by Ruskin Bond
‘I must go, I do not want to rot like the mangoes at the end of the season, or burn out like the sun at the end of the day,’ I told myself. ‘I cannot live like the gardener, the cook and the water-carrier, doing the same task every day of my life. I am not interested in today, I want tomorrow. I cannot live in this same small room all my life, with a family of lizards, living in other people’s homes and never having one of my own. I have to break away. I want to be either somebody or nobody. I don’t want to be just anybody.’
I decided to go to Delhi and see the High Commissioner for the United Kingdom, who I was sure would give me an assisted passage to England; and I wrote to Somi, telling him of this plan. On my way I would have to pass through Hardwar, and there I would see Kishen, I had the aunt’s address.
At night I slept brokenly, thinking and worrying about the future. I would listen to the vibrant song of the frog who wallowed in the drain at the bottom of the steps, and to the unearthly cry of the jackal, and questions would come to me, disturbing questions about loving and leaving and living and dying, questions that crowded out my sleep.
But on the night before I left Dehra, it was not the croaking of the frog or the cry of the jackal that kept me awake, or the persistent questioning; but a premonition of crisis and of an end to something.
XIII
The postman brought a letter from Somi.
Dear Rusty, best favourite friend,
Do not ever travel in a third-class compartment. All the way to Amritsar I had to sleep standing up, the carriage was so crowded.
I shall be coming back to Dehra in the spring, in time to watch you play Holi with Ranbir once again. I know you feel like leaving India and running off to England, but wait until you see me again, all right? You are afraid to die without having done something. You are afraid to die, Rusty, but you have hardly begun to live.
I know you are not happy in Dehra, and you must be lonely. But wait a little, be patient, and the bad days will pass. We don’t know why we live. It is no use trying to know. But we have to live, Rusty, because we really want to. And as long as we want to, we have got to find something to live for, and even die for it. Mother is alone at home, so do visit her at times. Tell me if you need anything from here.
Somi
I folded the letter carefully, and put it in my shirt pocket; I meant to keep it for ever. I could not wait till Somi’s return; but I knew that our friendship would last a lifetime, and that the beauty of it would always be with me. In and out of my life, his turban at an angle, Somi would go; his slippers slapping against his heels for ever . . .
There was no case or bedding-roll to pack, no belongings at all; only the clothes I wore, which were Somi’s, and about fifty rupees, for which I had to thank Kishen. I had made no preparations for the journey; I would slip away without fuss or bother; insignificant, unnoticed . . .
I was lying down on the bed. There was still an hour to go before I left for the station. I gazed up at the ceiling, where the lizards scuttled about: callous creatures, unconcerned with my departure: to them, one human was just the same as any other. And the bald maina, hopping on and off the window sill, would continue to fight and lose more feathers; and the crows and the squirrels in the mango tree: I would miss them, but they would not miss me. It was true, one human was no different to any other—except to a dog or a human . . .
When I left the room, there was activity at the water tank; clothes were being beaten on the stone, and the ayah’s trinkets were jingling away. Saying goodbye to the people at the water tank would be unbearable, so I didn’t close my door, lest they suspected me of leaving. I descended the steps—twenty-two of them, I counted for the last time—and crossed the drain, and walked slowly down the gravel path until I was out of the compound.
I crossed the maidan, where a group of students were playing cricket, whilst another group wrestled; prams were wheeled about here and there; and young girls gossiped away the morning. I remembered my first night on the maidan, when I had been frightened and wet and lonely; and now, though the maidan was crowded, I felt the same loneliness, the same isolation. I walked through the bazaar with a heavy heart. From the chaat shop came the familiar smell of spices and the crackle of frying fat. Children bumped into me, and cows blocked the road; and, though I knew they always did these things, it was only now that I noticed them. They all seemed to be holding me, pulling me back. Or was it merely wishful thinking on my part?
But I could not return; I was afraid of what lay ahead, I dreaded the unknown, still, it was easier to walk forwards than backwards.
