Rain In the Mountains

by Ruskin Bond

  Megh Chand tells me that he has been starved of good conversation. ‘Next year,’ he says, sitting down on the steps of his shop, ‘the government will be widening the road, and then the buses will be able to stop here. For many years I have depended on the mule-drivers, but they do not have much money to spend. Once the buses come, I will have many customers. Then perhaps I can afford to go to Delhi to have my operation.’

  ‘What operation?’

  ‘Oh, a rasoli—a growth—in my stomach. Sometimes the pain is very bad. I went to the hospital in Mussoorie, but they told me I would have to go to Delhi for an operation. Whenever someone is seriously ill, they say, ‘Go to Delhi!’ Does the whole world go to Delhi to get treated? My uncle was told to go to Delhi for an operation. He went from one hospital to another until his money was finished, and then he came back to the village and died within a week. So maybe I won’t go for the operation. The money is needed here. Once the buses come, I will have to keep sweets and biscuits and other things, and also a boy to help me cook a few meals. All I can offer you today is a bun. It was made in Delhi, I am told.’

  ‘I’d rather have your lassi than a Delhi bun,’ I protest, for the bun looks as old as the Sheraton chair. ‘But where do you get your water?’ I ask.

  ‘Come, I will show you,’ he says, and takes me round to the back of the shack and through an unexpected gap in the hillside. It gives me a breathtaking glimpse of snow-clad mountains striding into the sky. It is cool and shady on the northern face of the hill, and here, issuing from a rock, is a trickle of water. Yellow primulae grow in clusters along the edges of a damp, dripping rock-face. The water collects in a small stone trough.

  ‘There is no other cheshma (spring) along this road,’ he says, ‘and the buses can’t go down into the ravine, unless they fall into it. So they will have to stop here!’ He is triumphant.

  We return to the shop front, where a milkman has just arrived with a container of milk. He too sits down for rest, refreshment and conversation. Next year, if the road is ready (and it is a big if, because with hill roads you can never be sure), and if he can afford the fare (an even bigger if), the milkman will be able to use the bus. But there are some who will walk anyway, because they have always been walking. Or ride mules, because they have been doing it all their lives.

  Still, when the road comes, time will take on new dimensions for Megh Chand. Even in remote mountain areas, buses must keep to some sort of schedule, and Megh Chand will have to be sure that his pot is on the boil, and be on the lookout for arrivals and departures. He will be better off than he is today but he is aware that prosperity has its pitfalls. He remembers a cousin, who opened a small grocery shop on a new bus-route near Devprayag. One day, some young hooligans got off the bus, looted his shop, and left him battered and bruised. It was the sort of thing that had never happened before . . . .

  It is time for me to be on my way. I leave Megh Chand and his Sheraton chair with regret.

  ‘I hope the road will soon be ready,’ I say in parting. ‘I hope you will make lots of money. I hope you will be able to go to Delhi for your operation. And I hope I can come this way again.’

  Hillman or plainsman, we have only our hopes to keep us going.

  The Wind and the Rain

  Like the wind, I run;

  Like the rain, I sing;

  Like the leaves, I dance;

  Like the earth, I’m still;

  And in this, Lord, I do thy will.

  All About my Walkabouts

  ALL MY LIFE I’ve been a walking person. Up to this day, I have neither owned nor driven a car, bus, tractor, airplane, motorcycle, truck, or steamroller. Forced to make a choice. I would as soon drive a steamroller, because of its slow but solid progress and unhurried finality. And also because other vehicles don’t try hustling steamrollers off the road.

  For a brief period in my early teens I had a bicycle, until I rode into a bullock cart and ruined my new cycle. The bullocks panicked and ran away with the cart while the furious cart driver was giving me a lecture on road sense. I have never bumped into a bullock cart while walking.

  My earliest memories are of a place called Jamnagar, a small port on the west coast of India, then part of a princely state. My father was an English tutor to several young Indian princes and princesses. This was where my walking really began, because Jamnagar was full of spacious palaces, lawns, and gardens. By the time I was four, I was exploring much of this territory on my own, with the result that I encountered my first snake. Instead of striking me dead as snakes are supposed to do, it allowed me to pass.

