by Ruskin Bond
Ram Singh groaned softly.
‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘have you heard of a woman living alone in these parts?’
‘There are many old women here.’
‘No, I mean a well-to-do woman. She must be about fifty. At one time she was married to a white sahib.’
‘Ah, I have heard of such a woman . . . She was beautiful when she was young, they tell me.’
I kept quiet. I was afraid to ask any further questions, afraid to know too much, afraid of finding out too soon that there was nothing from my father for me and nowhere to go.
‘Ram Singh,’ I whispered after some time. ‘Where does this woman live?’
‘She had her house on the road to Rishikesh . . .’
‘And the woman, where is she? Is she dead?’
‘I do not know, I have not heard of her recently,’ said Ram Singh. ‘Why do you ask of her? Are you related to the sahib?’
‘No,’ I lied. ‘I have heard of her, that’s all.’
Silence. The old man grumbled to himself, muttering quietly, and then began to snore. The jackal was silent, the wind was up again, the moon was lost in the clouds. I felt Sudheer’s hand slip into my own and press my fingers. I was surprised to find him awake.
‘Forget it,’ whispered Sudheer. ‘Forget the dead, forget the past. Trouble your heart no longer. I have enough for both of us, so let us live on it till it finishes, and let us be happy, Rusty, my friend, let us be happy . . .’
I did not reply, but held the Lafunga’s hand and returned the pressure of his fingers to let him know that I was listening.
‘This is only the beginning,’ said Sudheer. ‘The world is waiting for us.’
I woke first. Looking up at the skylight, I saw the first glimmer of dawn. Without waking Sudheer or the old man, I unlatched the door and stepped outside.
Before me lay a world of white.
It had snowed in the early hours of the morning while we had been sleeping. The snow lay thick on the ground, carpeting the hillside. There was not a breath of wind; the pine trees stood blanched and still, and a deep silence hung over the forest and the hills.
I did not feel like waking the others immediately. I wanted this all to myself—the snow and the silence and the coming of the sun . . .
Towards the horizon, the sky was red. And then the sun rose over the hills and struck the snow, and I ran to the top of the hill and stood in the dazzling sunlight, shading my eyes from the glare, taking in the range of mountains and the valley and the stream that cut its way through the snow like a dark trickle of oil. I ran down the hill and into the house.
‘Wake up!’ I shouted, shaking Sudheer. ‘Get up and come outside!’
‘Why—have you found your treasure?’ complained Sudheer sleepily. ‘Or has the old man had another fit?’
‘More than that—it has snowed!’
‘Then I shall definitely not come outside,’ he said. And turning over, he went to sleep again.
Lady with a Hookah
I glimpsed the house as we came through the trees, and I knew at once that it was the place we had been looking for. It had obviously been built by an Englishman, with its wide veranda and sloping corrugated roof, like the house in Dehra where I had lived with my guardian. It stood in the knoll of a hill, surrounded by an orchard of apple and plum trees.
‘This must be the place,’ said Sudheer. ‘Shall we just walk in?’
‘Well, the gate is open,’ I said.
We had barely entered the gate when a huge black Tibetan mastiff appeared on the front veranda. It did not bark, but a low growl rumbled in its throat. And that was a more dangerous portent. The dog bounded down the steps and made for the gate, and Sudheer and I scrambled back up the hillside forgetting our weariness. The dog remained at the gate, growling as before.
A servant boy appeared on the veranda and called out, ‘Who is it? What do you want?’
‘We wish to see the lady who lives here,’ replied Sudheer.
‘She is resting,’ said the boy. ‘She cannot see anyone now.’
‘We have come all the way from Dehra,’ said Sudheer. ‘My friend is a relative of hers. Tell her that, and she will see him.’
‘She isn’t going to believe that,’ I whispered fiercely.
The boy, with a doubtful glance at both of us, went indoors and was gone for some five minutes. When he reappeared on the veranda, he called the dog inside and chained it to the railing. Then he beckoned to us to follow him. We went in cautiously through the gate.
