Children's Omnibus

by Ruskin Bond

  "Run!" hissed Koki, scrambling down from her tree.

  "Run!" shouted Ranji, as though it were a cricket match.

  Teju was so startled by the sudden activity that he tumbled out of his tree and began crying, and Ranji and Koki had to go to his aid.

  The sight of an enormous ex-wrestler bearing down on them was enough to make Teju stop crying and get to his feet. Then all three were fleeing across the grove, the watchman a little way behind them, waving his lathi and shouting at the top of his voice. Although he was an ex-wrestler (or perhaps because of it) he could not run very fast, and was still huffing and puffing some twenty metres behind them when they climbed up and over the wall. He could not climb walls either.

  They ran off in different directions before returning home.

  Next day, Ranji met Koki and Teju at the far end of the road.

  "Is he there?" asked Koki.

  "I haven't seen him. But he must be around somewhere."

  "Maybe he's gone for his lunch. We'll just walk past and take a quick look."

  The three of them strolled casually down the road. Koki said the gardens were looking very pretty. Teju gazed admiringly at a boy flying a kite from a roof-top. Ranji kept one eye on the road and one eye on the orchard wall. A squirrel ran along the top of the wall; the parrots were back in the guava trees.

  They moved closer to the wall. Ranji leaned casually against it and Koki began to pick little daisies growing at the edge of the road. Teju, unable to hide his curiosity, pulled himself up on the wall and looked over. At the same time, Gopal the watchman, who had been hiding behind the wall waiting for them, stood up slowly and glared fiercely at Teju.

  Teju gulped, but he did not flinch. He was looking straight into the watchman's red angry eyes.

  "And what can I do for you?" growled Gopal.

  "I was just looking," said Teju.

  "At what?"

  "At the view."

  Gopal was a little baffled. They looked just like the children he'd chased away yesterday, but he couldn't be sure. They didn't look guilty. But did children ever look guilty?

  "There's a better view from the other side of the road," he said gruffly. "Now be off!"

  "What lovely guavas," said Koki, smiling sweetly. There weren't many people who could resist that smile!

  "True," said Ranji, with the air of one who was an expert on guavas and all things good to eat. "They are just the right size and colour. I don't think I've seen better. But they'll be spoilt by the birds if you don't gather them soon."

  "It's none of your business," said the watchman.

  "Just look at his muscles," said Teju, trying a different approach. "He's really strong!"

  Gopal looked pleased for once. He was proud of his former prowess, even though he was now rather flabby around the waist.

  'You look like a wrestler," said Ranji.

  "I am a wrestler," said Gopal.

  "I told you so," said Koki. "What else could he be?"

  "I'm a retired wrestler," said Gopal.

  'You don't look retired," said Teju, fast learning that flattery can get you almost anywhere.

  Gopal swelled with pride; such admiration hadn't come his way for a long time. To Koki he looked like a bull-frog swelling up, but she thought it better not to say so.

  "Do you want to see my muscles?" he asked.

  'Yes, yes!" they cried. "Do show us!"

  Gopal peeled off his shirt and thumped his chest. It sounded like a drum. They were really impressed. Then he bent his elbow and his biceps stood up like cricket balls.

  'You can touch them," he said generously.

  Teju poked a finger into Gopal's biceps.

  "Mister Universe!" he exclaimed.

  Gopal glowed all over. He liked these children. How intelligent they were! Not everyone had the sense to appreciate his strength, his manliness, his magnificent physique!

  "Climb over the wall and join me," he said. "Come sit on the grass and I'll tell you about the time when I was a wrestling champion."

  Over the wall they came, and sat politely on the grass. Gopal told them about some of his exploits; how he had vanquished a world-famous wrestler in five seconds flat, and how he had saved a carload of travellers from drowning by single-handedly dragging their car out of a river. They listened patiently. Then Teju mentioned that he was feeling hungry.

  "Hungry?" said Gopal. "Why didn't you tell me before? I'll bring you some guavas, that's all there is to eat here. I know which tree has the best ones. And they're all going to rot if no one eats them — no one's buying the crop this year, the owner's price is too high!"

  Gopal hurried off and soon returned with a basket full of guavas.

  "Help yourselves," he said. "But don't eat too many, you'll get sick."

  So they munched guavas and listened to Gopal tell them about the time he was waylaid by three bandits and how he threw them all into the village pond.

  "Will you come again tomorrow?" asked Gopal eagerly, when the guavas were finished and the children got up to leave. "Come tomorrow and I'll tell you another story."

  "We'll come tomorrow," said Teju, looking at all the guava trees still laden with fruit.

  Somehow it seemed very important to Gopal that they should come again. It was lonely in the orchard. Koki sensed this, and said, "We like your stories."

  "They are good stories," said Ranji, even if they were not entirely true, he thought...

  They climbed over the wall and waved goodbye to Gopal.

  They came again the next day.

  And even when the guava season was over and Gopal had nothing to offer them but his stories, they went to see him because by that time they had grown to like him.

  THE KING AND THE TREE-GODDESS

  This is one of the stories Koki's grandmother told the children on c wet monsoon evening, when it was impossible to play outside. Grandmother loved trees, and this was one of her favourite tree stories.