The toy seller made his way through the crowd, children clustering round him, tearing at his pole. I fingered a two-anna piece, and my eye picked out a little plume of red feathers, that seemed to have no useful purpose, and I was determined to buy it.
But before I could make the purchase, someone plucked at my shirt sleeve.
‘Chotta sahib, Chotta sahib,’ said the sweeper boy, Mr Harrison’s servant.
There was no mistaking the shaved head and the sparkle of white teeth, and I wanted to turn away; ignore the sweeper boy who was linked up with a past that was distant and yet uncomfortably close. But the hand plucked at my sleeve yet again, and I felt ashamed, angry with myself for trying to ignore someone who had never harmed me and who couldn’t have been friendlier. I was a sahib no longer, I had no servant; I was an English adoloscent who had only Indian friends. I was neither here, nor there; in that sense, I, too, was an untouchable, so I could not call another untouchable . . .
‘You are not at work?’ I asked.
‘No work.’ The sweeper boy smiled, a flash of white in the darkness of his face.
‘What of Mr Harrison, the sahib?’
‘Gone.’
‘Gone,’ I echoed, and was surprised at not being surprised. ‘Where has he gone?’
‘Don’t know, but he gone for good. Before he go, I get sack. I drop the bathroom-water on veranda, and the sahib, he hit me on the head with his hand, put! . . . I say, Sahib you are cruel, and he say cruelty to animals, no? Then he tell me I get sack, he leaving anyway. I lose two days’ pay.’
I was filled with both relief and uncertainty, for now there could never be a return; whether I wanted to or not, I could never go back to my old home.
‘What about the others?’ I asked.
‘They still there. Missionary’s wife a fine lady, she give me five rupees before I go.’
‘And you? You are working now?’
Again the sweeper boy flashed his smile. ‘No work . . .’
I didn’t dare offer the boy any money, though it would probably have been accepted; in the sweeper boy I saw nobility, and I could not belittle nobility.
‘I will try to get you work,’ I said, telling the sweeper boy where I lived and forgetting that I was on my way to the station to buy a one-way ticket.
I was sure though that the sweeper boy did not believe me, this was quite natural; he nodded his head automatically, but his eyes signified disbelief; and when I left him, he was still nodding, to nobody in particular.
On the station platform the coolies pushed and struggled, shouted incomprehensibly and lifted heavy trunks with apparent ease. Merchants cried their wares, trundling barrows up and down the platform: soda-water, oranges, betel-nut, halwai sweets . . . Flies swarmed around the open stalls, clustered on glass-covered sweet boxes; the mongrel dogs, ownerless and unfed, roamed the platform and railway lines, hunting for scraps of food and stealing at every opportunity.
Ignoring Somi’s advice, I bought a third-class ticket and found an empty compartment. The guard blew his whistle, but nobody took any notice. People continued about their business, certain that the train wouldn’t start for quite some time. Being the Hardwar Mail, this was but natural; no one ever expected the Hardwar Mail to start on time, for in all its history, it hadn’t done so (not even during the time of the British), and for it to do so now would be a blow to tradition. Everyone was for tradition, an
d so the Hardwar Mail was not permitted to arrive and depart at the appointed hour; though it was feared that one day some young fool would change the appointed hours. And imagine what would happen if the train did leave on time—the entire railway system would be thrown into confusion for, needless to say, every other train took its time from the Hardwar Mail . . .
I was the only person in the compartment until a fat lady, complaining volubly, oozed in through the door and spread herself across an entire bunk; it looked as if her plan was to discourage other passengers from coming in. She had beady little eyes, set in a big moon face; and they looked at me in curiosity, darting away whenever they met with mine.
Others came in, in quick succession now, for the guard had blown his whistle a second time: a young woman with a baby, a soldier in uniform, a boy of about twelve . . . they were all poor people; except for the fat lady, who obviously travelled third class in order to save money.
The guard’s whistle blew again, but the train still refused to start. So the guard kept blowing his whistle, and the vendors put their heads in at the windows, selling oranges and newspapers and soda-water . . .
