Friends In Small Places

by Ruskin Bond

  The Gomti team won the toss and decided to bat. Uncle Ken was expected to go in at number three, Bruce Hallam’s normal position. And he soon found himself walking to the wicket, wondering why on earth no one had as yet invented a more comfortable kind of pad.

  The first ball he received was short-pitched, and he was able to deal with it in tennis fashion, swatting it to the mid-wicket boundary. He got no runs, but the crowd cheered.

  The next ball took Uncle Ken on the pad. He was right in front of his wicket and should have been given out lbw. But the umpire hesitated to raise his finger. After all, hundreds of people had paid good money to see Bruce Hallam play, and it would have been a shame to disappoint them. ‘Not out,’ said the umpire.

  The third ball took the edge of Uncle Ken’s bat and sped through the slips.

  ‘Lovely shot!’ exclaimed an elderly gentleman in the pavilion.

  ‘A classic late cut,’ said another.

  The ball reached the boundary and Uncle Ken had four runs to his name. Then it was ‘Over’, and the other batsman had to face the bowling. He took a run off the first ball and called for a second run. Uncle Ken thought one run was more than enough. Why go charging up and down the wicket like a mad man? However, he couldn’t refuse to run, and he was halfway down the pitch when the fielder’s throw hit the wicket. Uncle Ken was run-out by yards. There could be no doubt about it this time.

  He returned to the pavilion to the sympathetic applause of the crowd.

  ‘Not his fault,’ said the elderly gentleman. ‘The other chap shouldn’t have called. There wasn’t a run there. Still, it was worth coming here all the way from Kanpur if only to see that superb late cut . . .’

  Uncle Ken enjoyed a hearty tiffin-lunch (taken at noon), and then, realizing that the Gomti team would probably have to be in the field for most of the afternoon—more running about!—he slipped out of the pavilion, left the stadium, and took a tonga to Aunt Emily’s house in the cantonment.

  He was just in time for a second lunch (taken at one o’clock) with Aunt Emily’s family: and it was presumed at the stadium that Bruce Hallam had left early, to catch the train to Allahabad, where he was expected to play in another charity match.

  Aunt Emily, a forceful woman, fed Uncle Ken for a week, and then put him to work in the boys’ dormitory of her school. It was several months before he was able to save up enough money to run away and return to Granny’s place.

  But he had the satisfaction of knowing that he had helped the great Bruce Hallam to add another four runs to his grand aggregate. The scorebook of the Gomti Cricketing Association had recorded his feat for all time:

  ‘B. Hallam run-out 4’

  The Gomti team lost the match. But, as Uncle Ken would readily admit, where would we be without losers?

  Bansi and the Ayah*

  It was a warm spring day in Dehra Dun, and the walls of the bungalow were aflame with flowering bougainvillea. Grandmother sat in an easy chair in a shady corner of the veranda, her knitting needles clicking away, her head nodding now and then.

  We heard the jingle of tonga-bells at the gate and a familiar horse-buggy came rattling up the drive. ‘I’ll see who’s come,’ I said, and ran down the veranda steps and across the garden.

  It was Bansi Lal in his tonga. There were many tongas and tonga drivers in Dehra but Bansi was my favourite driver. He was young and handsome and he always wore a clean white shirt and pyjamas. His pony, too, was bigger and faster than the other tonga ponies.

  Bansi didn’t have a passenger, so I asked him, ‘What have you come for, Bansi?’

  ‘Your grandmother sent for me, dost.’ He did not call me ‘chhota sahib’ or ‘baba’, but ‘dost’ and this made me feel much more important. Not every small boy could boast of a tonga driver for his friend!

  ‘Where are you going, Granny?’ I asked, after I had run back to the veranda.

  ‘I’m going to the bank.’

  ‘Can I come too?’

  ‘Whatever for? What will you do in the bank?’ ‘Oh, I won’t come inside, I’ll sit in the tonga with Bansi.’

  ‘Come along, then.’

  We helped Grandmother into the back seat of the tonga, and then I joined Bansi in the driver’s seat. He said something to his pony and the pony set off at a brisk trot, out of the gate and down the road.

  ‘Now, not too fast, Bansi,’ said Grandmother, who didn’t like anything that went too fast—tonga, motor car, train, or bullock cart.