  Living as it did so close to the ground, and sensitive to every footfall, it must have known instinctively that I presented no threat, that I was just another small creature discovering the use of his legs. Envious of the snake’s swift gliding movements, I went indoors and tried crawling about on my belly. But I wasn’t much good at it. Legs were better.

  My father’s schoolroom and our own residence were located on the grounds of one of the older palaces, which was full of turrets, stairways, and mysterious dark passages. Right on top of the building I discovered a glass-covered room, each pane of glass stained with a different colour. This room fascinated me, as I could, by turn, look through the panes of glass at a green or rose-pink or orange or deep indigo world. It was nice to be able to decide for oneself what colour the world should be!

  My father took his duties seriously and taught me to read and write long before I started attending a regular school. However, it would be true to say that I first learned to read upside down. This happened because I would sit on a stool in front of the three princesses, watching them read and write, and so the view I had of their books was an upside-down view, I still read that way occasionally, especially when a book becomes boring.

  There was no boredom in the palace grounds. We were situated in the middle of a veritable jungle of a garden, where marigolds and cosmos grew, rampant in the long grass. An old disused well was the home of countless pigeons, their gentle cooing by day contrasting with the shrill cries of the brain-fever bird (the hawk-cuckoo) at night. ‘How very hot it’s getting!’ the bird seems to say. And then, in a rising crescendo, ‘We feel it! We feel it! WE FEEL IT!’

  Walking along a nearby beach, collecting seashells, I got into the habit of staring hard at the ground, a habit which has remained with me all my life. Apart from helping my thought processes, it also results in my picking up odd objects—coins, keys, broken bangles, marbles, pens, bits of crockery, pretty stones, feathers, ladybirds, seashells, snail-shells! Not to speak of old nails and horseshoes. Looking at my collection of miscellaneous objects picked up on these walks, my friends insist that I must be using a metal detector. But it’s only because I keep my nose to the ground, like a bloodhound.

  Occasionally, of course, this habit results in my walking some way past my destination (if I happen to have one). And why not? It simply means discovering a new and different destination, sights and sounds that I might not have experienced had I ended my walk exactly where it was supposed to end. And I am not looking at the ground all the time. Sensitive like the snake to approaching footfalls, I look up from time to time to take note of the faces of passers-by, just in case they have something interesting to say.

  A bird singing in a bush or tree has my immediate attention, so does any familiar flower or plant, particularly if it grows in an unusual place such as a crack in a wall or rooftop, or in a yard full of junk—where once I found a rosebush blooming on the roof of an old, abandoned Ford car.

  I like to think that I invented the zigzag walk. Tiring of walking in straight lines, or on roads that led directly to a destination, I took to going off at tangents—taking sudden unfamiliar turnings, wandering down narrow alleyways, following cart tracks or paths through fields instead of the main roads, and in general making the walk as complicated as possible.

  In this way I saw much more than I would normally have seen. Here a temple, there a mosque; now an old
church; a railway siding; follow the railway line; here’s a pond full of buffaloes, there a peacock preening itself under a tamarind tree; and now I’m in a field of mustard, and soon I’m walking along a canal bank, and the canal leads me back into the town, and I follow the line of the mango trees until I am home.

  The adventure is not in arriving, it’s the on-the-way experience. It is not the expected; it’s the surprise. You are not choosing what you shall see in the world, but are giving the world an even chance to see you.

  It’s like drawing lines from star to star in the night sky, not forgetting many dim, shy, out-of-the-way stars, which are full of possibilities. The first turning to the left, the next to the right! I am still on my zigzag way, pursuing the diagonal between reason and the heart.

  Great Spirits of the Trees

  EXPLORE THE HISTORY and mythology of almost any Indian tree, and you will find that at some period of our civilization it has held an important place in the minds and hearts of the people of this land.