The boy stared appraisingly at us for a few moments before saying, ‘She is at the back. Come with me.’
We went round the house along a paved path, and on to another veranda which looked out on the mountains. I stared at the view, and took my eyes off it only when Sudheer tugged at my sleeve; then I looked into the veranda, but I could see nothing at first because of a difference in light. Only when I stepped into the shade was I able to make out someone—a woman reclining, barefoot and wearing a white sari, on a string cot. An elaborate hookah was set before her, and its long, pliable stem rose well above the level of the bed, so that she could manoeuvre it with comfort.
She looked surprisingly young. I had expected to find an older woman. My aunt, I suppose I could call her that, did not look over forty-five. Having met an aged friend of my father’s in Mr Pettigrew, I had expected my aunt to be an elderly woman. She obviously came from a village in the higher ranges and this accounted for her good colour, her long black hair—and her hookah. She looked physically strong, and her face, though lacking femininity, was strikingly handsome.
‘Please sit down,’ she said; and Sudheer and I, finding that chairs had materialized from behind while we had stood staring at her, sank into them. The boy pattered away into the interior of the house.
‘You have come a long way to see me,’ she said. ‘It must be important.’ And she looked from Sudheer to me, probably curious to know which of us concerned her. Her eyes rested on me, on my eyes, and she said, ‘You are angrez, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I came to see you, because—because you knew my father—and I was told—I was told you would see me . . .’ I did not quite know what to say, or how to say it.
‘Your father?’ she said encouragingly, and I noticed a flicker of interest in her eyes. ‘Who is your father?’
‘He died when I was much younger,’ I said. And when I told her Father’s name, she thrust the hookah aside and leaned forward to look closely at me. ‘You are his son, then . . .’
I nodded.
‘Yes, you are his son. You have his eyes and nose and forehead. I would have known it without your telling me if it had not been so dark in here.’ With an agility that was quite surprising, she sprang off the cot and pulled aside the curtains that covered one side of the veranda. Sunlight streamed in, bringing out the richness of her colouring.
‘So you are only a boy,’ she said, smiling at me indulgently. ‘You must be seventeen—eighteen—I remember you only as a child . . . fourteen, fifteen years ago . . .’ She put her hands to her cheeks, as though she felt the lines of advancing age; but her cheeks, I observed, were still smooth, her youth was still with her. It came of living in the hills, of having just enough of everything and not too much.
‘I came to you because you knew my father well.’
We were sitting again, and Sudheer’s long legs stretched across the width of the veranda. I sat beside my aunt’s cot.
‘I wish there was something of your father’s that I could give you,’ she said. ‘He did not leave much money. I would have offered to look after you, but I was told you had a guardian to take care of you. You must have been in good hands. Later, after my husband’s death, I tried to get news of you; but I lived far from any town and was out of touch with what was happening elsewhere. I am alone now. But I don’t mind. Your uncle left me this house and the land around it. I have my dog.’ She stroked the huge mastiff who sat devotedly beside her. ‘And I have
the boy. He is a good boy and looks after me well. You are welcome to stay with us, Rusty.’
‘No, I did not come for that,’ I said. ‘You are very generous, but I do not want to be a burden on anyone.’
‘You will be no burden. And if you are, it doesn’t matter.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘Your father would have wished to give you a wonderful future, but he could not . . . But let us not depress ourselves. Come, tell me about your tall friend, and what you propose to do, and where you are going from here. It is late, and you must take your meal with us and stay the night. You will need an entire day if you are going to Rishikesh. I have enough rooms and beds here.’
We sat together in the twilight, and I told my aunt about my quarrel with my guardian, of my friendship with Kishen and Devinder and Sudheer the Lafunga. When it was dark, she drew a shawl around her shoulders and took us indoors; and Baiju, the boy, brought us food on brass thalis, from which we ate seated on the ground. Afterwards, we talked for about an hour, and the Lafunga expressed his admiration for a woman who could live alone in the hills without giving way to loneliness or despair. I tried smoking the hookah, but it gave me a splitting headache, and when eventually I went to bed I could not sleep. Sudheer set up a rhythmic snoring, each snore gaining in tone and vibrancy, reminding me of the brain-fever bird I often heard in Dehra.
