Stories Short And Sweet

by Ruskin Bond

  The following evening, towards dusk, as the flying foxes swooped silently out of the trees, Suraj made his way to the watchman's hut.

  It had been a long hot day, but now the earth was cooling, and a light breeze was moving through the trees. It carried with it a scent of mango blossoms, the promise of rain.

  Sunder Singh was waiting for Suraj. He had watered his small garden, and the flowers looked cool and fresh. A kettle was boiling on a small oil-stove.

  'I'm making tea,' he said. 'There's nothing like a glass of hot tea while waiting for a train.'

  They drank their tea, listening to the sharp notes of the tailorbird and the noisy chatter of the seven-sisters. As the brief twilight faded, most of the birds fell silent. Sunder Singh lit his oil-lamp and said it was time for him to inspect the tunnel. He moved off towards the tunnel, while Suraj sat on the cot, sipping his tea. In the dark, the trees seemed to move closer to him. And the night life of the forest was conveyed on the breeze - the sharp call of a barking-deer, the cry of a fox, the quaint tonk-tonk of a nightjar. There were some sounds that Suraj couldn't recognise - sounds that came from the trees, creakings and whisperings, as though the trees were coming alive, stretching their limbs in the dark, shifting a little, reflexing their fingers.

  Sunder Singh stood inside the tunnel, trimming his lamp. The night sounds were familiar to him and he did not give them much thought; but something else - a padded footfall, a rustle of dry leaves - made him stand alert for a few seconds, peering into the darkness. Then, humming softly to himself, he returned to where Suraj was waiting. Another ten minutes remained for the night mail to arrive.

  As Sunder Singh sat down on the cot beside Suraj, a new sound reached both of them quite distinctly - a rhythmic sawing sound, as if someone was cutting through the branch of a tree.

  'What's that?' whispered Suraj.

  'It's the leopard,' said Sunder Singh.

  'I think it's in the tunnel.'

  'The train will soon be here,' reminded Suraj.

  'Yes, my friend. And if we don't drive the leopard out of the tunnel, it will be run over and killed. I can't let that happen.'

  'But won't it attack us if we try to drive it out?' asked Suraj, beginning to share the watchman's concern.

  'Not this leopard. It knows me well. We have seen each other many times. It has a weakness for goats and stray dogs, but it won't harm us. Even so, I'll take my axe with me. You stay here, Suraj.'

  'No, I'm going with you. It'll be better than sitting here alone in the dark!'

  'All right, but stay close behind me. And remember, there's nothing to fear.'

  Raising his lamp high, Sunder Singh advanced into the tunnel, shouting at the top of his voice to try and scare away the animal. Suraj followed close behind, but he found he was unable to do any shouting. His throat was quite dry.

  They had gone just about twenty paces into the tunnel when the light from the lamp fell upon the leopard. It was crouching between the tracks, only fifteen feet away from them. It was not a very big leopard, but it looked lithe and sinewy. Baring its teeth and snarling, it went down on its belly, tail twitching.

  Suraj and Sunder Singh both shouted together. Their voices rang through the tunnel. And the leopard, uncertain as to how many terrifying humans were there in the tunnel with him, turned swiftly and disappeared into the darkness.

  To make sure that it had gone, Sunder Singh and Suraj walked the length of the tunnel. When they returned to the entrance, the rails were beginning to hum. They knew the train was coming.

  Suraj put his hand to the rails and felt its tremor. He heard the distant rumble of the train. And then the engine came round the bend, hissing at them, scattering sparks into the darkness, defying the jungle as it roared through the steep sides of the cutting. It charged straight at the tunnel, and into it, thundering past Suraj like the beautiful dragon of his dreams.

  And when it had gone, the silence returned and the forest seemed to breathe, to live again. Only the rails still trembled with the passing of the train.

  And they trembled to the passing of the same train, almost a week later, when Suraj and his father were both travelling in it.

  Suraj's father was scribbling in a notebook, doing his accounts. Suraj sat at an open window staring out at the darkness. His father was going to Delhi on a business trip and had decided to take the boy along. ('I don't know where he gets to, most of the time,' he'd complained. 'I think it's time he learnt something about my business.')

  The night-mail rushed through the forest with its hundreds of passengers. Tiny flickering lights came and went, as they passed small villages on the fringe of the jungle.

  Suraj heard the rumble as the train passed over a small bridge. It was too dark to see the hut near the cutting, but he knew they must be approaching the tunnel. He strained his eyes looking out into the night; and then, just as the engine let out a shrill whistle, Suraj saw the lamp.

  He couldn't see Sunder Singh, but he saw the lamp, and he knew that his friend was out there.

  The train went into the tunnel and out again; it left the jungle behind and thundered across the endless plains; and Suraj stared out at the darkness, thinking of the lonely cutting in the forest, and the watchman with the lamp who would always remain a firefly for those travelling thousands, as he lit up the darkness for steam-engines and leopards.

  The Snake-charmer's Daughter

  any years ago a tribal village lay on the banks of a muddy steam amongst the bare, rugged foothills of the Himalayas.