  During the rains, when the neem-pods fall and are crushed underfoot, they give out a strong refreshing aroma which lingers in the air for days. This is because the neem gives out more oxygen than most trees. When the ancient herbalists held that the neem was a great purifier of the air, and that its leaves, bark and sap had medicinal qualities, they were quite right, for the neem is still used in medicine today.

  From the earliest times it was connected with the gods who protect us from disease. Some castes regarded the tree as sacred to Sitala, the smallpox goddess. When children fell ill, a branch of the neem was waved over them. The tree is said to have sprung from the nectar of the gods, and people still chew the leaves as a means of purification, both spiritual and physical.

  The tree is also connected with the sun, as in the story of neem-barak, ‘The Sun in the Neem Tree’. The Sun God invited to dinner a man of the Bairagi tribe whose rules forbade him to eat except by daylight. Dinner was late, and as darkness fell, the Bairagi feared he would have to go hungry. But Suraj Narayan, the Sun God, descended from a neem tree and continued shining till dinner was over.

  Why have so many trees been held sacred, not only in India but the world over?

  To early man they were objects of awe and wonder. The mystery of their growth, the movement of their leaves and branches, the way they seemed to die and then come to life again in spring, the sudden growth of the plant from the seed, all these happenings appeared as miracles—as indeed they are! And because of the wonderful growth of a tree, people began to suppose that it was occupied by spirits, and devotion to a tree became devotion to the spirit or tree-god who occupied it.

  In Puck of Pook’s Hill, Kipling wove some wonderful stories, around Puck, the tree-spirit, and the sacred trees of Old England—oak, ash and thorn: ‘I came into England with Oak, Ash, and Thorn, and when Oak, Ash and Thorn are gone, I shall go too.’

  Among the Gonds of Central India, before a man cut a tree he had to beg its pardon for the injury he was about to inflict on it. He would not shake a tree at night because the tree-spirit was asleep and might be disturbed. When a tree had to be felled, the Gonds would pour ghee on the stump, saying: ‘Grow thou out of this, O Lord of the Forest, grow into a hundred shoots! May we grow with a thousand shoots.’

  The beautiful mahua is a forest tree held sacred by a number of tribes. Early on the wedding morning, before he goes to fetch his bride, the Bagdi bridegroom goes through a mock marriage with a mahua tree. He embraces it and daubs it with vermilion, his right wrist is bound to it with thread, and after he is released from the tree the thread is used to attach a bunch of mahua leaves to his wrist.

  There is a beautiful tradition connected with the sal tree. It is said that at the time of the Buddha’s birth, his mother stretched out her hand to take hold of a branch of the sal and was delivered. Sal trees are also said to have rendered homage to the Buddha at his death, letting fall on him their flowers out of season, and bending their branches to shade him.

  Special respect is paid to trees growing near the graves of Muslim saints. Near the tomb of a famous saint, Musa Sohag, at Ahmedabad, there used to be a large old champa tree—perhaps it is still there—the branches of which were hung with glass bangles. Those anxious to have children came and offered bangles to the saint—the number of bangles depending on the means of the supplicant. If the saint favoured a wish, the champa tree ‘snatched up the bangles and wore them on its arms’.

  Another spectacular tree which has its place in our folklore is the dhak, or palasa, which gave its name to the battlefield of Plassey. It has the habit of dropping its leaves when it flowers, the upper and outer branches standing out in sprays of scarlet and orange. The flowers are sometimes used to dye the powder scattered at Holi, the spring festival; and the wood, said to contain the seed of fire, is used in lighting the Holi bonfire. Legend tells us that the Sun God aimed an arrow at the earth, and that it took root and became the palasa tree.

  The babul (or keekar) is not very impressive to look at but it will grow almost anywhere in the plains, and there are a number of old beliefs associated with it. For instance, you can cure fever and headache at a babul tree if you tie seven cotton threads from your left big toe to your head, and from your head to a branch of the tree. Then you must embrace the trunk seven times. Try it sometime. You will be so busy tying threads that you will forget you ever had a headache! And there are no after-effects.

