by Ruskin Bond
That evening I visit Miss Garlah. She is a tubby little Anglo-Indian lady with a hearty manner and a strong constitution. Forty of her sixty years have been spent in Mussoorie.
‘Did you have trouble with the mali?’ she asks with apparent relish. Evidently she looks forward to getting complaints about him.
‘He was a bit aggressive,’ I say. ‘He needs glasses to help him separate grave robbers from other people.’
‘Well, he saw you climbing the railings, and that made him wonder what you were up to.’
‘So he’s been to you already?’
‘Yes, he’s very good. We keep him because he’s so tough. The last man used to let in all sorts of people, including some hippies who thought the cemetery would be just the right place for smoking pot.’
When I tell her the object of my search, she says: ‘Yes, I have a register. Give me the name and date of your author’s death and we’ll look him up.’
‘John Lang, 1864.’
‘Ah, that’s going too far back. There must have been a register for those years, but if there was, it’s long since lost. I can help you from 1910 onwards.’
I make no attempt to hide my disappointment. ‘Nothing earlier? If only I had an idea of where the grave might be situated, I might be able to identify it.’
‘Well, young man, I can only suggest that you keep hunting. Try the graves near the mail’s house. I’ll ask him to clean them up for you. You may be lucky. We do our best to maintain them because the British High Commission makes us a small grant towards their upkeep. But we’re short-handed, and the heavy monsoon rains don’t help.’
The next day I am back at the cemetery, determined to make one more attempt at finding John Lang’s grave. I am leaving for Delhi in a day or two, and it may be months, perhaps years, before I can return to Mussoorie.
This time I find the gate open. A small boy with little on goes skipping over the graves, like some mischievous cupid trying to resurrect dead lovers. His father, the mali, appears from behind a placid buffalo and gives me an elaborate salaam. Apparently Miss Garlah has already sent word of my coming.
The mali apologizes for the condition of some of the graves near his outhouse. His buffalo is tethered to a crumbling obelisk. A cow and calf are tied to a slanting stone cross. Several graves are half-buried under straw and offal. Others appear to have vanished into a small ploughed field which now contains mustard. The strangest sight of all is a memorial tablet, commemorating a certain Captain Jones of Her Majesty’s 30th Foot, which lies flat on the step of the mail’s shack and provides an ideal platform for the gardener’s tall and ornate hookah pipe.
The chances of finding John Lang’s grave in this tumbled, crumbling heap now seem remote. But the mali offers to help me in my search and he is so anxious to please that I am loath to disappoint him. He starts scraping the mud off partly obscured inscriptions and tells his small son, a merry little fellow with bright eyes and a disarming smile, to do the same. It is a glorious day, but the wind is from behind the mali’s house, and there is no escape from the odour of sour milk and cow dung. I came in search of the dead, only to find the living.
We find several graves dating from 1864 and earlier, but John Lang’s is not one of them. I begin to harbour mean thoughts about his wife. If she could disappear so suddenly and mysteriously with his manuscripts, it is unlikely that she would have bothered to give him an expensive and permanent grave.
‘There were a few on this northern slope, sahib.’ says the mali after some time, ‘but we had a landslide a few years ago and the graves went down the khud.’
This is enough to make me give up all hope. For all I know, John Lang’s remains may well be at the foot of the mountain. My search becomes desultory, and I find myself muttering, ‘What does it matter, anyway? If a writer’s any good, his books will be his monument. What need have we of tombstones to commemorate our passage on earth?’
But all the same I am disappointed. And seeing my disappointment, the mali makes renewed efforts to clean up some of the graves near the cattle shed. He cannot understand my whim, or anyone’s sentimentality over old graves, but he has warmed towards me, wants to please me, and would be quite willing to chisel ‘John Lang, died 1864’ into any grave I choose, if it will make me happy.
Three weeks after leaving Mussoorie, I receive a letter from Miss Garlah, informing me that the old register had turned up and that John Lang had indeed been buried in the Mussoorie cemetery, on ‘C’ terrace.
On a subsequent visit I made my way to the spot and found the grave quite easily, under a covering of moss and ferns; shaded by the deodars, it was just a mound of earth and foliage. Prem and I cleared away a hundred years of detritus, and there on a plain stone slab was the simple inscription—‘John Lang, Barrister at law. Died Landour, 1864, aged 47.’