  Trade in the skins of lizards and snakes was good in those days, and Hiralal, a snake-charmer, made a fairly good living from his occupation. He was a well-built, handsome man, and the young village girls often cast shy, furtive looks in his direction. But Hiralal went his way without paying much attention to these distractions.

  On a day when dark, threatening clouds rolled up from the east, bringing with them a strong wind, the villagers looked anxiously at the sky, for their small crops were in ears and about to mature.

  Hiralal, who was wandering far up the hill, playing his pipe in the hope of attracting a snake, heard the thunder and felt the first few drops of rain. At home, the skins lay stretched out in the courtyard, and he knew his brother was probably too drunk to think of taking them in. He began hurrying homewards, but the storm burst before he had gone half way.

  Lightning sizzled across the hills, and the crash of thunder rent the air. Hiralal began to run. The stream between him and the village was already swollen, and in a short time it would be a raging torrent, impossible to cross. Tightening and girding up his loin-cloth, he entered the stream in blinding rain, and was almost across when he heard a cry for help.

  It was a faint cry, barely heard above the roar of the storm; but though the water was rising every moment, Hiralal went in the direction of the cry. He found a young girl struggling for her life in the swirling water. He managed to reach her with a great effort, and a little later landed both himself and the girl just below his hut.

  She had fainted; but Hiralal shouted to his brother, and between them they picked up the girl and brought her safely to their house.

  When she opened her eyes, the storm had passed and the sun was shining. But the storm had left in its wake desolation and death; and the girl's home, like several others, had been levelled to the ground.

  A month later the girl was married to Hiralal, the snake-charmer. After the marriage feast, a great dance was held - for the tribals; once they have offered to the dead a portion of the funeral feast, forget them quickly in the struggle for existence.

  In the following year, a baby girl was born to the couple, and was named Sona, because of her honey-gold complexion. She grew up to be a beautiful girl, and offers of marriage kept coming the way of her parents.

  The most tempting proposal was made by Dukha, a drunkard and a bully. Dukha was a rich man, the richest in the village, and Hiralal urged his daughter to agree to the marriage. But she would not consider
Dukha or any other suitor, for her heart belonged to the slim and agile Bhim, a fisherman, in whose net she had once found herself entangled while bathing in the river. It had taken Bhim a surprisingly long time to disentangle Sona from his net - long enough for Sona to be charmed by his good looks and flashing smile.

  By the time Sona had reached the marriageable age of fourteen, a sucession of bad years settled on the land — the seasonal rains failed, famine stalked the village, and many died.

  Making a living became difficult for Hiralal's family, because snakes and lizards were now scarce, and fewer people bought their skins. Then Hiralal's wife fell sick and died; and his brother, unable to afford a daily supply of liquor, faded away, and was found dead in the jungle one day.

  Only Hiralal and his daughter were left.

  Taking the few skins he had recently cured and dressed, Hiralal set out for a nearby town to try and make a sale.

  While he was away, Sona wandered into the jungle and found a pet - a beautiful baby cobra. She had learnt all about snakes and their ways from her father. Carefully putting the young cobra in her waist-cloth to keep it warm, she returned home.

  Hiralal had sold a couple of skins, and they managed to fill their stomachs for a few weeks; but a day came when all their money was finished. They still had their brass utensils left, and these were mortgaged to Dukha, who paid a price far below their worth.

  'I would give you more,' he said, 'if only Sona were betrothed to me.'

  And then came a day when there was nothing left to mortgage. They were faced with starvation. Hiralal begged his daughter to agree to marrying Dukha, but the girl was stubborn.

  According to tribal custom, the final choice of a husband lay entirely with her.

  Meanwhile, Bhim, the fisherman had disappeared without warning, to try his luck with the net in the glacier-fed streams further north. Sona was sad and lonely. Every morning she went down to the stream, but there was no sign of the fisherman.

  Her father kept urging her to marry Dukha, who had now promised to advance Hiralal a hundred rupees and return the mortgaged articles as soon as the engagement was made binding. Sona was in despair.

  Bhim, the one man whom she admired, seemed to have deserted her in the hour of her greatest need. Finally, weakened by her father's constant pleading, she agreed to the engagement. Dukha was overjoyed and went about the village boasting of his conquest.

  One evening, as Sona was feeding her pet snake with some goat's milk given to her by a neighbour, a shadow fell across the doorstep. It was Bhim. She clung to the man she loved and poured out her woes; but he was helpless in the matter, because by the rules of the tribe no man could interfere with a marriage once the girl had given her consent.

  Bhim tried to console her, and told her of his visit to a distant city where people were ready to pay money to watch a snake respond to the music of the snake-charmer's pipe: perhaps Hiralal could take to training the snakes he caught, instead of skinning them. But all this was of no consolation to the heartbroken girl.

  And then, on the day before the marriage, Dukha, blustering and bragging, entered the house and seized the girl. He was drunk and could contain himself no longer. But he was unaware of the pet snake coiled round Sona's neck. As he caught the girl by the shoulders, a hooded coil darted out towards him and tapped him just once on the wrist. Two small punctures appeared on the man's hand.

