Collected Short Stories

by Ruskin Bond

  All lethargy gone, I opened my eyes to find a little girl—or was it a woman?—about two inches tall, sitting cross-legged on my chest and studying me intently. Her hair fell in long black tresses. Her skin was the colour of honey. Her firm little breasts were like tiny acorns. She held a buttercup, which was larger than her hand, and she was stroking my skin with it.

  I was tingling all over. A sensation of sensual joy surged through my limbs.

  A tiny boy—man?—also naked, now joined the elfin girl, and they held hands and looked into my eyes, smiling. Their teeth were like little pearls, their lips soft petals of apricot blossom. Were these the nature spirits, the flower fairies I had often dreamt of?

  I raised my head, and saw that there were scores of little people all over me. The delicate and gentle creatures were exploring my legs, arms and body with caressing gestures. Some of them were laving me with dew or pollen or some other soft essence. I closed my eyes again. Waves of pure physical pleasure swept over me. I had never known anything like it. It was endless, all-embracing. My limbs turned to water. The sky revolved around me, and I must have fainted.

  When I came to, perhaps an hour later, the little people had gone. The fragrance of honeysuckle lingered in the air. A deep rumble overhead made me look up. Dark clouds had gathered, threatening rain. Had the thunder frightened them away to their abode beneath the rocks and roots? Or had they simply tired of sporting with an unknown newcomer? Mischievous they were; for when I looked around for my clothes I could not find them anywhere.

  A wave of panic surged through me. I ran here and there, looking behind shrubs and tree trunks, but to no avail. My clothes had disappeared, along with the fairies—if indeed they were fairies!

  It began to rain. Large drops cannoned off the dry rocks. Then it hailed, and soon the slope was covered with ice. There was no shelter. Naked, I clambered down as far as the stream. There was no one to see me—except for a wild mountain goat speeding away in the opposite direction. Gusts of wind slashed rain and hail across my face and body. Panting and shivering, I took shelter beneath an overhanging rock until the storm had passed. By then it was almost dusk, and I was able to ascend the path to my cottage without encountering anyone, apart from a band of startled langoors who chattered excitedly on seeing me.

  I couldn’t stop shivering, so I went straight to bed. I slept a deep, dreamless sleep through the afternoon, evening and night, and woke up next morning with a high fever.

  Mechanically I dressed, made myself some breakfast and tried to get through the morning’s chores. When I took my temperature, I found it was 104. So I swallowed a Brufen and went back to bed.

  There I lay till late afternoon, when the postman’s knocking woke me. I left my letters unopened on my desk—breaking a sacrosanct ritual—and returned to my bed.

  The fever lasted almost a week and left me weak and feeble. I couldn’t have climbed Pari Tibba again even if I’d wanted to. But I reclined on my window seat and looked at the clouds drifting over that bleak hill. Desolate it seemed, and yet strangely inhabited. When it grew dark, I waited for those little green fairy lights to appear; but these, it seemed, were now to be denied to me.

  And so I returned to my desk, my typewriter, my newspaper articles and correspondence. It was a lonely period in my life. My marriage hadn’t worked out: my wife, fond of high society and averse to living with an unsuccessful writer in a remote cottage in the woods, was pursuing her own, more successful career in Mumbai. I had always been rather half-hearted in my approach to making money, whereas she had always wanted more and more of it. She left me—left me with my books and my dreams . . .

  Had it all been a dream, that strange episode on Pari Tibba? Had a too-active imagination conjured up those aerial spirits, those siddhas of the upper air? Or were they underground people, living deep within the bowels of the hill? If I was going to preserve my sanity, I knew I had better get on with the more mundane aspects of living—going into town to buy groceries, mending the leaking roof, paying the electricity bill, plodding up to the post office and remembering to deposit the odd cheque that came my way. All the routine things that made life so dull and dreary.