‘Soda-water!’ exclaimed the fat lady. ‘Who wants soda-water! Why, our farmer here has with him a sohrai of pure cool water, and he will share it with us, will he not? Paan-wallah! Call the man, quick, he is not even stopping at the window!’
The guard blew his whistle again.
And we were off.
The Hardwar Mail, true to tradition, pulled out of Dehra station half an hour late.
Perhaps because I was leaving Dehra for ever I took an unusual interest in everything I saw and heard. Things that would not normally have been noticed by me, now made vivid impressions on my mind: the gesticulations of the coolies as the train drew out of the station, a dog licking a banana skin, a naked child alone amongst a pile of bundles, crying its heart out . . .
The platform, fruit stalls, advertisement boards, all slipped away.
The train gathered speed, the carriages groaned and creaked and rocked crazily. But, as we left the town and the station behind, the wheels found their rhythm, beating time with the rails and singing a song.
It was a sad song, persistent and fatalistic.
Another life was finishing.
One morning, months ago, I had heard a drum in the forest, a single drum beat, dhum-tap; and in the stillness of the morning it had been a call, a message, an irresistible force. I had cut away from my roots: I had been replanted, had sprung to life, new life. But it was too quick a growth, rootless, and I had withered. And now I was running away again. No drum now; instead, the pulsating throb and tremor of the train was rushing me away; away from India, from Somi, from the chaat shop and the bazaar; and I did not know why, except that I was lost and lonely and tired and old: nearly eighteen, but old . . .
The little boy beside me knelt in front of the window, and counted the telegraph posts as they flashed by; they seemed, after a while, to be hurtling past whilst the train stood stationary. Only the rocking of the carriage could be felt.
The train sang through the forests, and sometimes the child waved his hand excitedly and pointed out a deer, the sturdy sambar or the delicate cheetal. Monkeys screamed from treetops, or loped beside the train, mothers with their young clinging to their breasts. The jungle was heavy, shutting off the sky, and it was like this for half an hour; then the train came into the open, and the sun struck through the carriage windows. We swung through cultivated land, maize and sugarcane fields; past squat, mud hut villages, and teams of bullocks ploughing up the soil; leaving behind only a trail of curling smoke.
Children ran out from the villages—brown, naked children—and waved to the train, crying words of greeting; and the little boy in my compartment waved back and shouted merrily, and then turned to look at his travelling companions, his eyes shining with pleasure.
The child began to chatter about this and that, and the others listened to him good-humouredly; the farmer with simplicity and a genuine interest, the fat lady with a tolerant smile, and the soldier with an air of condescension. The young woman and the baby were both asleep. I felt sleepy myself, and was unable to listen to the small boy; vaguely, I thought of Kishen, and of how surprised and pleased he would be to see me.
Then I fell asleep.
When I awoke, the train was nearing Hardwar; I had slept for almost an hour, but it seemed like merely five minutes to me.
My throat was dry; and, though my shirt was soaked with perspiration, I shivered a little. My hands trembled, and I had to close my fists to stop the trembling.
At midday the train steamed into Hardwar station, and disgorged its passengers.
The fat lady, who was determined to be the first out of the compartment, jammed the doorway; but the soldier and I outwitted her by climbing out of the window.
I felt better once I was outside the station, but I knew I had a fever. My body still felt the rocking of the train, and the song of the wheels and the rails kept beating in my head. I walked slowly away from the station, comforted by the thought that at Kishen’s aunt’s house there would be food and rest. And at night, I would catch the train to Delhi.
XIV
The house was on top of a hill, and from the road I could see the river below, and the temples, and hundreds of people moving about on the long graceful steps that sloped down to the water: for the river was holy, and Hardwar sacred, a place of pilgrimage.
I knocked on the door, and presently there was the sound of bare feet on a stone floor. The door was opened by a lady, but she was a stranger—not the aunt who had come to fetch Kishen in Dehra—and we looked at each other with puzzled, questioning eyes.
