by Ruskin Bond
My wife would often spy on me at night, suspecting infidelity, but she always found me lying alone with the cows. Unable to understand my strange behaviour, she mentioned it to her family. They came to me, demanding an explanation.
At the same time, my own relatives were insisting that I tell them the source of my increasing income. Uncles and aunts and distant cousins all descended on me one day, wanting to know where the money was coming from.
‘Do you want me to die?’ I said, losing patience with them. ‘If I tell you the cause of my wealth, I will surely die.’
But they laughed, taking this for a half-hearted excuse. They suspected I was trying to keep everything for myself. My wife’s relatives insisted that I had found another woman. Eventually, I grew so exhausted with their demands that I blurted out the truth.
They didn’t believe the truth either (who does?), but it gave them something to think and talk about, and they went away for the time being.
But that night, Bippin didn’t come to sleep beside me. I was all alone with the cows. And he didn’t come the following night. I had been afraid he would kill me while I slept, but it appeared that he had gone his way and left me to my own devices. I was certain that my good fortune had come to an end, and so I went back to sleeping with my wife.
The next time I was driving back to the village from the market, Bippin leapt out of the peepul tree.
‘False friend!’ he cried, halting the bullocks. ‘I gave you everything you wanted, and still you betrayed me!’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘You can kill me if you like.’
‘No, I cannot kill you,’ he said. ‘We have been friends for too long. But I will punish you all the same.’
Picking up a stout stick, he struck me three times across the back, until I was bent up double.
‘After that,’ Ganpat concluded, ‘I could never straighten up again and, for over twenty years, I have been a crooked man. My wife left me and went back to her family, and I could no longer work in the fields. I left my village and wandered from one city to another, begging for a living. That is how I came to Pipalnagar, where I decided to remain. People here seem to be more generous than they are in other towns, perhaps because they haven’t got so much.’
He looked up at me with a smile, waiting for me to produce the four annas.
‘You can’t expect me to believe that story,’ I said. ‘But it was a good invention, so here is your money.’
‘No, no!’ said Ganpat, backing away and affecting indignation. ‘If you don’t believe me, keep the money. I would not lie to you for a mere four annas!’
He permitted me to force the coin into his hand, and then went hobbling away, having first wished me a pleasant afternoon.
I was almost certain he had been telling me a very tall story; but you never can tell . . . Perhaps he really had met Bippin the ghost. And it was wise to give him the four annas, just in case, after all, he was a CID man.
Two
Pitamber is a young lion. A shaggy mane of black hair tumbles down the nape of his neck. His body, though, is naked and hairless, burnt a rich chocolate by the summer sun. His only garment is a pair of knickers. When he pedals his cycle-rickshaw through the streets of Pipalnagar, the muscles of his calves and thighs stand out like lumps of grey iron. He has carried in his rickshaw fat baniyas and their fat wives, and this has given him powerful legs, a strong back and hollow cheeks. His thighs are magnificent, solid muscle, not an ounce of surplus flesh. They look as though they have been carved out of teak.
His face, though, is gaunt and hollow, his eyes set deep in their sockets. But there is a burning intensity about his eyes and sometimes I wonder if he, too, is tubercular, like many in Pipalnagar. You cannot tell just by looking at a person if he is sick. Sometimes the weak will last for years, while the strong will suddenly collapse and die.
Pitamber has a wife and three children in his village five miles from Pipalnagar. They have a few acres of land on which they grow maize and sugarcane. One day he made me sit in his rickshaw, and we cycled out of the town, along the road to Delhi. Then we had to get down and push the rickshaw over a rutted cart-track, until we reached his village.
This visit to Pitamber’s village had provided me with an escape route from Pipalnagar. I persuaded Suraj to put aside his tray and his books, and hiring a cycle from a stand near the bus stop (on credit), I seated Suraj in front of me on the crossbar, and rode out of Pipalnagar.
