by Ruskin Bond
‘The ground began to heave and shake,’ wrote a young girl in a newspaper called The Englishman*. ‘I stayed on my bicycle for a second, and then fell off and got up and tried to run, staggering about from side to side of the road. To my left I saw great clouds of dust, which I afterwards discovered to be houses falling and the earth slipping from the sides of the hills. To my right I saw the small dam at the end of the lake torn asunder and the water rushing out, the wooden bridge across the lake break in two and the sides of the lake falling in; and at my feet the ground cracking and opening. I was wild with fear and didn’t know which way to turn.’
The lake rose up like a mountain, and then totally disappeared, leaving only a swamp of red mud. Not a house was left standing. People were rushing about, wives looking for husbands, parents looking for children, not knowing whether their loved ones were alive or dead. A crowd of people had collected on the cricket ground, which was considered the safest place; but Grandfather and the family took shelter in a small shop on the road outside his house. The shop was a rickety wooden structure, which had always looked as though it would fall down in a strong wind. But it withstood the earthquake.
And then the rain came and it poured. This was extraordinary, because before the earthquake there wasn’t a cloud to be seen; but, five minutes after the shock, Shillong was enveloped in cloud and mist. The shock was felt for more than a hundred miles on the Assam–Bengal Railway. A train was overturned at Shamshernagar; another was derailed at Mantolla. Over a thousand people lost their lives in the Cherrapunji Hills, and in other areas, too, the death toll was heavy.
The Brahmaputra burst its banks and many cultivators were drowned in the flood. A tiger was found drowned. And in north Bhagalpur, where the earthquake had started, two elephants sat down in the bazaar and refused to get up until the following morning.
Over a hundred men who were at work in Shillong’s government printing press were caught in the building when it collapsed, and though the men of a Gurkha regiment did splendid rescue work, only a few were brought out alive. One of those killed in Shillong was Mr McCabe, a British official. Grandfather described the ruins of Mr McCabe’s house: ‘Here a bedpost, there a sword, a broken desk or chair, a bit of torn carpet, a well-known hat with its Indian Civil Service colours, battered books, all speaking reminiscences of the man we mourn.’
While most houses collapsed where they stood, Government House, it seems, ‘fell backwards’. The church was a mass of red stones in ugly disorder. The organ was a tortured wreck.
A few days later the family, with other refugees, made their way to Calcutta to stay with friends or relatives. It was a slow, tedious journey, with many interruptions, for the roads and railway lines had been badly damaged and passengers had often to be transported in trolleys. Grandfather was rather struck at the stoicism displayed by an assistant engineer. At one station a telegram was handed to the engineer informing him that his bungalow had been destroyed. ‘Beastly nuisance,’ he observed with an aggrieved air. ‘I’ve seen it cave in during a storm, but this is the first time it has played me such a trick on account of an earthquake.’
The family got to Calcutta to find the inhabitants of the capital in a panic; for they too had felt the quake and were expecting it to recur. The damage in Calcutta was slight compared to the devastation elsewhere, but nerves were on edge, and people slept in the open or in carriages. Cracks and fissures had appeared in a number of old buildings, and Grandfather was among the many who were worried at the proposal to fire a salute of sixty guns on Jubilee Day (the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria); they felt the gunfire would bring down a number of shaky buildings. Obviously Grandfather did not wish to be caught in his bath a second time. However, Queen Victoria was not to be deprived of her salute. The guns were duly fired, and Calcutta remained standing.
Thunderstorm at Mussorrie
We are treated to one of those spectacular electric storms which are fairly frequent at this time of the year, late spring or early summer. The clouds grow very dark, then send bolts of lightning sizzling across the sky, lighting up the entire range of mountains. When the storm is directly overhead, there is hardly a pause in the frequency of the lightning; it is like a bright light being switched on and off with barely a second’s interruption. And the hills tremble when thunder rumbles and booms in the valley.
