by Ruskin Bond
‘You don’t know the trouble I had getting it,’ she said. ‘Now don’t come asking for more until at least a week has passed.’ ‘After a week, I will be able to supply you with funds. I am engaged tonight on a mission of some importance. In a few days I will place golden bangles on your golden feet.’
‘What mission?’ asked Mrinalini, looking at him with an anxious frown. ‘If it is anything to do with the seth, please leave it alone. You know what happened to Satish Dayal. He was smuggling opium for the seth, and now he is sitting in jail, while the seth continues as always.’
‘Don’t worry about me. I can deal with the seth.’
‘Then be off! I have to entertain a foreign delegation this evening. You can come tomorrow morning, if you are free.’
‘I may come. Meanwhile, goodbye!’
He walked backwards into the living room, pivoted into the kitchen and, bending over the old woman, kissed her on the forehead.
‘You dried-up old mango,’ he said. And went away, whistling.
The Kitemaker
There was but one tree in the street known as Gali Ram Nath—an ancient banyan that had grown through the cracks of an abandoned mosque—and little Ali’s kite had caught in its branches. The boy, barefoot and clad only in a torn shirt, ran along the cobbled stones of the narrow street to where his grandfather sat nodding dreamily in the sunshine of their back courtyard.
‘Grandfather,’ shouted the boy. ‘My kite has gone!’
The old man woke from his daydream with a start, and raising his head, displayed a beard that would have been white, had it not been dyed red with mehndi leaves.
‘Did the twine break?’ he asked. ‘I know that kite twine is not what it used to be.’
‘No, grandfather, the kite is stuck in the banyan tree.’
The old man chuckled. ‘You have yet to learn how to fly a kite properly, my child. And I am too old to teach you, that’s the pity of it. But you shall have another.’
He had just finished making a new kite from bamboo paper and thin silk, and it lay in the sun, firming up. It was a pale pink kite, with a small green tail. The old man handed it to Ali, and the boy raised himself on his toes and kissed his grandfather’s hollowed-out cheek.
‘I will not lose this one,’ he said. ‘This kite will fly like a bird.’ And he turned on his heels and skipped out of the courtyard.
The old man remained dreaming in the sun. His kite shop was gone, the premises long since sold to a junk dealer; but he still made kites, for his own amusement and for the benefit of his grandson, Ali. Not many people bought kites these days. Adults disdained them, and children preferred to spend their money at the cinema. Moreover, there were not many open spaces left for the flying of kites. The city had swallowed up the open grassland that had stretched from the old fort’s walls to the river bank.
But the old man remembered a time when grown men flew kites, and great battles were fought, the kites swerving and swooping in the sky, tangling with each other until the string of one was severed. Then the defeated but liberated kite would float away into the blue unknown. There was a good deal of betting, and money frequently changed hands.
Kite flying was then the sport of kings, and the old man remembered how the Nawab himself would come down to the riverside with his retinue to participate in this noble pastime. There was time, then, to spend an idle hour with a gay, dancing strip of paper. Now, everyone hurried, hurried in a heat of hope, and delicate things like kites and daydreams were trampled underfoot.
He, Mehmood the kitemaker, had in the prime of his life been well-known throughout the city. Some of his more elaborate kites once sold for as much as three or four rupees each.
At the request of the Nawab he had once made a very special kind of kite, unlike any that had been seen in the district. It consisted of a series of small, very light paper disks, trailing on a thin bamboo frame. To the end of each disk he fixed a sprig of grass, forming a balance on both sides.
The surface of the foremost disk was slightly convex, and a fantastic face was painted on it, having two eyes made of small mirrors. The disks, decreasing in size from head to tail, assumed an undulatory form, and gave the kite the appearance of a crawling serpent. It required great skill to raise this cumbersome device from the ground, and only Mehmood could manage it.
Everyone had heard of the ‘Dragon Kite’ that Mehmood had built, and word went round that it possessed supernatural powers. A large crowd assembled in the open to watch its first public launching in the presence of the Nawab.
