by Ruskin Bond
In Mussoorie, the main attraction is the large number of schools, which employ cooks and bearers. But the schools were full when Prem arrived. He’d been to the recruiting centre at Roorkee, hoping to get into the army; but they found a deformity in his right foot, the result of a bone broken when a landslip carried him away one dark monsoon night. He was very lucky, he said, that it was only his foot and not his head that had been broken.
He came to the house to inform his uncle about the job and to say goodbye. I thought: another nice person I probably won’t see again; another ship passing in the night, the friendly twinkle of its lights soon vanishing in the darkness. I said ‘Come again,’ held his smile with mine so that I could remember him better, and returned to my study and my typewriter.
Prem goes, disappears into the vast faceless cities of the plains, and a year slips by, or rather I do, and then here he is again, thinner and darker and still smiling and still looking for a job. I should have known that hill men don’t disappear for ever. The spirit-haunted rocks don’t let their people wander too far, lest they lose them forever.
I was able to get him a job in the school. The Headmaster’s wife needed a cook. I wasn’t sure if Prem could cook very well but I sent him along and they said they’d give him a trial. Three days later the Headmaster’s wife met me on the road and started gushing all over me. She was the type who gushes.
‘We’re so grateful to you! Thank you for sending me that lovely boy. He’s so polite. And he cooks very well. A little too hot for my husband, but otherwise delicious—just delicious! He’s a real treasure—a lovely boy.’ And she gave me an arch look—the famous look which she used to captivate all the good-looking young prefects who became prefects, it was said, only if she approved of them.
I wasn’t sure if she didn’t want something more than a cook, and I only hoped that Prem would give every satisfaction.
He looked cheerful enough when he came to see me on his off day.
‘How are you getting on?’ I asked.
‘Lovely,’ he said, using his mistress’s favourite expression. ‘What do you mean—lovely? Do they like your work?’
‘The memsahib likes it. She strokes me on the cheek whenever she enters the kitchen. The sahib says nothing. He takes medicine after every meal.’
‘Did he always take medicine—or only now that you’re doing the cooking?’
‘I am not sure. I think he has always been sick.’
He was sleeping in the Headmaster’s veranda and getting sixty rupees a month. A cook in Delhi got a hundred and sixty. And a cook in Paris or New York got ten times as much. I did not say as much to Prem. He might ask me to get him a job in New York. And that would be the last I saw of him!
‘Prem,’ I said.
‘Why don’t you work for me?’
‘And what about my uncle?’
‘He seems ready to desert me any day.
His grandfather is ill, he says, and he wants to go home.’
‘His grandfather died last year.’
‘That’s what I mean—he’s getting restless. And I don’t mind if he goes. These days he seems to be suffering from a form of sleeping sickness. I have to get up first and make his tea . . .’
Sitting here under the cherry tree, whose leaves are just beginning to turn yellow, I rest my chin on my knees and gaze across the valley to where Prem moves about in the garden. Looking back over the seven years he has been with me, I recall some of the nicest things about him. They come to me in no particular order—just pieces of cinema—coloured slides slipping across the screen of memory . . .
Prem rocking his infant son to sleep—crooning to him, passing his large hand gently over the child’s curly head—Prem following me down to the police station when I was arrested*, and waiting outside until I reappeared—his smile, when I found him in Delhi—his large, irrepressible laughter, most in evidence when he was seeing an old Laurel and Hardy movie.
Of course there were times when he could be infuriating, stubborn, deliberately pig-headed, sending me little notes of resignation—but I never found it difficult to overlook these little acts of self-indulgence. He had brought much love and laughter into my life, and what more could a lonely man ask for?