  The truth is, what we commonly call life is not really living at all. The regular and settled ways which we accept as the course of life are really the curse of life. They tie us down to the trivial and monotonous, and we will do almost anything to get away, ideally for a more exalted and fulfilling existence, but if that is not possible, for a few hours of forgetfulness in alcohol, drugs, forbidden sex or even golf. So it would give me great joy to go underground with the fairies. Those little people who have sought refuge in Mother Earth from mankind’s killing ways are as vulnerable as butterflies and flowers. All things beautiful are easily destroyed.

  I am sitting at my window in the gathering dark, penning these stray thoughts, when I see them coming—hand-in-hand, walking on a swirl of mist, suffused with all the radiant colours of the rainbow. For a rainbow has formed a bridge for them from Pari Tibba to the edge of my window.

  I am ready to go with them to their secret lairs or to the upper air—far from the stifling confines of the world in which we toil . . .

  Come, fairies, carry me away, to experience again the perfection I did that summer’s day!

  Reunion at the Regal

  If you want to see a ghost, just stand outside New Delhi’s Regal Cinema for twenty minutes or so. The approach to the grand old cinema hall is a great place for them. Sooner or later you’ll see a familiar face in the crowd. Before you have time to recall who it was or who it may be, it will have disappeared and you will be left wondering if it really was so-and-so . . . because surely so-andso died several years ago . . .

  The Regal was very posh in the early 1940s when, in the company of my father, I saw my first film there. The Connaught Place cinemas still had a new look about them, and they showed the latest offerings from Hollywood and Britain. To see a Hindi film, you had to travel all the way to Kashmere Gate or Chandni Chowk.

  Over the years, I was in and out of the Regal quite a few times, and so I became used to meeting old acquaintances or glimpsing familiar faces in the foyer or on the steps outside.

  On one occasion I was mistaken for a ghost.

  I was about thirty at the time. I was standing on the steps of the arcade, waiting for someone, when a young Indian man came up to me and said something in German or what sounded like German.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I don’t understand. You may speak to me in English or Hindi.’

  ‘Aren’t you Hans? We met in Frankfurt last year.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’ve never been to Frankfurt.’

  ‘You look exactly like Hans.’

  ‘Maybe I’m his double. Or maybe I’m his ghost!’

  My facetious remark did not amuse the young man. He looked confused and stepped back, a look of horror spreading over his face. ‘No, no,’ he stammered. ‘Hans is alive, you can’t be his

  ghost!’

  ‘I was only joking.’

  But he had turned away, hurrying off through the crowd. He seemed agitated. I shrugged philosophically. So I had a double called Hans, I reflected; perhaps I’d run into him some day.

  I mention this incident only to show that most of us have lookalikes, and that sometimes we see what we want to see, or are looking for, even if on looking closer, the resemblance isn’t all that striking.

  But there was no mistaking Kishen when he approached me. I hadn’t seen him for five or six years, but he looked much the same. Bushy eyebrows, offset by gentle eyes; a determined chin, offset by a charming smile. The girls had always liked him, and he knew it; and he was content to let them do the pursuing.

  We saw a film—I think it was The Wind Cannot Read—and then we strolled across to the old Standard Restaurant, ordered dinner and talked about old times, while the small band played sentimental tunes from the 1950s.

  Yes, we talked about old times—growing up in Dehra, where w
e lived next door to each other, exploring our neighbours’ litchi orchards, cycling about the town in the days before the scooter had been invented, kicking a football around on the maidan, or just sitting on the compound wall doing nothing. I had just finished school, and an entire year stretched before me until it was time to go abroad. Kishen’s father, a civil engineer, was under transfer orders, so Kishen, too, temporarily did not have to go to school.

  He was an easy-going boy, quite content to be at a loose end in my company—I was to describe a couple of our escapades in my first novel, The Room on the Roof. I had literary pretensions; he was apparently without ambition although, as he grew older, he was to surprise me by his wide reading and erudition.