At the first attempt, it refused to leave the ground.
The disks made a plaintive, protesting sound, and the sun was trapped in the little mirrors, and made of the kite a living, complaining creature. And then the wind came from the right direction, and the Dragon Kite soared into the sky, wriggling its way higher and higher, with the sun still glinting in its devil eyes. And when it went very high, it pulled fiercely on the twine, and Mehmood’s young sons had to help him with the reel; but still the kite pulled, determined to be free, to break loose, to live a life of its own. And eventually it did so.
The twine snapped, the kite leaped away towards the sun, sailed on heavenward until it was lost to view. It was never found again, and Mehmood wondered afterwards if he had made too vivid, too living a thing of the great kite. He did not make another like it, and instead he presented to the Nawab a musical kite, one that made a sound like a violin when it rose in the air.
Those were more leisurely, more spacious days. But the Nawab had died years ago, and his descendants were almost as poor as Mehmood himself. Kitemakers, like poets, once had their patrons; but no one knew Mehmood, simply because there were too many people in the gali, and they could not be bothered with their neighbours.
When Mehmood was younger and had fallen sick, everyone in the neighbourhood had come to ask after his health; but now, when his days were drawing to a close, no one visited him. True, most of his old friends were dead and his sons had grown up: one was working in a local garage, the other had been in Pakistan at the time of Partition and had not been able to rejoin his relatives.
The children who had bought kites from him ten years ago were now grown men, struggling for a living; they did not have time for the old man and his memories. They had grown up in a swiftly changing and competitive world, and they looked at the old kitemaker and the banyan tree with the same indifference.
Both were taken for granted—permanent fixtures that were of no concern to the raucous, sweating mass of humanity that surrounded them. No longer did people gather under the banyan tree to discuss their problems and their plans: only in the summer months did a few seek shelter from the fierce sun.
But there was the boy, his grandson; it was good that Mehmood’s son worked close by, for it gladdened the old man’s heart to watch the small boy at play in the winter sunshine, growing under his eyes like a young and well-nourished sapling putting forth new leaves each day. There is a great affinity between trees and men. We grow at much the same pace, if we are not hurt or starved or cut down. In our youth we are resplendent creatures, and in our declining years we stoop a little, we remember, we stretch our brittle limbs in the sun, and then, with a sigh, we shed our last leaves.
Mehmood was like the banyan, his hands gnarled and twisted like the roots of the ancient tree. Ali was like the young mimosa planted at the end of the courtyard. In two years both he and the tree would acquire the strength and confidence of their early youth.
The voices in the street grew fainter, and Mehmood wondered if he was going to fall asleep and dream, as he so often did, of a kite so beautiful and powerful that it would resemble the great white bird of the Hindus, Garuda, God Vishnu’s famous steed. He would like to make a wonderful new kite for little Ali. He had nothing else to leave the boy.
He heard Ali’s voice in the distance, but did not realize that the boy was calling him. The voice seemed to come from very far away.
Ali was at the courty
ard door, asking if his mother had as yet returned from the bazaar. When Mehmood did not answer, the boy came forward repeating his question. The sunlight was slanting across the old man’s head, and a small white butterfly rested on his flowing beard. Mehmood was silent; and when Ali put his small brown hand on the old man’s shoulder, he met with no response. The boy heard a faint sound, like the rubbing of marbles in his pocket.
Suddenly afraid, Ali turned and moved to the door, and then ran down the street shouting for his mother. The butterfly left the old man’s beard and flew to the mimosa tree, and a sudden gust of wind caught the torn kite and lifted it into the air, carrying it far above the struggling city into the blind blue sky.
The Box Man
Sitting outside my cottage, in the summer shade of an old plum tree, I can see a path leading through the deodars towards the next tree-darkened mountain. On this morning, I saw an old man coming down the path, walking very slowly, carrying a small tin trunk on his head.