I left my bed and walked out on the veranda. The moon showed through the trees, and I walked down the garden path where fallen apples lay rotting in the moonlight. When I turned at the gate to walk back towards the house, I saw someone standing in the veranda. Could it be a ghost? No, it was my aunt in her white sari, watching me.
‘What is wrong, Rusty?’ she asked, as I approached. ‘Why are you wandering about at this time? I thought you were a ghost—I was frightened, because I haven’t seen one in years.’
‘I’ve never seen one at all,’ I said. ‘What are ghosts really like?’
‘Oh, they are usually the spirits of immoral women, and they have their feet facing backwards. They are called churels. There are other kinds, too. But why are you out here?’
‘I have a headache. I couldn’t sleep.’
‘All right. Come and talk to me.’ And taking me by the hand, she led me into her large moonlit room and made me lie down. Then she took my head in her hands, and with her strong cool fingers pressed my forehead and massaged my temples; and she began telling me a story, but her fingers were more persuasive than her tongue, and I fell asleep before the tale could be finished.
Next morning while Sudheer slept late, she took me around the house and grounds.
‘I have some of your books,’ she said, when we came indoors. ‘You are probably too old for some of them now, but your father asked me to keep them for you. Especially Alice in Wonderland. He was particular about that one, I don’t know why.’
She brought the books out, and the sight of their covers brought back to me the whole world of my childhood—lazy afternoons in the shade of a jackfruit tree, a book in my hand, while squirrels and magpies chattered in the branches above; the book-shelf in my grandfather’s study. These same books—Alice had been there, and Treasure Island, and Mister Midshipman Easy—they had been my grandfather’s, then my father’s and finally my own. I had read them all by the time I was eight; after that the books had been with Father, and I did not see them again after going to live in my guardian’s house.
Now after all these years they had turned up once more, in the possession of my strange aunt who lived alone in the mountains.
I decided to take the books because they had once been part of my life. They were the only link that remained now between my father and myself—they were my only legacy.
‘Must you go back to Dehra?’ asked my aunt.
‘I promised my friends I would return. Later, I will decide what I should do and where I should go. During these last few months I have been a vagrant. And I used to dream of becoming a writer!’
‘You can write here,’ she said. ‘And you can be a farmer, too.’
‘Oh no, I will just be a nuisance. And anyway, I must stand on my own feet. I’m too old to be looked after by others.’
‘You are old enough to look after me,’ she said, putting her hand on mine. ‘Let us be burdens on each other. I am lonely sometimes. I know you have friends, but they cannot care for you if you are sick or in trouble. You have no parents. I have no children. It is as simple as that.’
She looked up as a shadow fell across the doorway. Sudheer was standing there in his pyjamas, grinning sheepishly at us.
‘I’m hungry,’ he said. ‘Aunty, will you feed us before we reluctantly leave your house?’
The Road to Rishikesh
Sudheer and I set out on foot for Rishikesh, that small town straddling the banks of the Ganges where the great river emerges from the hills to stretch itself across the wide plains of northern India. It was in this town of saints and mendicants and pilgrims that Sudheer proposed to set up headquarters. Dehra was no longer safe, he said, with the police and the seth still looking for him. He had already spent a considerable sum from the money he had appropriated, and he hoped that in Rishikesh, where all manner of men congregated, there would be scope for lucrative projects. And from Rishikesh, I could take a bus to Dehra whenever I felt like returning. There was no immediate plan in my mind, but I was content to be on the road again with the Lafunga, as I had been with Kishen. I knew that I would soon tire of this aimless wandering, and wondered if I should return to my aunt after all. But for the time being I was content to wander; and with the Lafunga beside me, I felt carefree and reckless, ready for almost anything.
At noon, we arrived at a small village on the Rishikesh road. From here a bus went twice daily to Rishikesh, and we were just in time to catch the last one.