John Lang, writing in Dickens’s magazine Household Words in 1853, had this to say about one of our storms:
I have seen a storm on the heights of Jura—such a storm as Lord Byron describes. I have seen lightning, and heard thunder in Australia; I have, off Tierra del Fuego, the Cape of Good Hope, and the coast of Java, kept watch in thunderstorms which have drowned in their roaring the human voice, and made everyone deaf and stupefied; but these storms are not to be compared with a thunderstorm at Mussoorie or Landour.
The Night the Roof Blew Off
Looking back at the experience, I suppose it was the sort of thing that should have happened in a James Thurber story, like the dam that burst or the ghost who got in. But I wasn’t thinking of Thurber at the time, although a few of his books were among the many I was trying to save from the icy rain and sleet pouring into my bedroom and study.
We have grown accustomed to sudden storms up here at seven thousand feet in the Himalayan foothills, and the old building in which I live has, for over a hundred years, received the brunt of wind and rain as they swept across the hills from the east. We’d lived in the building for over ten years without any untoward happening. It had even survived the shock of an earthquake without sustaining any major damage: it is difficult to tell the new cracks from the old.
It’s a three-storeyed building, and I live on the top floor with my adopted family—three children and their parents. The roof consists of corrugated tin sheets, the ceiling of wooden boards. That’s the traditional hill-station roof. Ours had held fast in many a storm, but the wind that night was stronger than we’d ever known it. It was cyclonic in its intensity, and it came rushing at us with a high-pitched eerie wail. The old roof groaned and protested at the unrelieved pressure. It took this battering for several hours, while the rain lashed against the window, and the lights kept coming and going.
There was no question of sleeping but we remained in bed for warmth and comfort. The fire had long since gone out, the chimney stack having collapsed, bringing down a shower of sooty rainwater.
After about four hours of buffeting, the roof could take it no more. My bedroom faces east, so my portion of the roof was the first to go.
The wind got under it and kept pushing, until, with a ripping, groaning sound, the metal sheets shifted from their moorings, some of them dropping with claps like thunder onto the road below. ‘So that’s it,’ I thought, ‘nothing worse can happen. As long as the ceiling stays on, I’m not getting out of my bed. We’ll pick up the roof in the morning.’
Icy water cascading down on my face made me change my mind in a hurry. Leaping from my bed, I found that much of the ceiling had gone too. Water was pouring onto my open typewriter—the typewriter that had been my trusted companion for close to thirty years—and onto the bedside radio, bed covers, and clothes cupboard. The only object that wasn’t receiving any rain was the potted philodendron, which could have done with a little watering.
Picking up my precious typewriter and abandoning the rest, I stumbled into the front sitting room (cum library), only to find that a similar situation had developed there. Water was pouring through the wooden slats, raining down on the bookshelves. By now I had been joined by the children, who had come to rescue me. Their section of the roof hadn’t gone as yet. Their parents were struggling to close a window which had burst open, letting in lashings of wind and rain.
‘Save the books!’ shouted Dolly, the youngest, and that became our rallying cry for the next hour or two. I have open shelves, vulnerable to borrowers as well as the floods. Dolly and her brothers picked up armfuls of books and carried them into their room. But the floor
was now awash all over the apartment, so the books had to be piled on the beds. Dolly was helping me gather up some of my manuscripts when a large field rat leapt onto the desk in front of her. Dolly squealed and ran for the door.
‘It’s all right,’ said Mukesh, whose love of animals extends even to field rats. ‘He’s only sheltering himself from the storm.’
His big brother, Rakesh, whistled for our mongrel, Toby, but Toby wasn’t interested in rats just then. He had taken shelter in the kitchen, the only dry spot in the house.
Two rooms were now practically roofless, and the sky was frequently lighted up for us by flashes of lightning. There were fireworks inside too, as water spluttered and crackled along a damaged electric wire. Presently, the lights went out altogether, which in some ways made the house a safer place. Prem, the children’s father, is at his best in an emergency, and he had already located and lit two kerosene lamps; so we continued to transfer books, papers and clothes to the children’s room.
