while we were in town
She climbed a tree and couldn't come down!
She remained on her perch until we came home,
We fetched her a ladder, and she came down alone.
As she looked a bit shaken, we sent for our doc,
Who said, 'She is fine—just a bit of a shock.'
He took Granny's temperature. 'Some fever,' he said;
'I strongly recommend a quiet week in bed.'
We sighed with relief and tucked her up well—
Poor Granny! It was just like a season in hell;
Confined to her bedroom, while every breeze
Murmured of summer and dancing leaves….
But she held her peace till she felt stronger,
Then sat up and said, 'I'll lie here no longer!'
She called for my father and told him undaunted
That a house in a tree-top was what she now wanted.
My Dad knew his duty. He said, 'That's all right—
'You'll have what you want—I shall start work tonight.'
With my expert assistance, he soon finished the chore,
Made her a tree-house with windows and a door.
So Granny moved up; and now, everyday,
I go to her room with glasses and a tray.
She sits there in state and drinks cocktails with me,
Upholding her right to reside in a tree.
[Written for Grandmothers' Rights Everywhere]
16
MY FAILED OMELETTES—AND OTHER DISASTERS
In nearly fifty years of writing for a living, I have never succeeded in writing a best-seller. And now I know why. I can't cook. Had I been able to do so, I could have turned out a few of those sumptuous looking cookery books that brighten up the bookstore windows before being snapped up by folk who can't cook either.
As it is, if I were forced to write a cook book, it would probably be called Fifty Different Ways of Boiling an Egg, and Other Disasters.
I used to think that boiling an egg would be a simple undertaking. But when I came to live at 7,000 feet in the Himalayan foothills, I found that just getting the water to boil was something of an achievement. I don't know if it's the altitude or the density of the water, but it just won't come to the boil in time for breakfast. As a result my eggs are only half-boiled. 'Never mind,' I tell everyone; 'half-boiled eggs are more nutritious than full-boiled eggs.'
'Why boil them at all?' asks Gautam, who is my Mr Dick, always offering good advice. 'Raw eggs are probably healthier.'
'Just you wait and see,' I told him. 'I'll make you a cheese omelette you'll never forget.' And I did. It was a bit messy, as I was over-generous with the tomatoes, but I thought it tasted rather good. Gautam, however, pushed his plate away, saying, 'You forgot to put in the egg.'
101 Failed Omelettes might well be the title of my best-seller.
I love watching other people cook—a habit that I acquired at a young age, when I would watch my granny at work in the kitchen, turning out delicious curries, koftas and custards. I would try helping her, but she soon put a stop to my feeble contributions. On one occasion, she asked me to add a cup of spices to a large curry dish she was preparing, and absent-mindedly I added a cup of sugar. The result—a very sweet curry! Another invention of mine.
I was better at remembering Granny's kitchen proverbs. Here are some of them:
'There is skill in all things, even in making porridge.'
'Dry bread at home is better then curried prawns abroad.'
'Eating and drinking should not keep men from thinking.'
'Better a small fish than an empty dish.'
And her favourite maxim, with which she reprimanded me whenever I showed signs of gluttony: 'Don't let your tongue cut your throat.'
And as for making porridge, it's certainly no simple matter. I made one or two attempts, but it always came out lumpy.
'What's this?' asked Gautam suspiciously, when I offered him some.
'Porridge!' I said enthusiastically. 'It's eaten by those brave Scottish Highlanders who were always fighting the English!'
'And did they win?' he asked.
'Well—er—not usually. But they were outnumbered!'
He looked doubtfully at the porridge. 'Some other time,' he said.
So why not take the advice of Thoreau and try to simplify life? Simplify, simplify! Or simply sandwiches…
These shouldn't be too difficult, I decided. After all, they are basically bread and butter. But have you tried cutting bread into thin slices? Don't. It's highly dangerous. If you're a pianist, you could be putting your career at great risk.
You must get your bread ready sliced. Butter it generously. Now add your fillings. Cheese, tomato, lettuce, cucumber, whatever. Gosh, I was really going places! Slap another slice of buttered bread over this mouth-watering assemblage. Now cut in two. Result: Everything spills out at the sides and onto the table-cloth.
'Now look what you've gone and done,' says Gautam, in his best Oliver Hardy manner.
'Never mind,' I tell him. 'Practice makes perfect!'
And one of these days you're going to find Bond's Book of Better Sandwiches up there on the best-seller lists.
17
A LONG STORY
I live right on top of a hill and Gautam's school is right at the bottom; so I thought it would be a good idea if I walked the two miles to school with him every morning. I would be company for the boy, and the walk, I felt, would do wonders for my sagging waistline.