  One day, while we were cycling along the bank of the Rajpur canal, he skidded off the path and fell into the canal with his cycle. The water was only waist-deep; but it was quite swift, and I had to jump in to help him. There was no real danger, but we had some difficulty getting the cycle out of the canal.

  Later, he learnt to swim.

  But that was after I’d gone away . . .

  Convinced that my prospects would be better in England, my mother packed me off to her relatives in Jersey, and it was to be four long years before I could return to the land I truly cared for. In that time, many of my Dehra friends had left the town; it wasn’t a place where you could do much after finishing school. Kishen wrote to me from Calcutta, where he was at an engineering college. Then he was off to ‘study abroad’. I heard from him from time to time. He seemed happy. He had an equable temperament and got on quite well with most people. He had a girlfriend too, he told me.

  ‘But,’ he wrote, ‘you’re my oldest and best friend. Wherever I go, I’ll always come back to see you.’

  And, of course, he did. We met several times while I was living in Delhi, and once we revisited Dehra together and walked down Rajpur Road and ate tikkis and golguppas behind the clock tower. But the old familiar faces were missing. The streets were overbuilt and overcrowded, and the litchi gardens were fast disappearing. After we got back to Delhi, Kishen accepted the offer of a job in Mumbai. We kept in touch in desultory fashion, but our paths and our lives had taken different directions. He was busy nurturing his career with an engineering firm; I had retreated to the hills with radically different goals—to write and be free of the burden of a ten-to-five desk job.

  Time went by, and I lost track of Kishen.

  About a year ago, I was standing in the lobby of the India International Centre, when an attractive young woman in her mid-thirties came up to me and said, ‘Hello, Rusty, don’t you remember me? I’m Manju. I lived next to you and Kishen and Ranbir when we were children.’

  I recognized her then, for she had always been a pretty girl, the ‘belle’ of Dehra’s Astley Hall.

  We sat down and talked about old times and new times, and I told her that I hadn’t heard from Kishen for a few years.

  ‘Didn’t you know?’ she asked. ‘He died about two years ago.’

  ‘What happened?’ I was dismayed, even angry, that I hadn’t heard about it. ‘He couldn’t have been more than thirty-eight.’

  ‘It was an accident on a beach in Goa. A child had got into difficulties and Kishen swam out to save her. He did rescue the little girl, but when he swam ashore he had a heart attack. He died right there on the beach. It seems he had always had a weak heart. The exertion must have been too much for him.’

  I was silent. I knew he’d become a fairly good swimmer, but I did not know about the heart.

  ‘Was he married?’ I asked.

  ‘No, he was always the eligible bachelor boy.’

  It had been good to see Manju again, even though she had given me bad news. She told me she was happily married, with a small son. We promised to keep in touch.

  And that’s the end of this tale, apart from my brief visit to Delhi last November.

  I had taken a taxi to Connaught Place and decided to get down at the Regal. I stood there a while, undecided about what to do or where to go. It was almost time for a show to start, and there were a lot of people milling around.

  I thought someone called my name. I looked around, and there was Kishen in the crowd.

  ‘Kishen!’ I called, and started after him.

  But a stout lady climbing out of a scooter rickshaw got in my way, and by the time I had a clear view again, my old friend had disappeared.

  Had I seen his lookalike, a double? Or had he kept his promise to come back to see me once more?

  Grandfather Fights an Ostrich

  Before Grandfather joined the Indian Railways, he worked for some time on the East African Railways, and it was during that period that he had his famous encounter with the ostrich. My childhood was frequently enlivened by this oft-told tale of my grandfather’s, and I give it here in his own words—or as well as I can remember them:

  While engaged in the laying of a new railway line, I had a miraculous escape from an awful death. I lived in a small township, but my work lay some twelve miles away, and although I had a tent on the works I often had to go into town on horseback.

  On one occasion, an accident happening to my horse, I got a lift into town, hoping that someone might do me a similar favour on my way back. But this was not to be, and I made up my mind next morning to do the journey on foot, shortening the distance by taking a cut through the hills which would save me about six miles.