It was his stubborn streak that limited the length of his stay in the Headmaster’s household. Mr Good was tolerant enough. But Mrs Good was one of those women who, when they are pleased with you, go out of their way to help, pamper and flatter; and who, when they are displeased, become vindictive, going out of their way to harm or destroy. Mrs Good sought power—over her husband, her dog, her favourite pupils, her servant . . . She had absolute power over the husband and the dog; partial power over her slightly bewildered pupils; and none at all over Prem, who missed the subtleties of her designs upon his soul. He did not respond to her mothering; or to the way in which she tweaked him on the cheeks, brushed against him in the kitchen, or made admiring remarks about his looks and physique.
Memsahibs, Prem knew, were not for him. So he kept a stony face and went diligently about his duties. And she felt slighted, put in her place. Her liking turned to dislike. Instead of admiring remarks, she began making disparaging remarks about his looks, his clothes, his manners. She found fault with his cooking. No longer was it ‘lovely’. She even accused him of taking away the dog’s meat and giving it to a poor family living on the hillside: no more heinous crime could be imagined! Mr Good threatened him with dismissal. So Prem became stubborn. The following day he withheld the dog’s food altogether; threw it down the khud where it was seized upon by innumerable strays; and went off to the pictures.
It was the end of his job. ‘I’ll have to go home now,’ he told me. ‘I won’t get another job in this area. The Mem will see to that.’
‘Stay a few days,’ I said.
‘I have only enough money with which to get home.’
‘Keep it for going home. You can stay with me for a few days, while you look around. Your uncle won’t mind sharing his food with you.’
His uncle did mind. He did not like the idea of working for his nephew as well; it seemed to him no part of his duties. And he was apprehensive lest Prem get his job.
So Prem stayed no longer than a week.
Here on the knoll the grass is just beginning to turn October yellow. The first clouds approaching winter cover the sky. The trees are very still. The birds are silent. Only a cricket keeps singing on the oak tree. Perhaps there will be a storm before evening. A storm like that in which Prem arrived at the cottage with his wife and child—but that’s jumping too far ahead . . .
After he had returned to his village, it was several months before I saw him again. His uncle told me he had taken a job in Delhi. There was an address. It did not seem complete, but I resolved that when I was next in Delhi, I would try to see him.
The opportunity came in May, as the hot winds of summer blew across the plains.
Nothing went right for me. Of course the address was all wrong, and I wandered about in a remote, dusty, treeless colony called Vasant Vihar (Spring Garden) for over two hours, asking all the domestic servants I came across if they could put me in touch with Prem Singh of village Koli, Pauri Garhwal. There were innumerable Prem Singhs, but apparently none who belonged to village Koli. I returned to my hotel and took two days to recover from heatstroke before returning to Mussoorie, thanking God for mountains!
And then the uncle gave me notice. He’d found a better-paid job in Dehra Dun and was anxious to be off. I didn’t try to stop him.
For the next six months I lived in the cottage without any help. I did not find this difficult. I was used to living alone. It wasn’t service that I needed but companionship.
During the rains, watching the dripping trees and the mist climbing the valley, I wrote a great deal of poetry. But poetry didn’t bring me much money, and funds were low. And then, just as I was wondering if I would have to give up my freedom and take a job again, a publisher bought the paperback rights of one of
my children’s stories, and I was free to live and write as I pleased—for another three months!
That was in November. To celebrate, I took a long walk through the Landour Bazaar and up the Tehri road. It was a good day for walking; and it was dark by the time I returned to the outskirts of the town. Someone stood waiting for me on the road above the cottage. I hurried past him.
If I am not for myself,
Who will be for me?
And if I am not for others,
What am I?
And if not now, when?
I startled myself with the memory of these words of Hillel, the ancient Hebrew sage. I walked back to the shadows where the youth stood, and saw that it was Prem.
‘Prem!’ I said. ‘Why are you sitting out here, in the cold? Why did you not go to the house?’
‘I went, sir, but there was a lock on the door. I thought you had gone away.’
‘And you were going to remain here, on the road?’
‘Only for tonight. I would have gone down to Dehra in the morning.’