'Tell me a story,' he said the first time we set off together. And so I told him one. And the next day I told him another. A story a day, told on the long walk through the deodars became routine until I discovered that in this way I was writing myself out—that, story invented and told, I would come home to the realisation that the day's creative work was done and that I couldn't face my desk or typewriter.
So I decided it had to be a serial story. And I found that the best way to keep it going was to invent a man-eating leopard who carried off a different victim every day. An expanding population, I felt, could sustain his depredations over the months and even the years.
Small boys love blood-thirsty man-eaters, and Gautam was no exception. Every day, in the story, one of the townsfolk disappeared, a victim to the leopard's craving for human flesh. He started with the town gossip and worked his way through the clerk who'd lost my file, the barber who'd cut my hair too short, and the shopkeeper who'd sold me the previous year's fireworks,
and—well, there's no end to the people who can be visualised as suitable victims.
I must confess that I was getting as much pleasure out of the tale as Gautam. I think Freud might have had a theory or two about my attitude.
'When is it going to be shot?' asked Gautam one morning. 'Not yet,' I said, 'not yet.'
But towards the end of the year I was beginning to have qualms of conscience. Who was I, a mere mortal, to decide on who should be eaten and who should survive? Although the population had been reduced, the accommodation problem remained the same.
Well things came to a head when a real leopard appeared on the hillside and made off with my neighbour's pet pekinese.
Had 1, with my fevered imaginings, brought into being an actual leopard? Only a dog-eater, true: but one never knew when it might start on people. And I was still well-fleshed, in spite of the long walks.
So the story had to end.
'The man-eater is dead,' I announced last week.
'Who shot it?'
'It wasn't shot. It just died.'
'Of old age?'
'No. Of ulcerative colitis.'
'What's that?' asked Gautam.
'Acute indigestion,' I said. 'It ate too many people.'
18
GEORGE AND RANJI
When I heard that my cousin George had again escaped from the mental hospital in a neighbouring town, I knew it wouldn't be long before he turned up at my doorstep. It usually happens at the approach of the cricket season. No problem, I thought. I'll just bundle him into a train and take him back to the hospital.
Cousin George had been there, off and on, for a few years. He wasn't the violent type and was given a certain amount of freedom—with the result that he occasionally wandered off by himself, sometimes, to try and take in a Test match. You see, George did not suffer from the delusion that he was Napoleon or Ghengis Khan, he was convinced that he was the great Ranji, prince of cricketers, and that he had just been selected to captain India—quite forgetting that Ranji had actually played for England!
So when George turned up on my front step I wasn't surprised to find him carrying a cricket bat in one hand and a protective box in the other.
'Aren't you ready?' he asked. 'The match starts at eleven.'
'There's plenty of time,' I said, recalling that the train left at eleven-fifteen. 'Why don't you come in and relax while I get ready?'
George sat down and asked for a glass of beer. I brought him one and he promptly emptied it over a pot of ferns.
'They look thirsty,' he said. I dressed hurriedly, anxious to get moving before he started practising his latest cuts on my cutglass decanter. Then, arm in arm, we walked to the gate and hailed an auto rickshaw.
'Railway station,' I whispered to the driver.
'Ferozeshah Kotla,' said George in rising tones, naming Delhi's famous cricket ground. No matter, I thought, I'll straighten out the driver as we go along, I bundled George into the rickshaw and we were soon heading in the direction of Kotla.
'Railway station,' I said again, in tones that could not be denied.
'Kotla,' said cousin George, just as firmly.
The scooter driver kept right on course for the cricket ground. Apparently George had made a better impression on him.
'Look,' I said, tapping the driver on the shoulder. 'This is my cousin and he's not quite right in the head. He's just escaped from a mental asylum and if I'm to get him back there tonight, we must catch the eleven-fifteen train.'
The scooter driver slowed down and looked from cousin George to me and back again. George gave him a winning smile and looking in my direction, tapped his forehead significantly. The driver nodded in sympathy and kept straight on for the stadium.
Well, I've always believed that the dividing line between sanity and insanity is a very thin one, but I had never realised it was quite so thin—too thin for my own comfort! Who was crazy, George, me or the driver?
We had almost reached Kotla and I had no intention of watching over cousin George through a whole day's play. He gets excited at cricket matches—which is strange considering how dull they can be. On one occasion, he broke through the barriers and walked up to the wicket with his bat, determined to bat at Number 3 (Ranji's favourite position, apparently) and assaulted an umpire who tried to escort him from the ground. On another occasion he streaked across the ground, wearing nothing but his protective box.
But it was I who confirmed the driver's worst fears by jumping off the rickshaw as it slowed down, and making my getaway. I've never been able to discover if cousin George had any money with him, or if the rickshaw driver got paid. Rickshaw drivers are inclined at times to be violent, but then so are inmates of mental hospitals. Anyway, George seems to have no memory of the incident.