  ‘Fast?’ said Bansi. ‘Have no fear, memsahib. This pony has never gone fast in its life. Even if a bomb went off behind us, we could go no faster. I have another pony which I use for racing when customers are in a hurry. This pony is reserved for you, memsahib.’

  There was no other pony, but Grandmother did not know this, and was mollified by the assurance that she was riding in the slowest tonga in Dehra.

  A ten-minute ride brought us to the bazaar. Grandmother’s bank, the Allahabad Bank, stood near the Clock Tower. She was gone for about half-an-hour and during this period Bansi and I sauntered about in front of the shops. The pony had been left with some green stuff to munch.

  ‘Do you have any money on you?’ asked Bansi. ‘Four annas,’ I said.

  ‘Just enough for two cups of tea,’ said Bansi, putting his arm round my shoulders and guiding me towards a tea stall. The money passed from my palm to his.

  ‘You can have tea, if you like,’ I said. ‘I’ll have a lemonade.’

  ‘So be it, friend. A tea and a lemonade, and be quick about it,’ said Bansi to the boy in the tea shop and presently the drinks were set before us and Bansi was making a sound rather like his pony when it drank, while I burped my way through some green, gaseous stuff that tasted more like soap than lemonade.

  When Grandmother came out of the bank, she looked pensive and did not talk much during the ride back to the house except to tell me to behave myself when I leant over to pat the pony on its rump. After paying off Bansi, she marched straight indoors.

  ‘When will you come again?’ I asked Bansi.

  ‘When my services are required, dost. I have to make a living, you know. But I tell you what, since we are friends, the next time I am passing this way after leaving a fare, I will jingle my bells at the gate and if you are free and would like a ride—a fast ride!—you can join me. It won’t cost you anything. Just bring some money for a cup of tea.’

  ‘All right—since we are friends,’ I said.

  ‘Since we are friends.’

  And touching the pony very lightly with the handle of his whip, he sent the tonga rattling up the drive and out of the gate. I could hear Bansi singing as the pony cantered down the road.

  Ayah was waiting for me in the bedroom, her hands resting on her broad hips—sure sign of an approaching storm.

  ‘So you went off to the bazaar without telling me,’ she said. (It wasn’t enough that I had Grandmother’s permission!) ‘And all this time I’ve been waiting to give you your bath.’

  ‘It’s too late now, isn’t it?’ I asked hopefully.

  ‘No, it isn’t. There’s still an hour left for lunch. Off with your clothes!’

  While I undressed, Ayah berated me for keeping the company of tonga drivers like Bansi. I think she was a little jealous.

  ‘He is a rogue, that man. He drinks, gambles, and smokes opium. He has TB and other terrible diseases. So don’t you be too friendly with him, understand, baba?’

  I nodded my head sagely but said nothing. I thought Ayah was exaggerating as she always did about people, and besides, I had no intention of giving up free tonga rides . . .

  The clip-clop of a tonga pony, and Bansi’s tonga came rattling down the road. I was up in the ancient banyan tree behind the house. I called down to him and he reined in with a shout of surprise, and looked up into the branches of the tree.

  ‘What are you doing up there?’ he cried.

  ‘Hiding from Grandmother,’ I said.

  ‘And when are you coming for t
hat ride?’

  ‘On Tuesday afternoon,’ I said.

  ‘Why not today?’

  ‘Ayah won’t let me. But she has Tuesdays off.’ Bansi spat red paan juice across the road. ‘Your ayah is jealous,’ he said.

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘Women are always jealous, aren’t they? I suppose it’s because she doesn’t have a tonga.’

  ‘It’s because she doesn’t have a tonga driver,’ said Bansi, grinning up at me. ‘Never mind. I’ll come on Tuesday—that’s the day after tomorrow, isn’t it?’

  I nodded down to him, and then started backing along my branch, because I could hear Ayah calling in the distance. Bansi leant forward and smacked his pony across the rump, and the tonga shot forward.

  ‘What were you doing up there?’ asked Ayah a little later.

  ‘I was watching a snake cross the road,’ I said. I knew she couldn’t resist talking about snakes. There weren’t as many in Dehra as there had been in Kathiawar and she was thrilled that I had seen one.