We noticed that the water on the floor was beginning to subside a little. ‘Where is it going?’ asked Dolly, for we could see no outlet.
‘Through the floor,’ said Mukesh. ‘Down to the rooms below.’
He was right. Cries of consternation from our neighbours told us that they were now having their share of the flood.
Our feet were freezing because there hadn’t been time to put on enough protective footwear, and in any case, shoes and slippers were now awash. Tables and chairs were also piled high with books. I hadn’t realized the considerable size of my library until that night! The available beds were pushed into the driest corner of the children’s room and there, huddled in blankets and quilts, we spent the remaining hours of the night while the storm continued to threaten further mayhem.
But then the wind fell, and it began to snow. Through the door to the sitting room I could see snowflakes drifting through the gaps in the ceiling, settling on picture frames, statuettes and miscellaneous ornaments. Mundane things like a glue bottle and a plastic doll took on a certain beauty when covered with soft snow. The clock on the wall had stopped and with its covering of snow reminded me of a painting by Salvador Dali. And my shaving brush looked ready for use!
Most of us dozed off. I sensed that the direction of the wind had changed, and that it was now blowing from the west; it was making a rushing sound in the trees rather than in what remained of our roof. The clouds were scurrying away.
When dawn broke, we found the window panes encrusted with snow and icicles. Then the rising sun struck through the gaps in the ceiling and turned everything to gold. Snow crystals glinted like diamonds on the empty bookshelves. I crept into my abandoned bedroom to find the philodendron looking like a Christmas tree.
Prem went out to find a carpenter and a tinsmith, while the rest of us started putting things in the sun to dry out. And by evening, we’d got much of the roof on again. Vacant houses are impossible to find in Mussoorie, so there was no question of moving.
But it’s a much-improved roof now, and I look forward to the approaching winter with some confidence!
Flames in the Forest
As Romi was about to mount his bicycle, he saw smoke rising from behind the distant line of trees.
‘It looks like a forest fire,’ said Prem, his friend and classmate.
‘It’s well to the east,’ said Romi. ‘Nowhere near the road.’
‘There’s a strong wind,’ said Prem, looking at the dry leaves swirling across the road.
It was the middle of May, and it hadn’t rained for several weeks. The grass was brown, the leaves of the trees covered with dust. Even though it was getting on to six o’clock in the evening, the boys’ shirts were damp with sweat.
‘It will be getting dark soon,’ said Prem. ‘You’d better spend the night at my house.’
‘No, I said I’d be home tonight. My father isn’t keeping well. The doctor has given me some pills for him.’
‘You’d better hurry, then. That fire seems to be spreading.’
‘Oh, it’s far off. It will take me only forty minutes to ride through the forest. Bye, Prem—see you tomorrow!’
Romi mounted his bicycle and pedalled off down the main road of the village, scattering stray hens, stray dogs and stray villagers.
‘Hey, look where you’re going!’ shouted an angry villager, leaping out of the way of the oncoming bicycle. ‘Do you think you own the road?’
‘Of course I own it,’ called Romi cheerfully, and cycled on.
His own village lay about seven miles distant, on the other side of the forest; but there was only a primary school in his village, and Romi was now in high school. His father, who was a fairly wealthy sugarcane farmer, had only recently bought him the bicycle. Romi didn’t care too much for school and felt there weren’t enough holidays but he enjoyed the long rides and he got on well with his classmates.
He might have stayed the night with Prem had it not been for the pills which the vaid—the village doctor—had given him for his father.
Romi’s father was having a backache, and the pills had been specially prepared from local herbs.
Having been given such a fine bicycle, Romi felt that the least he could do in return was to get those pills to his father as early as possible.
He put his head down and rode swiftly out of the village. Ahead of him, the smoke rose from the burning forest and the sky glowed red.