Three days later, I received word from the hospital that he had returned of his own accord, boasting that he had hit a century—so presumably, he had participated in the match in some form or another.
All's well that ends well, or so I like to think. Cousin George was not usually a violent man, but I have a funny feeling about the rickshaw driver. I never saw him again in Delhi, and unless he has moved elsewhere, I'm afraid his disappearance might well be connected with cousin George's rickshaw ride. After all, the Jamuna is very near Kotla.
19
CRICKET—FIELD PLACINGS
Long leg has a cramp in one leg,
Short leg has a cramp in two;
Twelfth man is fielding at mid-off,
Because mid-on's gone off to the loo.
As short square leg has a long leg,
Long-off has been moved further off;
Silly-point goes back to gully
Cover-point backs off a pace or two.
Everyone is thinking of the drinks' trolley
When first slip lets a catch through his fingers,
Forgetting the old ball is now new.
20
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO ROMANCE?
I hate telephones. That shrill ringing in the middle of the afternoon or late at night is not only nerve-jangling, it means I have to interrupt my reading or writing or sleeping, or my enjoyment of music, or a cricket or football match which is beginning to absorb me. Nothing would induce me to keep a cell phone under my pillow or in my pocket; the landline is bad enough. I usually let someone else answer it.
Gautam does it quite well, except that he sometimes trips up and says, 'Dada is saying he is not at home', or 'Dada is saying, why don't you go to the hell?' A straightforward boy, is Gautam.
Just occasionally I get a nice phone call telling me there is a cheque in the mail but more often than not it is a request for a donation or an invitation to address a conference on Alzheimer's Disease in Ageing Authors, or the Superiority of the Female in Most Insect Species, or Population Growth in the Context of Climate Change. I have every respect for people who lecture, but I have no desire to be one of them or even listen to them. There are better things to do with our time on this earth.
Still, just occasionally it's nice to get a phone call from an old friend, and when that old friend is a girl I knew and loved nearly forty years ago, the heart skips a beat or two, the circulation improves, and suddenly one feels younger and sprightlier and ready for anything.
And so it was the other evening when the phone rang and Gautam picked it up and said, 'Dada, a lady is wanting to talk to you.'
'Does she sound nice?'
'All right. She has a cough, I think.'
I took the phone and said hello.
'Is that Ruskin?'
'It is.'
'I am Sushila.'
'Who?'
'Sushila, don't you remember me? We met in Lodhi Gardens, when I was a girl.'
'Sushila!' I exclaimed. 'Not my Sushila?'
'Of course.'
Memories came flooding back. Of Sushila sharing jamuns with me; holding hands when the lights dimmed in the Regal cinema; kissing her hand when I saw her home; meeting her again in a hill-station. Picnic
s. Romance. More jamuns. More kisses. Would she marry me? She had to think about it…
'Why is your hand trembling?' asks Gautam, watching me as I struggle to articulate on the phone.
'Sushila,' I say again. 'After all these years. How many children do you have now?'
Not a very romantic question, but it had to be asked.
'Six,' she says. 'Two are married. I'm a grandmother.'
'Oh!' I try to visualise Sushila as a grandmother but find it impossible. Will she have a double chin like me? I hope not. She had such sweet dimples.
'It's nice of you to remember me,' I say.
'But you have forgotten me.'
'No, no. I think of you very often.'
'Then do me a favour.'
'Anything you say.'
'Well, it is like this. My sister-in-law, my husband's sister, wants to get her little boy admitted to St George's. She feels you must have influence there.'
'None at all, I'm afraid.'
This wasn't very romantic. It wasn't even exciting. After forty years a former sweetheart rings me up, and instead of saying she still loves me, she asks me to help with a school admission.
'You must know all these school people.'
'Actually, I don't.'
'They must know you, then.'
'Only distantly. In any case, they all conduct admission tests and interviews.'
'You can't help then?'
'I don't see how, unless I do the test myself.'
A pause at the other end of the line. Then: 'Well, it was nice talking to you, Mr Bond.'
'Same here.'
'You must come and see us sometime. The children would love to meet you.'
'Same here. All six of them.'
'And the grandchildren.'
'And the grandchildren.'
End of phone call, end of romance. Down memory lane no more!
'Who was that?' asked Gautam.
'Just an old friend.'
'Old or young friend?'
'Very old. She must have three chins by now.'
Sometimes it's better to forget the more passionate encounters of our youth, especially if they ended in painful partings. And sometimes we would like to forget the recent past, or even the present, if things haven't worked out the way we would have liked.