He stopped at the gate and asked me if I would buy something. I could think of nothing I wanted, but the old man looked so tired, so very old, that I thought he would collapse if he moved any further along the path without resting. So I asked him to step in and show me his wares. He had a snow-white beard, crinkled brown skin, and bright intelligent eyes. He was thin and bandy-legged and wore a patched, black waistcoat.
He couldn’t get the box off his head by himself, but together we managed to set it down in the shade and the old man insisted on spreading the entire contents out on the grass: bangles, combs, shoelaces, safety pins, cheap stationery, buttons, pomades, elastic, and scores of other minor household necessities.
When I refused buttons because there was no one to sew them on for me, he plied me with safety pins. I said no; but, as he moved from article to article, his querulous, persuasive voice slowly broke down my sales resistance, and I ended up buying envelopes, a letter pad (pink roses on bright blue paper), a one-rupee fountain pen, and several yards of elastic. I had no idea what I would use the elastic for, but the old man convinced me that I could no longer live without it.
He then produced a small plastic glass from his waistcoat pocket, and I thought it was another item for sale. But he only wanted a drink of water. I readily brought him some. He drank the water slowly, then leant back against the trunk of the plum tree, making no effort to pack his things. He closed his eyes. I had a sudden panicky feeling that he would die in my garden!
‘I am very tired, hazoor,’ he said. ‘Please do not mind if I rest here for a while.’ ‘Rest for as long as you like,’ I said. ‘That’s a heavy load to carry on a hot day.’ He opened his eyes at the chance of a conversation and said, ‘When I was a young man, it was nothing. I could carry my box up from Rajpur to Mussoorie by the bridle path—seven steep miles! But now I find it difficult to cover even one mile from the bazaar to the Mall.’
‘Naturally, you are old.’ ‘Seventy years old, sahib.’ ‘You are very fit for your age. You do not look more than sixty-five.’ Though he was frail, he had a wiry frame and his skin still had a healthy colour. ‘Don’t you have anyone to help you?’ I asked.
‘I had a boy last month, but he stole my earnings and ran off to Dilli. I wish my son was alive—he would not have permitted me to work like a mule for a living. But he died five years ago, of a cough.’ By a ‘cough’, I presume, he meant tuberculosis. ‘Have you no relatives, then?’ ‘None. I have outlived them all. That is the curse of a healthy life. Your friends, your loved ones, all go before you, and at the end you are left alone. But I must go too, before long. The road seems more difficult each day. I feel as though it has added a mile to its length. The stones are harder. The sun is hotter. Even some of the trees that were here in my youth have grown old and died. I have outlived the trees.’
He had outlived the trees. And I was certain that if he fell asleep in my garden, he would strike root there, sending out crooked branches. I could imagine a small bent tree with a black waistcoat. He closed his eyes again, but kept on talking.
‘Yes, there were times when the memsahibs bought great quantities of elastic. Today, it is ribbons and bangles for the girls, and combs for the boys. But I do not make so much. Not because people do not buy from me, but because I cannot walk as far. How many houses do I reach in a day? Ten, fifteen. But twenty years ago I could walk to fifty houses. That makes a difference.’
‘Have you always been here?’
‘Most of my life, hazoor. Except when I went to Najibabad to get married. I was here before they built the motor road, when gentlemen came up on ponies, and their women in dandies borne by coolies. I was here when the Prince of Welles came from across the sea. And I was here during the earthquake—when that was, I cannot remember exactly, I was only a boy—but the hills shook and many houses fell. Oh, I have been here a long time, hazoor. I was here when this house was built. Fifty, sixty years ago, it must have been. I cannot remember exactly. What is ten years when you have lived seventy? It was a Major Sahib who built your house. I remember, because he did not live in it for long. He was thrown from his horse one day, and was killed. Then came—I forget the name—and his wife and children. Beautiful children. But they went away many years ago. Everyone has gone away.’
‘But others have come,’ I said. ‘True, and that is as it should be. That is not my complaint. My complaint is that I have been left behind.’ He produced his little glass again. ‘I am sorry, hazoor, but talking has made me thirsty.’