The Himalaya Club
(by John Lang)
(This extract from a piece by John Lang published in Charles Dickens’ weekly journal, Household Words, paints a charming picture of life in Mussoorie in the 1850s.)
It is some eighteen years since this institution was founded, at Mussoorie, one of the chief sanataria in the Himalaya Mountains. Here all those who can obtain leave, and who can afford the additional expense, repair to escape the hot weather of the plains. The season begins about the end of April, and ends about the first week in October. The club is open to the members of the civil and military services, to the members of the Bar, the clergy, and to such other private gentlemen who are on the government house list, which signifies ‘in society’. The club-house is neither an expensive nor an elegant edifice, but it answers the purposes required of it. It has two large rooms, one on the ground floor, and the other on the upper storey. The lower room, which is some sixty feet long by twenty-five wide, is the dining room. The upper room is the reading and the ball room. The club has also its billiard room, which is built on the ledge of a precipice, and its stables, which would astonish most persons in Europe. No horses, except those educated in India, would crawl into these holes cut out of the earth and rock.
Facing the side door is a platform about forty yards long by fifteen feet wide; and from it, on a clear day, the eye commands one of the grandest scenes in the known world. In the distance are plainly visible the eternal snows; at your feet are a number of hills, covered with trees of luxuriant foliage. Amongst them is the rhododendron, which grows to an immense height and size, and is, when in bloom, literally covered with flowers. On every hill, on a level with the club, and within a mile of it, a house is to be seen, to which access would seem impossible. These houses are, for the most part, whitened without as well as within; and nothing can exceed in prettiness their aspect as they shine in the sun.
From the back of the club-house—from your bedroom windows (there are twenty-three sets of apartments) you have a view of Deyrah Dhoon. It appears about a mile off. It is seven miles distant. The plains that lie outstretched below the Simplon bear, in point of extent and beauty, to the Indian scene nothing like the proportion which the comparatively pigmy Mont Blanc bears to the Dewalgiri. From an elevation of about seven thousand feet the eye embraces a plain containing millions of acres, intersected by broad streams to the left, and inclosed by a low belt of hills, called the Pass. The Dhoon, in various parts, is dotted with clumps of jungle, abounding with tigers, pheasants, and every species of game. In the broad tributaries to the Ganges and the Jumna may be caught (with a fly) the mahseer, the leviathan salmon. Beyond the Pass of which I have spoken, you see the plains of Hindoostan. While you are wrapped in a great coat, and are shivering with the cold, you may see the heat, and the steam it occasions. With us on the hills, the themometer is at forty-five; with those poor fellows over there, it is at ninety-two degrees. We can scarcely keep ourselves warm, for the wind comes from the snowy range; they cannot breathe, except beneath a punkah. That steam is, as the crow files, not more than forty miles from us.
We are all idlers at Mussoorie. We are all sick, o
r suppossed to be so; or we have leave on private affairs. Some of us are up here for a month between musters. We are in the good graces of our colonel, and our general—the general of our division, a very good old gentleman.
Let us go into the public room, and have breakfast; for, it is half past nine o’ clock, and the bell has rung. There are not more than half-a-dozen at the table. There are the early risers who walk or ride round the Camel’s Back every morning; the Camel’s Back being a huge mountain, encircled about its middle by a good road. The majority of the club’s members are asleep, and will defer breakfast until tiffin time—half past two. At that hour the gathering will be great. How these early risers eat to be sure! There is the Major, who, if you believe him, has every complaint mentioned in Graham’s Domestic Medicine, has just devoured two thighs (grilled) of a turkey, and is now asking Captain Blossom’s opinion of the Irish stew, while he’s cutting into a pigeon pie.