  There was once a king living in the Himalayan foothills, who longed to build himself a palace more beautiful than any he had seen in that part of the world. He could not make it richer, taller or stronger than any other without going to a great deal of expense and trouble. So he decided to build something different: the entire palace was to be supported by one column only, and that column was to be made from the tallest tree in the kingdom.

  In the Himalayas there are many tall trees — spruce and pine, oak and deodar. And the tallest and the strongest are the deodars, whose very name, Deo-Dar, means Tree of God.

  The King sent for his Prime Minister and said, "Send men to my forests far and near, and tell them to cut down and bring to this city without delay the largest deodar they can find."

  "But the deodar is a sacred tree," protested his daughter. "It is used only for building temples."

  "All the more reason for me to have one," said the King. "My palace shall be as magnificent as any temple!"

  The Prime Minister sent out thirty men but they soon returned, saying that though there were many great deodars in the kingdom, they could never carry or drag them over so much difficult country as lay between the forests and the city.

  When the King heard this, he called his son and said, "Take your horsemen, and with the help of your horses, bring me one of these trees."

  The prince rode out with his horsemen but returned after a few days, saying, "No horses could move such a tree an inch. We have tried oxen too, but without any success."

  "Well, then, try elephants," said the King.

  Elephants were brought from the plains, but the hills were too steep for them, and the paths too narrow; they had to return to the valley.

  "Very well," said the King angrily. "In one of my own parks you must find me a tree just as big as any in the forests. Bring it to me within seven days."

  After much searching, the King's men found a splendid deodar tree growing not far from the city. It was worshipped by the people of many villages round about, because within it lived a Godd
ess, and it was she who gave to the tree its great strength, size and beauty.

  When the Prime Minister and his men had decided that the column for the King's palace must be made from this lofty deodar tree, they came with garlands, lamps and music to pay their respects to the Goddess inside, and to warn her that she must leave her abode. Within seven days it had to be cut to the ground.

  They lit their lamps and placed them in a circle round the tree. They hung their garlands upon the branches and tied nosegays among the leaves. Then, joining hands, some danced, and others sang:

  With cruel axe we've come

  To fell your age-long home;

  Forgive us, great Tree-Goddess —

  We dance before your throne!

  To please the King must we

  Cut down your loveliest tree.

  The Tree-Goddess heard, and understood what was about to happen. She remained quiet as a resting breeze for a few moments, and then all her leaves began to whisper and her topmost branches bowed. The men went away satisfied that she had heard and understood.

  That night, when the King was asleep, a glorious figure draped in shining green foliage appeared to him, and spoke in a voice that was like the rustle of autumn leaves:

  "I am the Goddess of the Deodar tree, great King. Your men have told me that you intend to cut me down. I have come to beg you to change your mind."

  "No, my mind is made up," answered the King in his dream. 'Yours is the only tree in all my parks strong enough to support by itself a palace, and therefore I must have it."

  "But consider, oh King! For hundreds of years I have been worshipped by the people of all the villages in your kingdom, and nothing but good has gone out from me to them. The birds nest in me. I send a most lovely shade upon the grass. Men rest against my trunk and wild creatures rub themselves against me. The earth blesses me, and sends up new plants and herbs under my protective arms. I bind the earth with my strong roots. Children play at my feet, and women returning from the fields seek refuge in my coolness."

  "All true enough, good Tree-Goddess," said the King, "but all the same I cannot spare you. My mind is made up, my will cannot be shaken."

  The Tree-Goddess sank her head upon her breast and spoke in tones of great sorrow:

  "Then, mighty King, grant me one last request. Let me be felled in three parts. First my head, with its crown of waving greenery. Next my middle, with its hundred strong arms and hands. And last my base, which bears the heaviest and knottiest of my limbs upon it."

  "This is a strange request," said the King. "I have never before heard of someone who wished to suffer the death stroke thrice.! Why not suffer it once, and have done with it?"

  "The reason is plain," said the Tree-Goddess. "Dozens of young deodar trees have sprung from me, and have grown up around me. Should you fell me with one mighty stroke, my weight would certainly crush all my children to death. But if I suffer the stroke three times, and fall in three pieces, some of the young ones may escape. Is my prayer granted?"

  "Indeed it is," said the astonished King, as the Tree-Goddess faded from his vision.

  The next morning the King called his children and his ministers and his foresters to him, and told them that he had changed his mind, and that the column for the new palace should be built of stone, not wood.

  "For," said he, "within the deodar tree lives a spirit nobler than my own." And he told them of his vision, and they all marvelled.

  And the King built his palace upon a great column of stone, and around its base he created a beautiful park, and the children of the city and the surrounding villages flocked to the gardens to sit on the grass and enjoy the many beautiful flowers and trees that had been planted on all sides.

  Taking the example of the King, no one built their houses of wood any more. The houses were made of stone, and the great deodars were able to spread freely through the forests.

  "And if you go up into the mountains," said Grandmother, "you can still see those forests, all the way up the sacred river Ganga, to its source near the eternal snows."