  ‘Was it moving towards you or away from you?’ she asked.

  ‘It was going away.’

  Ayah’s face clouded over. ‘That means poverty for the beholder,’ she said gloomily.

  Later, while scrubbing me down in the bathroom, she began to air all her prejudices, which included drunkards (‘they die quickly, anyway’), misers (‘they get murdered sooner or later’) and tonga drivers (‘they have all the vices’).

  ‘You are a very lucky boy,’ she said suddenly, peering closely at my tummy.

  ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘You just said I would be poor because I saw a snake going the wrong way.’

  ‘Well, you won’t be poor for long. You have a mole on your tummy and that’s very lucky. And there is one under your armpit, which means you will be famous. Do you have one on the neck? No, thank God! A mole on the neck is the sign of a murderer!’

  ‘Do you have any moles?’ I asked.

  Ayah nodded seriously, and pulling her sleeve up to her shoulder, showed me a large mole high on her arm.

  ‘What does that mean?’ I asked.

  ‘It means a life of great sadness,’ said Ayah gloomily.

  ‘Can I touch it?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, touch it,’ she said, and taking my hand, she placed it against the mole.

  ‘It’s a nice mole,’ I said, wanting to make Ayah happy. ‘Can I kiss it?’

  ‘You can kiss it,’ said Ayah.

  I kissed her on the mole.

  ‘That’s nice,’ she said.

  Tuesday afternoon came at last, and as soon as Grandmother was asleep and Ayah had gone to the bazaar, I was at the gate, looking up and down the road for Bansi and his tonga. He was not long in coming. Before the tonga turned into the road, I could hear his voice, singing to the accompaniment of the carriage bells.

  He reached down, took my hand, and hoisted me on to the seat beside him. Then we went off down the road at a steady jog-trot. It was only when we reached the outskirts of the town that Bansi encouraged his pony to greater efforts. He rose in his seat, leaned forward and slapped the pony across the haunches. From a brisk trot we changed to a carefree canter. The tonga swayed from side to side. I clung to Bansi’s free arm, while he grinned at me, his mouth red with paan juice.

  ‘Where shall we go, dost?’ he asked.

  ‘Nowhere,’ I said. ‘Anywhere.’

  ‘We’ll go to the river,’ said Bansi.

  The ‘river’ was really a swift mountain stream that ran through the forests outside Dehra, joining the Ganga about fifteen miles away. It was almost dry during the winter and early summer; in flood during the monsoon.

  The road out of Dehra was a gentle decline and soon we were rushing headlong through the tea gardens and eucalyptus forests, the pony’s hoofs striking sparks off the metalled road, the carriage wheels groaning and creaking so loudly that I feared one of them would come off and that we would all be thrown into a ditch or into the small canal that ran beside the road. We swept through mango groves, through guava and litchi orchards, past broad-leaved sal and shisham trees. Once in the sal forest, Bansi turned the tonga on to a rough cart track, and we continued along it for about a furlong, until the road dipped down to the stream bed.

  ‘Let us go straight into the water,’ said Bansi. ‘You and I and the pony!’ And he drove the tonga straight into the middle of the stream, where the water came up to the pony’s knees.

  ‘I am not a great one for baths,’ said Bansi, ‘but the pony needs one, and why should a horse smell sweeter than its owner?’ saying which, he flung off his clothes and jumped into the water.

  ‘Better than bathing under a tap!’ he cried, slapping himself on the chest and thighs. ‘Come down, dost and join me!’

  After some hesitation I joined him, but had some difficulty in keeping on my feet in the fast current. I grabbed at the pony’s tail and hung on to it, while Bansi began sloshing water over the patient animal’s back.

  After this, Bansi led both me and the pony out of the stream and together we gave the carriage a good washing down. I’d had a free ride and Bansi got the services of a free helper for the long overdue spring-cleaning of his tonga. After we had finished the job, he presented me with a packet of aam papad—a sticky toffee made from mango pulp—and for some time I tore at it as a dog tears at a bit of old leather. Then I felt drowsy and lay down on the brown, sun-warmed grass. Crickets and grasshoppers were telephoning each other from tree and bush and a pair of bluejays rolled, dived, and swooped acrobatically overhead.