Let us now while away the morning. Let us call on some of the grass widows. There are lots of them here, civil and military. Let us go first to Mrs Merrydale, the wife of our old friend Charley, of the two hundred and tenth regiment. Poor fellow! He could not get leave, and the doctors said another hot summer in the plains would be the death of his wife. They are seven hundred pounds in debt to the Agra bank, and are hard put to it to live and pay the monthly instalments of interest. Charley is only a lieutenant. What terrible infants are these little Merrydales! There is Lieutenant Maxwell’s pony under the trees, and if these children had not shouted out ‘Mamma! Mamma! Here is Captain Wall Sahib!’ I should have been informed that Mrs Merrydale was not at home, or was poorly, which I should have believed implicitly. (Maxwell, when a young ensign, was once engaged to be married to Julia Dacey, now Mrs Merrydale, but her parents would not hear of it, for some reason or other.) As it is, we must be admitted. We will not stay long. Mrs Merrydale is writing to her huband. Grass widows in the hills are always writing to their husbands when you drop in upon them, and your presence is not actually delighted in. How beautiful she looks! now that the mountain breezes have chased from her cheeks the pallor which lately clung to them in the plains; and the fresh air has imparted to her spirits an elasticity, in lieu of that langour by which she was oppressed a fortnight ago.
Let us now go to Mrs Hastings. She is the wife of a civilian, who has a salary of fifteen hundred rupees (one hundred and fifty pounds) per mensem, and who is a man of fortune, independent of his pay. Mrs Hastings has the best house in Mussoorie. She is surrounded by servants. She has no less than three Arab horses to ride. She is a great prude—is Mrs Hastings. She has no patience with married women who flirt. She thinks that the dogma—
‘When lovely women go astray.
Their stars are more in fault than they’— is all nonsense. Mrs Hastings has been a remarkably fine woman; she is now five-and-thirty, and still good-looking, though disposed to embonpoint. She wearies one with her discourses on the duties of a wife. That simpering cornet, Stammersleigh, is announced, and we may bid her good morning.
The average rent for a furnished house is about five hundred rupees (fifty pounds) for the six months. Every house has its name. Yonder are Cocky Hall, Bel-videre, Phoenix Lodge, the Cliffs, the Crags, the Vale, the Eagle’s Nest, & c. The value of these properties ranges from five hundred to fifteen hundred pounds. The furniture is of the very plainest description, with one or two exceptions, and is manufactured chiefly at Bareilly, and carried here on men’s shoulders, the entire distance—ninety miles.
Where shall we go now, for it wants an hour to tiffin time? Oh! here comes a janpan! (a sort of sedan-chair carried by four hillmen dressed in loose black clothes turned up with red, yellow, blue, green or whatever colour the proprietor likes best.) And in the janpan sits a lady—Mrs Apsley, a very pretty, good-tempered, and well-bred little woman. She is the grand-daughter of an English peer, and is very fond of quoting her aunts and her uncles. ‘My aunt Lady Mary Culnerson,’ ‘my uncle, Lord Charles Banbury Cross, &c.’ But that is her only weakness, I believe; and, perhaps, it is ungenerous to allude to it. Her husband is in the Dragoons.
‘Well, Mrs Apsley, whither art thou going? To pay visits?’
‘No, I am going to Mrs Ludlam’s to buy a new bonnet, and not before I want one you will say.’
‘May I accompany you?’ ‘Yes, and assist me in making a choice.’
There is not a cloud to be seen. The air is soft and balmy. The wild flowers are in full bloom, and the butterfly is on the wing. The grasshopper is singing his ceaseless song, and the bees are humming a chorus thereto.
We are now at Mrs Ludlam’s. The janpan is placed upon the ground, and I assist Mrs Apsley to step from it.
Mrs Ludlam is the milliner and dressmaker of Upper India, and imports all her wares direct from London and Paris. Everybody in this part of the world knows Mrs Ludlam, and everybody likes her. She has by industry, honesty of purpose, and economy, amassed a little fortune; and has brought up a large family in the most respectable and unpretending style. Some people say that she sometimes can afford to sell a poor ensign’s wife a bonnet, or a silk dress, at a price which hardly pays. What I have always admired in Mrs Ludlam is that she never importunes her customers to buy her goods; nor does she puff their quality.
The bonnet is bought; likewise a neckscarf for Jack. And we are now returning: Mrs Apsley to her home, and I to the club. Mrs Apsley invites me to dine with them; but that is impossible. It is public night, and I have two guests. One of them is Jack, who does not belong to the club, because Mary does not wish it.
