by Ruskin Bond
When I think of the great eighteenth and nineteenth century writers, scratching away with their quill pens, filling hundreds of pages every month, I am amazed to find that their handwriting did not deteriorate into the sort of hieroglyphics that often make up the average doctor’s prescription today. They knew they had to write legibly, if only for the sake of the typesetters.
Both Dickens and Thackeray had good, clear, flourishing styles. (Thackeray was a clever illustrator, too.) Somerset Maugham had an upright, legible hand. Churchill’s neat handwriting never wavered, even when he was under stress. I like the bold, clear, straighforward hand of Abraham Lincoln; it mirrors the man. Mahatma Gandhi, another great soul who fell to the assassin’s bullet, had many similarities of both handwriting and outlook.
Not everyone had a beautiful hand. King Henry VIII had an untidy scrawl, but then, he was not a man of much refinement. Guy Fawkes, who tried to blow up the British Parliament, had a very shaky hand. With such a quiver, no wonder he failed in his attempt! Hitler’s signature is ugly, as you would expect. And Napoleon’s doesn’t seem to know where to stop; how much like the man!
I think my father was right when he said handwriting was often the key to a man’s character, and that large well-formed letters went with an uncluttered mind. Florence Nightingale had a lovely handwriting, the hand of a caring person. And there were many like her, amongst our forebears.
3
WORDS AND PICTURES
When I was a small boy, no Christmas was really complete unless my Christmas stocking contained several recent issues of my favourite comic paper. If today my friends complain that I am too voracious a reader of books, they have only these comics to blame; for they were the origin, if not of my tastes in reading, then certainly of the reading habit itself.
I like to think that my conversion to comics began at the age of five, with a comic strip on the children’s page of The Statesman. In the late 1930s, Benji, whose head later appeared only on the Benji League badge, had a strip to himself; I don’t remember his adventures very clearly, but every day (or was it once a week?) I would cut out the Benji strip and paste it into a scrapbook. Two years later this scrapbook, bursting with the adventures of Benji, accompanied me to boarding school, where, of course, it passed through several hands before finally passing into limbo.
Of course comics did not form the only reading matter that found its way into my Christmas stocking. Before 1 was eight, I had read Peter Pan, Alice, and most of Mr Midshipman Easy; but I had also consumed thousands of comic-papers which were, after all, slim affairs and mostly pictorial, ‘certain little penny books radiant with gold and rich with bad pictures’, as Leigh Hunt described the children’s papers of his own time.
But though they were mostly pictorial, comics in those days did have a fair amount of reading matter, too. The Hostspur, Wizard, Magnet (a victim of the Second World War) and Champion contained stories woven round certain popular characters. In Champion, which I read regularly right through my prep school years, there was Rockfist Rogan, Royal Air Force (R.A.F.), a pugilist who managed to combine boxing with bombing, and Fireworks Flynn, a footballer who always scored the winning goal in the last two minutes of play
Billy Bunter has, of course, become one of the immortals—almost a subject for literary and social historians. Quite recently, The Times Literary Supplement devoted its first two pages to an analysis of the Bunter stories. Eminent lawyers and doctors still look back nostalgically to the arrival of the weekly Magnet; they are now the principal customers for the special souvenir edition of the first issue of the Magnet, recently reprinted in facsimile. Bunter, ‘forever young’, has become a folk-hero. He is seen on stage, screen and television, and is even quoted in the House of Commons.
From this, I take courage. My only regret is that I did not preserve my own early comics—not because of any bibliophilic value which they might possess today, but because of my sentimental regard for early influences in art and literature.
The first venture in children’s publishing, in 1774 was a comic of sorts. In that year, John Newberry brought out:
According to Act of Parliament (neatly bound and gilt): A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, intended for the Instruction and Amusement of Little Master Tommy and Pretty Miss Polly, with an agreeable Letter to read from Jack the Giant-Killer…
The book contained pictures, rhymes and games. Newberry’s characters and imaginary authors included Woglog the Giant, Tommy Trip, Giles Gingerbread, Nurse Truelove, Peregrine Puzzlebrains, Primrose Prettyface, and many others with names similar to those found in the comic-papers of our own century.
Newberry was also the originator of the ‘Amazing Free Offer’, so much a part of American comics. At the beginning of 1755, he had this to offer:
Nurse Truelove’s New Year Gift, or the Book of Books for children, adorned with cuts and designed as a present for every little boy who would become a great man and ride upon a fine horse; and to every little girl who would become a great woman and ride in a Lord Mayor’s gilt coach. Printed for the author, who has ordered these books to be given gratis to all little boys in St. Paul’s churchyard, they paying for the binding, which is only two pence each book.
Many of today’s comics are crude and, like many television serials violent in their appeal. But I did not know American comics until I was twelve, and by then I had become quite discriminating. Superman, Bulletman, Batman, Green Lantern, and other superheroes all left me cold. I had, by then, passed into the world of real books but the weakness for the comic-strip remains. I no longer receive comics in my Christmas stocking; but I do place a few in the stockings of Gautam and Siddharth. And, needless to say, I read them right through beforehand.
The Postman Knocks
As a freelance writer, most of my adult life has revolved around the coming of the postman. ‘A cheque in the mail,’ is something that every struggling writer looks forward to. It might, of course, arrive by courier, or it might not come at all. But for the most part, the acceptances and rejections of my writing life, along with editorial correspondence, readers’ letters, page proofs and author’s copies—how welcome they are!—come through the post.