I took the glass and went indoors to fill it. By the time I returned to the garden, the old man had miraculously put away all his odds and ends. He stood over his old blue tin box, gazing down at it with a mixture of disdain and affection.
I helped him lift it, and placed it on the flattened cloth on his head. I opened the gate, and the box man tottered out. He did not have the energy to turn and make a salutation of any kind; but, setting his sights on the mountain ahead, he walked up the path with steps that were shaky and slow but wonderfully straight.
I watched him until he was far along the path. I wondered how long he could last. Perhaps a year or two, perhaps a day, perhaps an hour. But whenever or however he died, it wouldn’t be death.
He was too old to die. He could only sleep. He could only fall gently, like an old brown leaf.
Pipalnagar’s People*
One
‘Look, Ganpat,’ I said one day, ‘I’ve heard a lot of stories about you, and I don’t know which is true. How did you get your crooked back?’
‘That’s a very long story,’ he said, flattered by my interest in him. ‘And I don’t know if you will believe it. Besides, it is not to anyone that I would speak freely.’
He had served his purpose in whetting my appetite. I said, ‘I’ll give you four annas if you tell me your story. How about that?’ He stroked his beard, considering my offer. ‘All right,’ he said, squatting down on his haunches in the sunshine, while I pulled myself up on a low wall. ‘But it happened more than twenty years ago, and you cannot expect me to remember very clearly.’
In those days (said Ganpat) I was quite a young man, and had just been married. I owned several acres of land and, though we were not rich, we were not very poor. When I took my produce to the market, five miles away, I harnessed the bullocks and drove down the dusty village road. I would return home at night.
Every night, I passed a peepul tree, and it was said this tree was haunted. I had never met the ghost and did not believe in him, but his name, I was told, was Bippin, and long ago he had been hanged on the peepul tree by a band of dacoits. Ever since, his ghost had lived in the tree, and was in the habit of pouncing upon any person who resembled a dacoit, and beating him severely. I suppose I must have looked dishonest, for one night Bippin decided to pounce on me. He leapt out of the tree and stood in the middle of the road, blocking the way.
‘You, there!’ he shouted. ‘Get off your cart. I am going to kill you!’
I was, of course, taken aback, but saw
no reason why I should obey.
‘I have no intention of being killed,’ I said. ‘Get on the cart yourself!’
‘Spoken like a man!’ cried Bippin, and he jumped up on the cart beside me. ‘But tell me one good reason why I should not kill you?’
‘I am not a dacoit,’ I replied.
‘But you look like one. That is the same thing.’ ‘You would be sorry for it later if you killed me. I am a poor man with a wife to support.’
‘You have no reason for being poor,’ said Bippin, angrily.
‘Well, make me rich if you can.’
‘So you think I don’t have the power to make you rich? Do you defy me to make you rich?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I defy you to make me rich.’
‘Then drive on!’ cried Bippin. ‘I am coming home with you.’ I drove the bullock cart into the village, with Bippin sitting beside me.
‘I have so arranged it,’ he said, ‘that no one but you will be able to see me. And another thing. I must sleep beside you every night, and no one must know of it. If you tell anyone about me, I’ll kill you immediately!’
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I won’t tell anyone.’
‘Good. I look forward to living with you. It was getting lonely in that peepul tree.’
So Bippin came to live with me, and he slept beside me every night, and we got on very well together. He was as good as his word, and money began to pour in from every conceivable and inconceivable source, until I was in a position to buy more land and cattle. Nobody knew of our association, though of course my friends and relatives wondered where all the money was coming from. At the same time, my wife was rather upset at my refusing to sleep with her at night. I could not very well keep her in the same bed as a ghost, and Bippin was most particular about sleeping beside me. At first, I had told my wife I wasn’t well, that I would sleep on the veranda. Then I told her that there was someone after our cows, and I would have to keep an eye on them at night. Bippin and I slept in the barn.