It was then that I made the amazing discovery that by exerting my legs a little, I could get out of Pipalnagar, and that, except for the cycle-hire, it did not involve any expense or great sacrifice.
It was a hot, sunny morning, and I was perspiring by the time we had gone two miles; but a fresh wind sprang up suddenly, and I could smell rain in the air, though there were no clouds to be seen.
When Suraj began to feel cramped on the saddle-bar, we got down, and walked along the side of the road.
‘Let us not go to the village,’ said Suraj. ‘Let us go where there are no people at all. I am tired of people.’
We pushed the cycle off the road, and took a path through a paddy field, and then a field of young maize, and in the distance we saw a tree, a crooked tree, growing beside a well.
I do not know the name of that tree. I had never seen one of its kind before. It had a crooked trunk, and crooked branches, and it was clothed in thick, broad crooked leaves, like the leaves on which food is served in the bazaars.
In the trunk of the tree was a hole, and when I set my cycle down with a crash, two green parrots flew out of the hole, and went dipping and swerving across the fields.
There was grass around the well, cropped short by grazing cattle, so we sat in the shade of the crooked tree, and Suraj untied the red cloth in which he had brought our food.
We ate our bread and spiced vegetables, and meanwhile the parrots returned to the tree.
‘Let us come here every week,’ said Suraj, stretching himself out on the grass and resting his head against my shoulder.
It was a drowsy day, the air humid, and soon Suraj fall asleep. I, too, stretched myself out on the grass, and closed my eyes but I did not sleep. I was aware instead of a score of different sensations.
I heard a cricket singing in the crooked tree; the cooing of pigeons which dwelt in the walls of the old well; the quiet breathing of Suraj; a rustling in the leaves of the tree; the distant hum of an aeroplane.
I smelt the grass, and the old bricks round the well and the promise of rain.
I felt Suraj’s fingers touching my arm, and the sun creeping over my cheek.
I opened my eyes, and I saw the clouds on the horizon, and Suraj still asleep, his arm thrown across his eyes to keep away the glare.
Being thirsty, I went to the well, and putting my shoulders to it, turned the wheel, walking around the well four times, while cool, clean water gushed out over the stones and along the channel to the fields.
I drank from one of the trays and the water was sweet with age.
Suraj was sitting up, looking at the sky.
‘It is going to rain,’ he said. When he had taken his fill of water, we pushed the cycle back to the main road and began cycling homewards, but we were still two miles out of Pipalnagar when it began to rain.
A lashing wind swept the rain across our faces, but we exulted in it, and sang at the top of our voices until we reached the bus stop. I left the cycle at the hire-shop. Suraj and I ran up the rickety, swaying steps to my room.
Soon there were puddles on the floor, where we had left our soaking clothes, and Suraj was sitting on the bed, a sheet wrapped round his chest.
He became feverish that evening, and I pulled out an old blanket, and covered him with it. I massaged his scalp with mustard oil, and he fell asleep while I did this.
It was dark by then, and the rain had stopped, and the bazaar was lighting up. I curled up at the foot of the bed, and slept for a little while; but at midnight I was woken by the moon shini
ng full in my face; a full moon, shedding its light exclusively on Pipalnagar and peeping and prying into every room, washing the empty streets, silvering the corrugated tin roof.
People are restless tonight, with the moon shining through their windows. Suraj turns restlessly in his sleep. Kamla, having sent away a drunken customer, will be bathing herself, as she always does before she finally sleeps . . . Deep Chand is tossing on his cot, dreaming of electric razors and a plush hair-cutting saloon in the capital, with the Prime Minister as his client. And Seth Govind Ram, unable to sleep because of the accusing moonlight, paces his veranda, worrying about his rent, counting up his assets, and wondering if he should stand for election to the Legislative Assembly.
In the temple the moonlight rests gently on the generous Ganesh, and in the fields Krishna is playing his flute and Radha is singing . . . ‘I follow you, devoted . . . How can you deceive me, so tortured by love’s fever as I am . . .’