He soon left the village far behind. There was a slight climb, and Romi had to push harder on the pedals to get over the rise. Once over the top, the road went winding down to the edge of the forest.
This was the part Romi enjoyed the most. He relaxed, stopped pedalling, and allowed the bicycle to glide gently down the slope. Soon the wind was rushing past him, blowing his hair about his face and making his shirt billow out behind him. He burst into a song.
A dog from the village ran beside him, barking furiously. Romi shouted to the dog, encouraging him in the race.
Then the road straightened out, and Romi began pedalling again.
The dog, seeing the forest ahead, turned back to the village. It was afraid of the forest.
The smoke was thicker now, and Romi caught the smell of burning timber. But ahead of him the road was clear. He rode on.
It was a rough, dusty road, cut straight through the forest. Tall trees grew on either side, cutting off the last of the daylight. But the spreading glow of the fire on the right lit up the road, and giant tree-shadows danced before the boy on the bicycle.
Usually the road was deserted. This evening it was alive with wild creatures fleeing from the forest fire.
The first animal that Romi saw was a hare, leaping across the road in front of him. It was followed by several more hares. Then a band of monkeys streamed across, chattering excitedly.
They’ll be safe on the other side, thought Romi. The fire won’t cross the road.
But it was coming closer. And realizing this, Romi pedalled harder. In half an hour he should be out of the forest.
Suddenly, from the side of the road, several pheasants rose in the air, and with a whoosh, flew low across the path, just in front of the oncoming bicycle. Taken by surprise, Romi fell off. When he picked himself up and began brushing his clothes, he saw that his knee was bleeding. It wasn’t a deep cut, but he allowed it to bleed a little, took out his handkerchief and bandaged his knee. Then he mounted the bicycle again.
He rode a bit slower now, because birds and animals kept coming out of the bushes.
Not only pheasants but smaller birds too were streaming across the road—parrots, jungle crows, owls, magpies—and the air was filled with their cries.
Everyone’s on the move, thought Romi. It must be a really big fire.
He could see the flames now, reaching out from behind the trees on his right, and he could hear the crackling as the dry leaves caught fire. The air was hot on his face. Leaves, still alight or turning to cinders, floated past.
A herd of deer crossed the ro
ad and Romi had to stop until they had passed. Then he mounted again and rode on; but now, for the first time, he was feeling afraid.
From ahead came a faint clanging sound. It wasn’t an animal sound, Romi was sure of that. A fire engine? There were no fire engines within fifty miles.
The clanging came nearer and Romi discovered that the noise came from a small boy who was running along the forest path, two milk cans clattering at his side.
‘Teju!’ called Romi, recognizing a boy from a neighbouring village. ‘What are you doing out here?’
‘Trying to get home, of course,’ said Teju, panting along beside the bicycle.
‘Jump on,’ said Romi, stopping for him.
Teju was only eight or nine—a couple of years younger than Romi. He had come to deliver milk to some roadworkers, but the workers had left at the first signs of the fire, and Teju was hurrying home with his cans still full of milk.
He got up on the crossbar of the bicycle, and Romi moved on again. He was quite used to carrying friends on the crossbar.
‘Keep beating your milk cans,’ said Romi. ‘Like that, the animals will know we are coming. My bell doesn’t make enough noise. I’m going to get a horn for my cycle!’
‘I never knew there were so many animals in the jungle,’ said Teju. ‘I saw a python in the middle of the road. It stretched right across!’
‘What did you do?’
‘Just kept running and jumped right over it!’
Teju continued to chatter but Romi’s thoughts were on the fire, which was much closer now. Flames shot up from the dry grass and ran up the trunks of trees and along the branches. Smoke billowed out above the forest.
Romi’s eyes were smarting and his hair and eyebrows felt scorched. He was feeling tired but he couldn’t stop now, he had to get beyond the range of the fire. Another ten or fifteen minutes of steady riding would get them to the small wooden bridge that spanned the little river separating the forest from the sugarcane fields.