Though there was no snow, there had been rain.
The road was full of slush and heaps of rubble that had fallen from the hillside. The bus carried very few passengers. Sacks of flour and potatoes took up most of the space.
The driver—unshaven, smoking a bidi—did not inspire confidence. Throughout the journey he kept up a heated political discussion with a passenger seated directly behind him. With one hand on the steering-wheel, he used the other hand to make his point, gesticulating and shouting in order to be heard above the rattle of the bus.
Nevertheless, Sudheer and I enjoyed the ride. Sudheer’s head hit the roof quite often, and this made me burst out in laughter and Sudheer sought comfort from the other passengers’ discomfiture.
A stalwart, good-looking young farmer sitting opposite Sudheer said, ‘I would feel safer if this was a government bus. Then, if we were killed, there would at least be some compensation for our families—or for us, if we were not dead!’
‘Yes, let us be cheerful about these things,’ said Sudheer. ‘Take our driver, for instance. Do you think he is troubled at the thought of being an irresponsible fellow who could very well be the cause of our deaths? Not he!’
‘Very true, he seems to be far removed from such worries!’ said the farmer.
We gazed out of the window, down a sheer two-hundred-foot cliff that fell to a boulder-strewn stream. The road was so narrow that we could not see the edge. Trees stood out perpendicularly from the cliff-face. A waterfall came gushing down from the hillside and sprayed the top of the bus, splashing in at the windows. The wheels of the bus turned up stones and sent them rolling downhill; they mounted the rubble of a landslip and went churning through a stretch of muddy water.
The driver was so immersed in his discussion that when he saw a boulder right in the middle of the road he did not have time to apply the brakes. It must be said to his credit that he did not take the bus over the cliff. Instead, he rammed it into the hillside, and there it stuck. Being quite used to accidents of this nature, the driver sighed, re-lit his bidi, and returned to his argument.
As there were only eight miles left for Rishikesh, the passengers decided to walk.
Sudheer o
nce again got into conversation with the farmer, whose name we now knew to be Ganpat. Most of the produce in the bus was Ganpat’s; no doubt the bus would take an extra day to arrive in Rishikesh, and that would give him an excuse for prolonging his stay in town and enjoying himself out of sight of his family.
‘Is there any place in Rishikesh where we can spend the night?’ asked Sudheer.
‘There are many dharamsalas for pilgrims,’ said Ganpat.
Finding some purpose to our enforced trek, we now set out with even longer and more vigorous strides. Ganpat had a fine sun-darkened body, a strong neck set on broad shoulders, and a heavy, almost military, moustache. He wore his dhoti well; his strong ankles and broad feet were burnished by the sun, hardened by years of walking barefoot through the fields.
Soon he and the Lafunga had discovered something in common—they were both connoisseurs of beautiful women.
‘I like them tall and straight,’ said Ganpat, twirling his moustache. ‘They must not be too fussy, and not too talkative. How does one please them?’
‘Have you heard of the great sage Vatsayana? He had three wives. One he pleased with secret confidences, the other with secret respect, and the third with secret flattery.’
‘You are a strange fellow,’ said Ganpat.
End of a Journey
It was the festival of the Full Moon. The temples at Rishikesh lay bathed in a soft clear light. The broad, slow-moving Ganges caught the moonlight and held it, to become a river of liquid silver. Along the shore, devotees floated little lights downstream. The wicks were placed in earthen vessels, where they burned for a few minutes, a red-gold glow. I lay on the sand and watched them float by, one by one, until they went out or were caught amongst rocks and shingle.
Sudheer and Ganpat had gone into the town to seek amusement, but I had preferred to stay by the river, at a little distance from the embankment where hundreds of pilgrims had gathered.
I could have slept on the sand if it had been summer, but it was cold, and my blanket was no protection against the icy wind that blew down from the mountains. I went into a lighted dharamsala and settled down in a corner of the crowded room. Rolling myself into my blanket, I closed my eyes, listening to the desultory talk of pilgrims sheltering in the building.