Mrs Apsley says she wants some pickles, and we must go into Ford’s shop to purchase them. Ford sells everything; and he is a wine, beer, and spirit merchant. You may get anything at Ford’s—guns, pistols, swords, whips, hats, clothes, tea, sugar, tobacco. What is this which Ford puts into my hand? A raffle paper! ‘To be raffled for a single-barrelled rifle by Purdy. The property of a gentleman hard-up for money, and in great difficulties. Twenty-five chances at one gold mohur (one pound twelve shillings) each.’
‘Yes, put my name down for a chance, Ford.’
‘And Captain Apsley’s, please,’ says the lady.
After promising Mrs Apsley, most faithfully, that I will not keep Jack later than half-past twelve, and taking another look into those sweet eyes of hers, I gallop away as fast as the pony can carry me. I am late; there is scarcely a vacant place at the long table. We have no private tables. The same board shelters the nether limbs of all of us. We are all intimate friends, and know exactly each other’s circumstances. What a clatter of knives and forks! And what a lively conversation! It alludes, chiefly, to the doings of the past night. Almost every other man has a nickname. To account for many of them would indeed be a difficult, if not a hopeless task.
‘Dickey Brown! Glass of beer?’ ‘I am your man,’ responds Major George, N.I. Fencibles.
At the other end of the table you hear the word ‘Shiney’ shouted out, and responded to by Lieutenant Fenwick of the Horse Artillery.
‘Billy! Sherry?’
Adolphus Bruce of the Lancers lifts his glass with immense alacrity.
It is a curious characteristic of Indian society that very little outward respect is in private shown to seniority. I once heard an ensign of twenty years of age address a civilian of sixty in the following terms: ‘Now then, old moonsiff, pass that claret, please.’
Mukesh’s Brush with the Art World
My artist friends don’t talk to me any more, and presently I’ll tell you why.
Over the years I’ve known a number of artists, some of them big names now, some not so big, but almost all of them the possessors of very large egos. I have come across a few temperamental musicians, as well as a fair number of conceited writers and journalists, but when it comes to the vanity stakes, the artists are way ahead! Each one fancies himself another Picasso or Modigliani or Jamini Roy.
Well, in the days when I could afford such frivolities, I sometimes bought the odd
painting. I wouldn’t call any of them an investment, because up to now no one has offered to take them off my hands even at throwaway prices. I have had offers for the frames but not for the paintings. Some of these works of art were originally given to me—you might call them ‘gallery rejects’.
On at least two occasions I had hired galleries in New Delhi to help promote the work of budding new artists. (You could at least get a cup of tea near the Shankar Market gallery; not so at the AIFACS, at least not in those days.) Helping the artists explain their work to puzzled visitors did nothing for my own credibility. Even so, we sold a couple of pictures.
Inspired by this success, one of the artists wisely went into the garment business. The other, even more sensible, did a Paul Gauguin in reverse and became a successful stockbroker in Boston.
Over the years I have accumulated an odd assortment of paintings, so much so that now there is no space in my small godown for other more useful things such as gardening tools, battered bicycles, stove pipes and broken chairs. Juxtaposed, these items would in themselves make an interesting exhibition of modern art, but they are not paintings.
Included in this collection of undisplayable art was a small portrait in oils done of this writer by an itinerant artist who can only be described as a ‘gifted amateur’. I can’t bear to hurt anyone’s feelings, but the children in my household have no such qualms. Commenting on the portrait, one of them said I looked like a poached egg; the other, that I resembled a well-known film star bereft of his wig; and the third, that I looked like Queen Victoria on a postage stamp. I was about to toss the painting into the fire when thirteen-year-old Mukesh, who does a little brushwork for fun, told me he would improve upon it.
And he did, too. A thick coating of daffodil-yellow removed my face from the picture, leaving only the outline of my spectacles and double chin. He then turned my specs into bicycle wheels and my chin into a watermelon. A duck, two roosters and a pink pig were introduced into the picture, so that the end result was a jolly rural scene. The picture went up on my sitting room wall. Fortunately for my safety, the original artist now lives in Bangkok, where he paints murals for massage parlours.