  To take this short cut it was necessary to cross an ostrich ‘camp’ or farm. To venture across these ‘camps’ in the breeding season, especially on foot, can be dangerous, for during this time the male birds are extremely ferocious.

  But being familiar with the ways of ostriches, I knew that my dog would scare away any ostrich which tried to attack me. Strange though it may seem, even the biggest ostrich (and some of them grow to a height of nine feet) will bolt faster than a racehorse at the sight of even a small dog. And so, in company with my dog (a mongrel who had adopted me the previous month), I felt reasonably safe.

  On arrival at the ‘camp’ I got through the wire fencing and, keeping a good lookout, dodged across the spaces between the bushes, now and then getting a sight of the birds which were feeding some distance away.

  I had gone about half a mile from the fencing when up started a hare, and in an instant my dog gave chase. I tried to call him back although I knew it was useless, since chasing hares was a passion with him.

  Whether it was the dog’s bark or my own shouting, I don’t know, but just what I was most anxious to avoid immediately happened: the ostriches became startled and began darting to and fro. Suddenly I saw a big male bird emerge from a thicket about a hundred yards away. He stood still and stared at me for a few moments; then, expanding his wings and with his tail erect, he came bounding towards me.

  Believing discretion to be the better part of valour (at least in that particular situation), I turned and ran towards the fence. But it was an unequal race. What were my steps of two or three feet against the creature’s great strides of sixteen to twenty feet? There was only one hope: to wait for the ostrich behind some bush and try to dodge him till he tired. A dodging game was obviously my only chance.

  Altering course a little, I rushed for the nearest clump of bushes where, gasping for breath, I waited for my pursuer. The great bird was almost immediately upon me, and a strange encounter commenced. This way and that I dodged, taking great care that I did not get directly in front of his deadly kick. The ostrich kicks forward, and with such terrific force that his great chisel-like nails, if they strike, would rip one open from head to foot.

  Breathless, and really quite helpless, I prayed wildly for help as I circled the bush, which was about twelve feet in diameter and some six feet in height. My strength was rapidly failing, and I realized it would be impossible to keep up the struggle much longer; I was ready to drop from sheer exhaustion. As if aware of my condition, the infuriated bird suddenly doubled on his course and charged straight at me. With a desperate effo
rt I managed to step to one side. How it happened I don’t know, but I found myself holding on to one of the creature’s wings, close to his body.

  It was now the bird’s turn to be frightened, and he began to turn, or rather waltz, moving round and round so quickly that my feet were soon swinging out almost horizontally. All the time the ostrich kept opening and shutting his beak with loud snaps.

  Imagine my situation as I clung desperately to the wing of the enraged bird, who was whirling me round and round as if I had been a cork! My arms soon began to ache with the strain, and the swift and continuous circling was making me dizzy. But I knew that if I relaxed my hold, a terrible fate awaited me: I would be promptly trampled to death by the spiteful bird.

  Round and round we went in a great circle. It seemed as if my enemy would never tire. But I knew I could not hold on much longer.

  Suddenly the bird went into reverse! This unexpected movement not only had the effect of making me lose my hold but sent me sprawling to the ground. I landed in a heap at the foot of the thorn bush. In an instant, almost before I had time to realize what had happened, the ostrich was upon me. I thought the end had come. Instinctively I put up my hands to protect my face. But, to my amazement, the great bird did not strike.

  I moved my hands from my face, and there stood the ostrich with one foot raised ready to rip me open! I couldn’t move. Was the bird going to play with me like a cat with a mouse, and prolong the agony?

  As I watched fascinated, I saw him turn his head sharply to the left. A second later he jumped back, turned, and made off as fast as he could. Dazed, I wondered what had happened.

  I soon found out, for, to my great joy, I heard the bark of my truant dog, and the next moment he was jumping around me, licking my face and hands.

  Needless to say, I returned his caresses most affectionately! And I took good care to see that he did not leave my side until we were well clear of the ostrich ‘camp’.