  Bansi had no watch. He looked carefully at the sun and said, ‘It is past three. When will that ayah of yours be home? She is more frightening than your grandmother!’

  ‘She comes at four.’

  ‘Then we must hurry back. And don’t tell her where we’ve been, or I’ll never be able to come to your house again. Your grandmother’s one of my best customers.’

  ‘That means you’d be sorry if she died.’

  ‘I would indeed, my friend.’

  Bansi raced the tonga back to town. There was very little motor traffic in those days, and tongas and bullock carts were far more numerous than they are today.

  We were back five minutes before Ayah returned. Before Bansi left, he promised to take me for another ride the following week.

  Bhabiji and Her Family*

  (My neighbours in Rajouri Garden back in the 1960s were the Kamal family. This entry from my journal, which I wrote on one of my later visits, describes a typical day in that household.)

  At first light there is a tremendous burst of birdsong from the guava tree in the little garden. Over a hundred sparrows wake up all at once and give tongue to whatever it is that sparrows have to say to each other at five o’clock on a foggy winter’s morning in Delhi.

  In the small house, people sleep on; that is, everyone except Bhabiji—Granny—the head of the lively Punjabi middle-class family with whom I nearly always stay when I am in Delhi.

  She coughs, stirs, groans, grumbles and gets out of bed. The fire has to be lit, and food prepared for two of her sons to take to work. There is a daughter-in-law, Shobha, to help her; but the girl is not very bright at getting up in the morning. Actually, it is this way: Bhabiji wants to show up her daughter-in-law; so, no matter how hard Shobha tries to be up first, Bhabiji forestalls her. The old lady does not sleep well, anyway; her eyes are open long before the first sparrow chirps, and as soon as she sees her daughter-in-law stirring, she scrambles out of bed and hurries to the kitchen. This gives her the opportunity to say, ‘What good is a daughter-in-law when I have to get up to prepare her husband’s food?’

  The truth is that Bhabiji does not like anyone else preparing her sons’ food.

  She looks no older than when I first saw her ten years ago. She still has complete control over a large family and, with tremendous confidence and enthusiasm, presides over the lives of three sons, a daughter, two daughters-in-law and fourteen grandchildren. This is a joint family (there are not many left
in a big city like Delhi), in which the sons and their families all live together as one unit under their mother’s benevolent (and sometimes slightly malevolent) autocracy. Even when her husband was alive, Bhabiji dominated the household.

  The eldest son, Shiv, has a separate kitchen, but his wife and children participate in all the family celebrations and quarrels. It is a small miracle how everyone (including myself when I visit) manages to fit into the house; and a stranger might be forgiven for wondering where everyone sleeps, for no beds are visible during the day. That is because the beds—light wooden frames with rough string across—are brought in only at night, and are taken out first thing in the morning and kept in the garden shed.

  As Bhabiji lights the kitchen fire, the household begins to stir, and Shobha joins her mother-in-law in the kitchen. As a guest I am privileged and may get up last. But my bed soon becomes an island battered by waves of scurrying, shouting children, eager to bathe, dress, eat and find their school books. Before I can get up, someone brings me a tumbler of hot sweet tea. It is a brass tumbler and burns my fingers; I have yet to learn how to hold one properly. Punjabis like their tea with lots of milk and sugar—so much so that I often wonder why they bother to add any tea.

  Ten years ago, ‘bed tea’ was unheard of in Bhabiji’s house. Then, the first time I came to stay, Kamal, the youngest son, told Bhabiji, ‘My friend is Angrez. He must have tea in bed.’ He forgot to mention that I usually took my morning cup at seven; they gave it to me at five. I gulped it down and went to sleep again. Then, slowly, others in the household began indulging in morning cups of tea. Now everyone, including the older children, has ‘bed tea’. They bless my English forebears for instituting the custom; I bless the Punjabis for perpetuating it.

  Breakfast is by rota, in the kitchen. It is a tiny room and accommodates only four adults at a time. The children have eaten first; but the smallest children, Shobha’s toddlers, keep coming in and climbing over us. Says Bhabiji of the youngest and most mischievous, ‘He lives only because God keeps a special eye on him.’