  Another belief concerning the babul is that if you water it regularly for thirteen days, you acquire control over the spirit who occupies it. There is a story about a man at Saharanpur who did this, and when he died and his corpse was taken away for cremation, no sooner was his pyre lit than he got up and walked away!

  In the folklore of India, the mango is the ‘wish-fulfilling tree’. When you want to make a wish on a mango tree, shut your eyes and get someone to lead you to the tree; then rub mango blossoms in your hands, and make your wish. The favour granted lasts only for a year, and the charm must be performed again at the next flowering of the tree. In the spring, the young leaves and buds symbolize the darts of Manmatha, or Kamadeva, God of Love.

  Another ‘wishing tree’, the kalp-vriksha, is an enormous old mulberry that is still cared for at Joshimath in Garhwal. It is said to be the tree beneath which the great Sankaracharya often meditated during his sojourn in the Himalayas. Judging by its girth, it might well be over a thousand years old.

  Whole forests have been held sacred, such as that in Berar which was dedicated to a particular temple; no one dared to buy or cut the trees. The sacred groves near Mathura, where Lord Krishna sported as a youth, were also protected for centuries. But now, alas, even the hallowed groves are disappearing, making way for the demands of an ever-increasing population. A pity, because every human needs a tree of his own. Even if you do not worship the tree-spirit, you can love the tree.

  So Beautiful the Night

  I love the night, Lord.

  After the sun’s heat and the day’s work,

  it’s good to close my eyes and rest my body.

  It’s a good time for small creatures:

  Porcupines come out of their burrows

  to dig for roots.

  The night-jar calls tonk-tonk!

  The timid owl peeps out of his hole in the tree trunk

  Where he has been hiding all day.

  Insects crawl out in thousands.

  The wind comes down the chimney

  and blows around the room.

  I’m watching the stars from my window.

  The trees are stretching their arms in the dark

  and whispering to the moon.

  But if the trees could walk, Lord,

  What a wonderful sight it would be—

  Armies of pines and firs and oaks

  Marching over the moonlit mountains.

  Birdsong Heard in the Mountains

  BIRD-WATCHING IS more difficult in the hills than on the plains. It is hard to spot many birds ag
ainst the dark trees of the varying shades of the hillside.

  There are few birds who remain silent for long, however, and one learns of their presence from their calls or songs. Birdsong is with you wherever you go in the Himalayas, from the foothills to the tree-line; and it is often easier to recognize a bird from its voice than from its colourful but brief appearance.

  The barbet is one of those birds which is heard more often than it is seen. It has a monotonous, far-reaching call, which carries for about a mile. These birds love listening to their own voices, and often two or three will answer each other from different trees, each trying to outdo the rest in a shrill shouting match. Some people like the barbet’s call and consider it both striking and pleasant. Some just find it striking.

  Hodgson’s grey-headed flycatcher-warbler is the long name that ornithologists, in their infinite wisdom, have given to a very small bird. This tiny warbler is heard, if not seen, more often than any other bird throughout the western Himalayas. Its voice is heard in every second tree, and yet there are few who can say what it looks like. Its song (if you can call it that), is not very tuneful and puts me in mind of the notice that sometimes appeared in saloons out West: ‘The audience is requested not to throw things at the pianist. He is doing his best.’

  Our little warbler does his best, incessantly emitting four or five unmusical, but nevertheless joyful and penetrating notes.

  Another tiny bird heard more often than it is seen is the green-backed tit, a smart little fellow about the size of a sparrow. It utters a sharp, rather metallic, but not unpleasant call which sounds like ‘kiss me, kiss me, kiss me’.

  A real songster is the grey-winged ouzel, found here in the Garhwal hills. Throughout the early summer he makes the wooded hillsides ring with a melody that Nelson Eddy would have been proud of. Joining in sometimes with a sweet song of its own, is the green pigeon. As though to mock their arias, the laughing-thrushes, who are exponents of heavy rock, give vent to some weird calls of their own.