  THE FIGHT

  nil had been less than a month in Dehra when he discovered the pool in the forest. It was the height of summer, and the school he was to join had not yet opened. Having as yet made no friends in the small town in the foothills, he wandered about a good deal by himself, into the hills and forests that stretched away on all sides of the town.

  It was hot, very hot, at that time of the year, and Anil, aged thirteen, walked about in his vest and shorts, his brown feet white with the chalky dust that flew up from the ground. The earth was parched, the grass brown, the trees listless, hardly stirring, waiting for a cool wind or a refreshing shower of rain. It was on one of these tiresome days that Anil found the pool in the forest. The water had a gentle green translucency, and he could see the smooth round pebbles at the bottom of the pool. It was fed by a small stream that emerged from a cluster of rocks.

  During the monsoon this stream would be a rushing torrent, cascading down from the hills; but during the summer it was barely a trickle. The rocks, however, held the water in the pool, and it didn't dry up like the pools in the plains.

  When Anil saw the pool, he didn't hesitate to get into it. He had often been swimming, alone or with friends, when he had lived with his parents in a thirsty town in the middle of the Rajasthan desert. There, he had known only sticky, muddy pools, where buffaloes wallowed in the slush. He had never seen a pool like this — so clean and cool and inviting. He threw off all his clothes, as he had always done when swimming in the plains, and leapt into the water. His limbs were supple, and his dark body glistened in patches of sunlit water.

  The next day he came again to quench his body in the cool waters of the forest pool. He was there for almost an hour, sliding in and out of the limpid green water, or lying stretched out on the smooth yellow rocks in the shade of broad-leaved sal trees.

  It was while he lay naked on a rock that he noticed another boy standing a little distance away, staring at him in a rather hostile manner. The other boy was a year or two older than Anil, taller and thick-set, with a broad nose. He had only just noticed Anil, and he stood at the edge of the pool, wearing a pair of bathing shorts, waiting for Anil to explain himself.

  When Anil didn't say anything, the other called out. "What are you doing here, mister?"

  Anil, who was prepared to be friendly, was surprised at the other's hostility.

  "I am swimming," he replied. "Why don't you join me?"

  "I always swim alone," said the other. "This is my pool. I did not invite you to it. And why aren't you wearing any clothes?"

  "It is not your business what I wear or do not wear. I have nothing to be ashamed of."

  'You skinny fellow, put on your clothes!"

  "Fat fool, take yours off!"

  This was too much for the stranger. He strode up to Anil, who still sat on the rock; and, planting his broad feet firmly on the sand, said (as though it would settle the matter once and for all), "Don't you know I am a Punjabi? I do not take insults from villagers like you!"

  "So you like to fight with villagers," said Anil. "Well, I do not belong to your village. I am a Rajput!"

  "I am a Punjabi!"

  "I am a Rajput!"

  They had reached an impasse. One had said he was a Punjabi, the other had proclaimed himself a Rajput. There was little else that could be said.

  'You understand that I am a Punjabi?" repeated the stranger, uneasily aware that the other had not seemed sufficiently impressed.

  "I have heard you say it three times," replied Anil.

  "Then why don't you run off?"

  "I am waiting for you to run!"

  "I shall have to thrash you," said the Punjabi boy, assuming a violent attitude and showing Anil the palm of his hand.

  "Let me see you do it," said Anil.

  "You will see me do it," said the Punjabi boy.

  Anil waited. The other boy made an odd, hissing sound. They stared each other in th
e eye for almost a minute. Then the Punjabi boy slapped Anil across the face with all his strength. Anil staggered back, feeling giddy. There were thick red fingermarks on his cheek.

  "There you are," exclaimed his assailant. "Will you be off now?"

  By way of reply, Anil swung his arm up and pushed a hard, bony fist into his adversary's face.

  And then they were at each other's throats, swaying together on the rock, tumbling on to the sand, rolling over and over, their arms and legs locked in a fierce struggle. Clawing, grasping and cursing, they rolled right into the shallows of the pool.

  Even in the water they continued fighting. Spluttering and covered with mud, they groped for each other's heads and throats. But after five minutes of frenzied struggle, neither boy had emerged victorious. Their bodies heaving with exhaustion, they stood back from each other, making tremendous efforts to speak.

  "Now — now do you realise — I am a Punjabi?" gasped the stranger.

  "Do you — know I am a Rajput?" said Anil with difficulty.

  They gave a moment's consideration to each other's answers, and in that moment of silence there was only their heavy breathing and the rapid pounding of their hearts.

  "Then you will not leave the pool?" said the Punjabi boy.

  "I will not leave it," said Anil.

  "Then we shall have to continue the fight," said the other.

  "All right, "said Anil.

  But neither boy moved, neither took the initiative.

  Then the Punjabi boy had an inspiration.

  "We will continue the fight tomorrow," he said. "If you dare to come back tomorrow, we will continue the fight, and I will not let you off as easily as I have done today!"

  "I will come tomorrow," said Anil. "I will be ready for you."

  They turned their backs on each other and returned to their respective rocks, where they gathered their belongings, then left the forest by different routes.