‘Come, let’s go home. I have been waiting for you. I looked for you in Delhi, but could not find the place where you were working.’
‘I have left them now.’
‘And your uncle has left me. So will you work for me now?’ ‘For as long as you wish.’
‘For as long as the gods wish.’
We did not go straight home, but returned to the bazaar and took our meal in the Sindhi Sweet Shop; hot puris and strong sweet tea.
We walked home together in the bright moonlight.
That was twenty years ago, and Prem, his wife and three children, and now three grandchildren, are still with me. But we live in a different house now, on another hill.
Binya*
Glow-worms shone fitfully in the dark. The night was full of sounds—the tonk-tonk of a nightjar, the cry of a barking-deer, the shuffling of porcupines, the soft flip-flop of moths beating against the windowpanes. On the hill across the valley, lights flickered in the small village—the dim lights of kerosene lamps swinging in the dark.
‘What is your name?’ I asked, when we met again on the path through the pine forest.
‘Binya,’ she said. ‘What is yours?’
‘I’ve no name.’
‘All right, Mr No-name.’
‘I mean I haven’t made a name for myself. We must make our own names, don’t you think?’
‘Binya is my name. I do not wish to have any other. Where are you going?’
‘Nowhere.’
‘No-name goes nowhere! Then you cannot come with me, because I am going home and my grandmother will set the village dogs on you if you follow me.’ And laughing, she ran down the path to the stream; she knew I could not catch up with her.
Her face streamed summer rain as she climbed the steep hill, calling the white cow home. She seemed very tiny on the windswept mountainside; a twist of hair lay flat against her forehead, and her torn blue dhoti clung to her firm round thighs. I went to her with an umbrella to give her shelter. She stood with me beneath the umbrella and let me put my arm around her. Then she turned her face up to mine, wonderingly, and I kissed her quickly, softly on the lips. Her lips tasted of raindrops and mint. And then she left me there, so gallant in the blistering rain. She ran home laughing. But it was worth the drenching.
Another day I heard her calling to me— ‘No-name, Mister No-name!’—but I couldn’t see her, and it was some time before I found her, halfway up a cherry tree, her feet pressed firmly against the bark, her dhoti tucked up between her thighs—fair, rounded thighs, and legs that were strong and vigorous.
‘The cherries are not ripe,’ I said.
‘They are never ripe. But I like them green and sour. Will you come into the tree?’
‘If I can still climb a tree,’ I said.
‘My grandmother is over sixty, and she can climb trees.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t mind being more adventurous at sixty. There’s not so much to lose then.’ I climbed into the tree without much difficulty, but I did not think the higher branches would take my weight, so I remained standing in the fork of the tree, my face on a level with Binya’s breasts. I put my hand against her waist, and kissed her on the soft inside of her arm. She did not say anything. But she took me by the hand and helped me to climb a little higher, and I put my arm around her, as much to support myself as to be close to her.
The full moon rides high, shining through the tall oak trees near the window. The night is full of sounds, crickets, the tonk-tonk of a nightjar, and floating across the valley from your village, the sound of drums beating, and people singing. It is a festival day, and there will be feasting in your home. Are you singing too, tonight? And are you thinking of me, as you sing, as you laugh, as you dance with your friends? I am sitting here alone, and so I have no one to think of but you.
Binya . . . I take your name again and again—as though by taking it, I can make you hear me, come to me, walking over the moonlit mountain . . .
There are spirits abroad tonight. They move silently in the trees; they hover about the window at which I sit; they take up with the wind and rush about the house. Spirits of the trees, spirits of the old house. An old lady died here last year. She’d lived in the house for over thirty years; something of her personality surely dwells here still. When I look into the tall, old mirror which was hers, I sometimes catch a glimpse of her pale face and long, golden hair. She likes me, I think, and the house is kind to me. Would she be jealous of you, Binya?