Three
In June, the lizards hang listlessly on the walls, scanning their horizon in vain. Insects seldom show up—either the heat has killed them, or they are sleeping and breeding in cracks in the plaster. The lizards wait—and wait . . .
All Pipalnagar is waiting for its release from the oppressive heat of June.
One day clouds loom up on the horizon, growing rapidly into enormous towers. A faint breeze springs up. Soon it is a wind, which brings with it the first raindrops. This is the moment everyone is waiting for. People run out of their chawls and houses to take in the fresh breeze and the scent of those first raindrops on the parched, dusty earth . . .
As most of my writing is done at night, and much of my sleeping by day, it often happens that at about midnight I put down my pen and go out for a walk. In Pipalnagar, this is a pleasant time for a walk, provided you are not taken for a burglar. There is the smell of jasmine in the air, the moonlight shining on sandy stretches of wasteland, and a silence broken only by the hideous bellow of the chowkidar, or night-watchman.
This is the person who, employed by the residents of our Mohalla, keeps guard over us at night, and walks the roads calling like a jackal, ‘Khabardar!’(Beware) for the benefit of prospective evil-doers. Apart from keeping half the population awake, he is successful in warning thieves of his presence.
The other night, in the course of a midnight stroll, I encountered our chowkidar near a dark corner, and wished him a good evening. He leapt into the air like a startled rabbit, and immediately shouted ‘Khabardar!’ as though this was some magic word that would bring me down on my knees begging for mercy.
‘It’s quite all right,’ I assured him. ‘I’m only one of your clients.’
The chowkidar laughed nervously and said he was glad to hear it; he hoped I didn’t mind his shouting ‘Khabardar’ at me, but these were grim times and robbers were on the increase.
I said yes, there were probably quite a few of them at work this very night. Had he ever tried creeping up on them quietly? He might catch a few that way.
But why should he catch them, the chowkidar wanted to know. It was his business to frighten them away. He could do that better by roaring defiantly on the roads than by accosting them on someone’s premises—violence must be avoided, if he could help it.
‘Besides,’ he said, ‘the people who live here like me to shout at night. It makes them feel safe, knowing that I am on guard. And if I didn’t shout “Khabardar” every few minutes, they would think I had fallen asleep, and I would be dismissed.’
This was a logical argument. I asked him what would he do if, by accident, he encountered a gang of thieves. He said he would keep shouting ‘Khabardar’ until the people came out of their houses to help him. I said I doubted very much if they would come out of their houses, but wished him luck all the same, and continued with my walk.
Every five minutes or so I heard his cry, followed by a ‘Khabardar’ which grew fainter until the chowkidar had reached the far side of the Mohalla. I thought it would be a good idea to give him a helping hand from my side, so I cupped my hands to my mouth and shouted, ‘Khabardar, Khabardar!’
It worked like magic.
Three dark figures scrambled over a neighbouring wall and fled down the empty road. I shouted ‘Khabardar’ a second time, and they ran faster. Imagine the thieves’ confusion when they were met by more ‘Khabardars’ in front, coming from the chowkidar, and realized that there were now two chowkidars operating in the Mohalla. On those nights when sleep was elusive we left the room and walked for miles around Pipalnagar. It was generally about midnight that we became restless. The walls of the room would give out all the heat they had absorbed during the day, and to lie awake sweating in the dark only gave rise to morbid and depressing thoughts.
In our singlets and pyjamas Suraj and I would walk barefooted through the empty Mohalla, over the cooling brick pavements, until we were out of the bazaar and crossing the Maidan, our feet sinking into the springy dew-fresh grass. The Maidan was broad and spacious, and the star swept sky seemed to meet each end of the plain.
Then out of the town, through lantana scrub, till we came to the dry river bed, where we walked amongst rocks and boulders, sitting down occasionally, while great horny lizards watched us from between the stones.