‘Oh . . . namaste ji,’ I faltered. ‘Does—does Mr Kapoor or his sister live here?’
The lady of the house did not answer immediately. She looked at me with a detached interest, trying to guess at my business and intentions. She was dressed simply and well, she had a look of refinement, and I felt sure that her examination of me was no more than natural curiosity.
‘Who are you, please?’ she asked.
‘I am a friend from Dehra. I am leaving India and I want to see Mr Kapoor and his son before I go. Are they here?’
‘Only Mr Kapoor is here,’ she said. ‘You can come in.’ I wondered where Kishen and his aunt could be, but did not want to ask this strange lady; I felt ill at ease in her presence; the house seemed to be hers. Coming straight into the front room from bright sunshine, my eyes took a little time to get used to the dark; but after a moment or two I could make out the form of Mr Kapoor, sitting in a cushioned armchair.
‘Hullo, Mister Rusty,’ said Kapoor. ‘It is nice to see you.’
There was a glass of whisky on the table, but Kapoor was not drunk; he was shaved and dressed, and looked a good deal younger than when I had last seen him. But something else was missing. His jovial friendliness, his enthusiasm had gone. This Kapoor was a different man from the Kapoor of the beard and green dressing-gown.
‘Hullo, Mister Kapoor,’ I said. ‘How are you?’
‘I am fine, just fine. Sit down, please. Will you have a drink?’
‘No thanks. I came to see you and Kishen before leaving for England. I wanted to see you again, you were very kind to me . . .’
‘That’s all right, quite all right. I’m very glad to see you, but I’m afraid Kishen isn’t here. By the way, the lady who just met you at the door, I haven’t introduced you yet—this is my wife, Mister Rusty . . . I—I married again. Shortly after Meena’s death.’
I looked at the new Mrs Kapoor in considerable bewilderment, and greeted her quietly. It was not unusual for a man to marry again soon after his wife’s death, and I knew this, but my heart was breaking with a fierce anger. I was revolted by the rapidity of it all; hardly a month had passed, and here was Kapoor with another wife. And it was for this man Kapoor—this weakling, this drunkard, this self-opinionated, selfish drunkard—that Meena had given her life, all of it; devo
tedly she had remained by his side when she could have left, when there was no more fight in him and no more love in him and no more pride in him; and, had she left then, she would have been alive, and he—he would be dead . . .
I was not interested in the new Mrs Kapoor. For Kapoor, I had only contempt.
‘Mister Rusty is a good friend of the family,’ Kapoor was saying. ‘In Dehra he was a great help to Kishen.’
‘How did Meena die?’ I asked, determined to hurt Kapoor—if Kapoor could be hurt . . .
‘I thought you knew. We had an accident. Let us not talk of it, Mister Rusty . . .’
‘The driver was driving, of course?’
Kapoor did not answer immediately, but raised his glass and sipped from it.
‘Of course,’ he said.
‘How did it all happen?’
‘Please, Mister Rusty, I do not want to describe it. We were going too fast, and the car left the road and hit a tree. I can’t describe it, Mister Rusty.’
‘No, of course not,’ I said, relenting. ‘Anyway, I am glad nothing happened to you. It is also good that you have mastered your natural grief, and started a new life. I am afraid I am not as strong as you. Meena was wonderful, and I still can’t believe she is dead.’
‘We have to carry on . . .’
‘Of course. How is Kishen, I would like to see him.’
‘He is in Lucknow with his aunt,’ said Kapoor. ‘He wished to stay with her.’
Mrs Kapoor had been quiet till now.
‘Tell him the truth,’ she said. ‘There is nothing to hide.’
‘You tell him then.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked, wondering what could have happened to Kishen.
‘He ran away from us,’ said Mrs Kapoor. ‘As soon as his aunt left, he ran away. We tried to make him come back, but it was useless, so now we don’t try. But he is in Hardwar. We are always hearing about him. They say he is the most cunning thief on both sides of the river.’