The music and singing grows louder. I can imagine your face glowing in the firelight. Your eyes shine with laughter. You have all those people near you and I have only the stars, and the nightjar, and the ghost in the mirror.
I woke early, while the dew was still fresh on the grass, and walked down the hill to the stream, and then up to a little knoll where a pine tree grew in solitary splendour, the wind going hoo-hoo in its slender branches. This was my favourite place, my place of power, where I came to renew myself from time to time. I lay on the grass, dreaming. The sky in its blueness swung round above me. An eagle soared in the distance. I heard her voice down among the trees; or I thought I heard it. But when I went to look, I could not find her.
I’d always prided myself on my rationality; had taught myself to be wary of emotional states, like ‘falling in love’, which turned out to be ephemeral and illusory. And although I told myself again and again that the attraction was purely physical, on my part as well as hers, I had to admit to myself that my feelings towards Binya differed from the feelings I’d had for others; and that while sex had often been for me a celebration, it had, like any other feast, resulted in satiety, a need for change, a desire to forget . . .
Binya represented something else—something wild, dreamlike, fairy-like. She moved close to the spirit-haunted rocks, the old trees, the young grass; she had absorbed something from them—a primeval innocence, an unconcern with the passing of time and events, an affinity with the forest and the mountains; this made her special and magical.
And so, when three, four, five days went by, and I did not find her on the hillside, I went through all the pangs of frustrated love: had she forgotten me and gone elsewhere? Had we been seen together, and was she being kept at home? Was she ill? Or had she been spirited away?
I could hardly go and ask for her. I would probably be driven from the village. It straddled the opposite hill, a cluster of slate-roof houses, a pattern of little terraced fields. I could see figures in the fields, but they were too far away, too tiny, for me to be able to recognize anyone. She had gone to her mother’s village a hundred miles away, or so, a small boy told me.
And so I brooded; walked disconsolately through the oak forest, hardly listening to the birds—the sweet-throated whistling thrush; the shrill barbet; the mellow-voiced doves. Happiness had always made me more responsive to nature. Feeling miserable, my thoughts turned inward. I brooded upon the trickery of time and circumstance; I felt the ye
ars were passing by, had passed by, like waves on a receding tide, leaving me washed up like a bit of flotsam on a lonely beach. But at the same time, the whistling thrush seemed to mock at me, calling tantalizingly from the shadows of the ravine, ‘It isn’t time that’s passing by, it is you and I, it is you and I . . .’
Then I forced myself to snap out of my melancholy. I kept away from the hillside and the forest. I did not look towards the village. I buried myself in my work, tried to think objectively, and wrote an article on ‘The inscriptions on the iron pillar at Kalsi’; very learned, very dry, very sensible.
But at night I was assailed by thoughts of Binya. I could not sleep. I switched on the light, and there she was, smiling at me from the looking glass, replacing the image of the old lady who had watched over me for so long.
His Neighbour’s Wife
‘No (said Arun, as we waited for dinner to be prepared), I did not fall in love with my neighbour’s wife. It is not that kind of story.
‘Mind you, Leela was a most attractive woman. She was not beautiful or pretty but she was handsome. Hers was the firm, athletic body of a sixteen-year-old boy, free of any surplus flesh. She bathed morning and evening, oiling herself well, so that her skin glowed a golden-brown in the winter sunshine. Her lips were often coloured with paan juice, but her teeth were perfect.
‘I was her junior by about five years, and she called me her “younger brother”. Her husband, who was forty to her thirty-two, was an official in the Customs and Excise Department: an extrovert, a hard-drinking, backslapping man, who spent a great deal of time on tour. Leela knew that he was not always faithful to her during these frequent absences but she found solace in her own loyalty and in the well-being of her one child, a boy called Chandu.
‘I did not care for the boy. He had been well spoilt, and took great delight in disturbing me whenever I was at work. He entered my rooms uninvited, knocked my books about, and, if guests were present, made insulting remarks about them to their faces.