The postman has always played a very real and important part in my life, and continues to do so. He climbs my twenty-one steps every afternoon, knocks loudly on my door—three raps, so that I know it’s him and not some inquisitive tourist—and gives me my registered mail or speed-post with a smile and a bit of local gossip. The gossip is important. I like to know what’s happening in the bazaar—who’s getting married, who’s standing for election, who ran away with the headmaster’s wife, and whose funeral procession is passing by. He deserves a bonus for this sort of information.
The courier boy, by contrast, shouts to me from the road below and I have to go down to him. He’s mortally afraid of dogs and there are three in the building. My postman isn’t bothered by dogs. He comes in all weathers, and he comes on foot except when someone gives him a lift. He turns up when it’s snowing, or when it’s raining cats and dogs, or when there’s a heat wave, and he’s quite philosophical about it all. He meets all kinds of people. He has seen joy and sorrow in the homes he visits. He knows something about life. If he wasn’t a philosopher to begin with, he will certainly be one by the time he retires.
Of course, not all postmen are paragons of virtue. A few years ago, we had a postman who never got further than the country liquor shop in the bazaar. The mail would pile up there for days, until he sobered up and condescended to deliver it. In due course he was banished to another route, where there were no liquor shops.
We take the postman for granted today, but there was a time, over a hundred years ago, when the carrying of the mails was a hazardous venture, and the mail-runner, or hirkara as he was called, had to be armed with sword or spear. Letters were carried in leather wallets on the backs of runners, who were changed at stages of eight miles. At night, the runners were accompanied by torch-bearers—in wilder parts, by drum
mers called dug-dugi wallas—to frighten away wild animals.
The tiger population was considerable at the time, and tigers were a real threat to travellers or anyone who ventured far from their town or village. Mail-runners often fell victim to man-eating tigers. The mail-runners (most of them tribals) were armed with bows and arrows, but these were seldom effective.
In the Hazaribagh district (through which the mail had to be carried, on its way from Calcutta to Allahabad) there appears to have been a concentration of man-eating tigers. There were four passes through this district, and the tigers had them well covered. Williamson, writing in 1810, tells us that the passes were so infested with tigers that the roads were almost impassable. ‘Day after day, for nearly a fortnight, some of the dak people were carried off at one or other of these passes.’
In spite of these hazards, a letter sent by dak runner used to take twelve days to reach Meerut from Calcutta. It takes about the same time today, unless you use speed-post.
At up country stations the collector of Land Revenue was the Postmaster. He was given a small postal establishment, consisting of a munshi, a matsaddi or sorter, and thirty or for, runners whose pay, in 1804, was five rupees a month. The maintenance of the dak cost the government (i.e., the East India Company) twenty-five rupees a month for each stage of eight miles. Postage stamps were introduced in 1854.
My father was an enthusastic philatelist, and when I was a small boy I could sit and watch him pore over his stamp collection, which included several early and valuable Indian issues. He would grumble at the very dark and smudgy postmarks which obliterated most of Queen Victoria’s profile from the stamps. This was due to the composition of the ink used for cancelling the earlier stamps. It was composed of two parts lamp-black, four parts linseed oil and three and a half of vinegar.
Letter-distributing peons, or postmen, were always smartly turned out: ‘A red turban, a light green chapkan, a small leather belt over the breast and right shoulder, with a chaprass attached showing the peon’s number and having the words “Post Office Peon” in English and in two vernaculars, and a bell suspended by a leather strap from the left shoulder.’
Today’s postmen are more casual in their attire, although I believe they are still entitled to uniforms. The general public doesn’t care how they are dressed, as long as they turn up with those letters containing rakhis or money orders from soldiers, peons and husbands. This is where the postman still scores over the fax and email.
To return to our mail-runners, they were eventually replaced by the dak-ghari, the equivalent of the English ‘coach and pair’—which gradually established itself throughout the country.
A survivor into the 1940s, my great-aunt Lillian recalled that in the late nineteenth century, before the coming of the railway, the only way of getting to Dehra Dun was by the dak-ghari or Night Mail. Dak-ghari ponies were difficult animals, she told me—‘always attempting to turn around and get into the carriage with the passengers!’ But once they started there was no stopping them. It was a gallop all the way to the first stage, where the ponies were changed to the accompaniment of a bugle blown by the coachman, in true Dickensian fashion.
The journey through the Siwaliks really began—as it still does—through the Mohand Pass. The ascent starts with a gradual gradient which increases as the road becomes more steep and winding. At this stage of the journey, drums were beaten (if it was day) and torches lit (if it was night) because sometimes wild elephants resented the approach of the dak-ghari and, trumpeting a challenge, would throw the ponies into confusion and panic, and send them racing back to the plains.
After 1900, great-aunt Lillian used the train. But the main bus from Saharanpur to Mussoorie still uses the old route through the Siwaliks. And if you are lucky, you may see a herd of wild elephants crossing the road on its way to the Ganga.
And even today, in remote parts of the country, in isolated hill areas where there are no motorable roads, the mail is carried on foot, the postman often covering five or six miles every day. He never runs, true, and be might sometimes stop for a glass of tea and a game of cards en-route, but he is a reminder of those early pioneers of the postal system, the mail-runners of India.
Let me not cavil at my unexpected visitors. Sometimes they turn out to be very nice people—like the gentleman from Pune who brought me a bottle of whisky and then sat down and drank most of it himself.
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 wan’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 11.’
‘There’s plenty of time,’ I said, recalling that the train left at 11.15. ‘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 the 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 11.15 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 Kotla.
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 the 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 No. 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 a 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 had moved elsewhere, I’m afraid his disappearance might well be connected with cousin George’s rickshaw ride. After all, the Jamuna is very near the Kotla.
My Failed Omelettes—and Other Disasters
In nearly fifty years of writing for a living, I have never succeeded in writing a bestseller. 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 ft 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 my five-year-old grandson, 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.’