  With a cry of terror, Dukha staggered backwards. And as several people rushed into the room, the braggart sunk slowly to the floor, his eyes bulging, his arms and legs stretching wide. Dukha was dead.

  The news of better prospects in the distant city filled many villagers with renewed hope, and on a cold winter morning a small procession moved southwards.

  It was headed by Bhim the fisherman, and close behind him came his wife Sona, her beloved cobra coiled tenderly around her neck.

  The Wild Fruit

  t was a long walk to school. Down the hill, through the rhododendron trees, across a small stream, around a bare, brown hill, and then through the narrow little bazaar, past fruit stalls piled high with oranges, guavas, bananas, and apples.

  The boy's gaze often lingered on those heaps of golden oranges - oranges grown in the plains, now challenging the pale winter sunshine in the hills. His nose twitched at the sharp smell of melons in summer; his fingers would sometimes touch for a moment the soft down on the skin of a peach. But these were forbidden fruit. The boy hadn't the money for them.

  He took one meal at seven in the morning when he left home; another at seven in the evening when he returned from school. There were times - especially when he was at school, and his teacher droned on and on, lecturing on honesty, courage, duty, and self-sacrifice -when he felt very hungry; but on the way to school, or on the way home, there was nearly always the prospect of some wild fruit.

  The boy's name was Vijay, and he belonged to a village near the Mussoorie. His parents tilled a few narrow terraces on the hill slopes. They grew potatoes, onions, barley, maize; barely enough to feed themselves. When greens were scarce, they boiled the tops of the stinging-nettle and made them into a dish resembling spinach.

  Vijay's parents realised the importance of sending him to school, and it didn't cost them much, except for the books. But it was all of four miles to the town, and a long walk makes a boy hungry.

  But there was nearly always the wild fruit. The purple berries of the thorny bilberry bushes, ripening in May and June. Wild strawberries, growing in shady places like spots of blood on the deep green monsoon grass. Small, sour cherries, and tough medlars. Vijay's strong teeth and probing tongue extracted whatever tang or sweetness lay hidden in them. And in March there were the rhododendron flowers.

  His mother made them into jam. But Vijay liked them as they were. He placed the petals on his tongue and chewed them till the sweet juice trickled down his throat. But in November, there was no wild fruit. Only acorns on the oak trees, and they were bitter, fit only for the monkeys.

  He walked through the bazaar, barefoot, strong in the legs. He looked a healthy boy, until you came up close and saw the patches on his skin and the dullness in his eyes.

  He passed the fruit stalls, wondering who ate all that fruit, and what happened to the fruit that went bad; he passed the sweet shop, where hot, newly-fried jelabies lay protected like twisted orange jewels in a glass case, and where a fat, oily man raised a knife and plunged it deep into a thick slab of rich amber-coloured halwa.

  The saliva built up in Vijay's mouth; there was a dull ache in his stomach. But his eyes gave away nothing of the sharp pangs that he felt.

  And now, a confectioner's shop. Glass jars filled with chocolates, peppermints, toffees -sweets he didn't know the names of, English sweets - wrapped up in bits of coloured paper.

  A boy had just bought a bag of sweets. He had one in his mouth. He was a well-dressed boy; coins jingled in his pocket. The sweet moved from one cheek to the other. He bit deep into it, and Vijay heard the crunch and looked up. The boy smiled at Vijay, but moved away.

  They met again, further along the road, once again the boy smiled, even looked as though he was about to offer Vijay a sweet; but this time, Vijay shyly looked away. He did not want it to appear that he had noticed the sweets, or that he hungered for one.

  But he kept meeting the boy, who always managed to reappear at some corner, sucking a sweet, moving it about in his mouth, letting it show between his wet lips - a sticky green thing, temptingly, lusciously beautiful.

  The bag of sweets was nearly empty.

  Reluctantly, Vijay decided that he must overtake the boy, forget all about the sweets, and hurry home. Otherwise, he would be tempted to grab the bag and run!

  And then, he saw the boy leave the bag on a bench, look at him once, and smile - smile shyly and invitingly - before moving away.

  Was the bag empty? Vijay wondered with mounting excitement. It couldn't be, or it would have been blown away almost immediately. Obviously, there were still a few
sweets in it. The boy had disappeared. He had gone for his tea, and Vijay could have the rest of the sweets.

  Vijay took the bag and jammed it into a pocket of his shirt. Then he hurried homewards. It was getting late, and he wanted to be home before dark.

  As soon as he was out of the town, he opened the bag and shook the sweets out. Their red wrappers glowed like rubies in the palm of his hand.

  Carefully, he undid a wrapper.

  There was no sweet inside, only a smooth, round stone.

  Vijay found stones in all the wrappers. In his mind's eye, Vijay saw the smiling face of the boy in the bazaar: a boy who smiled sweetly but exchanged stones for sweets.

  Forcing back angry tears, Vijay flung the stones down the hillside. Then he shouldered his bag of books and began the long walk home.

  There were patches of snow on the ground. The grass was a dirty brown, the bushes were bare.

  There is no wild fruit in November.