Across the river bed fields of maize stretched away for a few miles, until there came a dry region, where thorns and a few bent trees grew, the earth splitting up in jagged cracks like a jigsaw puzzle; and where water had been, the skin was peeling off the earth in great flat pancakes. Dotting the landscape were old abandoned brick kilns, and it was said that thieves met there at nights, in the trenches around the kilns; but we never saw any.
When it rained heavily, the hollows filled up with water. Suraj and I came to one of these places to bathe and swim. There was an island in the middle of one of the hollows, and on this small mound stood the ruins of a hut, where a night-watchman once lived and looked after the bricks at night.
We swam out to the island, which was only a few yards away. There was a grassy patch in front of the hut, and here we lay and sunned ourselves in the early morning, until it became too hot. We would oil and massage each other’s bodies, and wrestle on the grass.
Though I was heavier than Suraj, and my chest was as sound as a new drum, he had a lot of power in his long arms and legs and often pinioned me about the waist with his bony knees or fastened me with his strong fingers.
Once while we wrestled on the new monsoon grass, I felt his body go tense, as I strained to press his back to the ground. He stiffened, his thigh jerked against me, and his legs began to twitch. I knew that he had a fit coming on, but I was unable to extricate myself from his arms, which gripped me more tightly as the fit took possession of him. Instead of struggling, I lay still, and tried desperately to absorb some of his anguish by embracing him. I felt my own body might draw some of the agitation to itself; it was only a strange fancy, but I felt that it made a difference, that by consciously sharing his unconscious condition I was alleviating it. At other times, I have known this same feeling. When Kamla was burning with fever, I had thought that by taking her in my arms I could draw the fever from her, absorb the heat of her body, transfer to hers the coolness of my own.
Now I pressed against Suraj, and whispered soothingly and lovingly into his ear, though I knew he had no idea what I could be saying. And then when I noticed his mouth working, I thrust my hand in sideways to prevent him from biting his tongue.
But so violent was the convulsion that his teeth bit into the flesh of my palm and ground against my knuckles. I gasped with pain and tried to jerk my hand away, but it was impossible to loosen the grip of his teeth. So I closed my eyes and counted one, two, three, four, five, six, seven—until I felt his body relax again and his jaws give way slowly.
My hand had blood on it, and was trembling. I bound it in a handkerchief before Suraj came to himself.
We walked back to the town without talking much. He looked depressed and hopeless, though I knew he
would be buoyant again before long. I kept my hand concealed beneath my singlet, and he was too dejected to notice this. It was only at night, when he returned from his classes, that he noticed it was bandaged, and then I told him I had slipped on the road, cutting my hand on some broken glass.
Four
Rain upon Pipalnagar: and until the rain stops, Pipalnagar is fresh and clean and alive. The children run out of their houses, glorying in their nakedness. They are innocent and unashamed. Older children, by no means innocent, but by all means unashamed, romp through the town, inviting the shocked disapproval of their elders and, presumably, betters.
Before we are ten, we are naked and free and unafraid; after ten, we must cloak our manhood, for we are no longer certain that we are men.
The gutters choke, and the Mohalla becomes a mountain stream, coursing merrily down towards the bus stop. And it is at the bus stop that pandemonium breaks loose; for newly-arrived passengers panic at the sight of the sea of mud and rainwater that surrounds them on all sides, and about a hundred tongas and cycle-rickshaws try all at once to take care of a score of passengers. Result: only half the passengers find a conveyance, while the other half find themselves knee-deep in Pipalnagar mire.
Pitamber has, of course, succeeded in acquiring as his passenger the most attractive and frightened young woman in the bus. He proceeds to show off his skill and daring by taking her home by the most devious and uncomfortable route, and when she gets her feet covered with mud, wipes them with the seedy red cloth that he ties about his neck.
The rain swirls over the trees and roofs of the town, and the parched earth soaks it up, exuding a fragrance that comes only once in a year, the fragrance of quenched earth, the most exhilarating of all smells.
And in my room, too, I am battling against the elements, for the door will not shut against the breeze, and the rain is sweeping in through the opening and soaking my cot.