by Ruskin Bond
I kept remembering little things—the soft hair hiding your ears, the movement of your hands, the cool touch of your feet, the tender look in your eyes and the sudden stab of mischief that sometimes replaced it.
Mrs Kapoor remarked on the softness of your expression. I was glad that someone had noticed it. In my diary I wrote: ‘I have looked at Sushila so often and so much that perhaps I have overlooked her most compelling qualities—her kindness (or is it just her easy-goingness?), her refusal to hurt anyone’s feelings (or is it just her indifference to everything?), her wide tolerance (or is it just her laziness?). . . Oh, how absolutely ignorant I am of women!’
Well, there was a letter from Dinesh and it held out a lifeline, one that I knew I must seize without any hesitation. He said he might be joining an art school in Delhi and asked me if I would like to return to Delhi and share a flat with him. I had always dreaded the possibility of leaving the hills and living again in a city as depressing as Delhi but love, I considered, ought to make any place habitable. . .
And then I was on a bus on the road to Delhi.
The first monsoon showers had freshened the fields and everything looked much greener than usual. The maize was just shooting up and the mangoes were ripening fast. Near the larger villages, camels and bullock carts cluttered up the road, and the driver cursed, banging his fist on the horn.
Passing through small towns, the bus driver had to contend with cycle rickshaws, tonga ponies, trucks, pedestrians, and other buses. Coming down from the hills for the first time in over a year, I found the noise, chaos, dust and dirt a little unsettling.
As my taxi drew up at the gate of Dinesh’s home, Sunil saw me and came running to open the car door. Other children were soon swarming around me. Then I saw you standing near the front door. You raised your hand to your forehead in a typical Muslim form of greeting—a gesture you had picked up, I suppose, from a film.
For two days Dinesh and I went house-hunting, for I had decided to take a flat if it was at all practicable. Either it was very hot, and we were sweating, or it was raining and we were drenched. (It is difficult to find a flat in Delhi, even if one is in a position to pay an exorbitant rent, which I was not. It is especially difficult for bachelors. No one trusts bachelors, especially if there are grown-up daughters in the house. Is this because bachelors are wolves or because girls are so easily seduced these days?)
Finally, after several refusals, we were offered a flat in one of those new colonies that sprout like mushrooms around the capital. The rent was two hundred rupees a month and although I knew I couldn’t really afford so much, I was so sick of refusals and already so disheartened and depressed that I took the place and made out a cheque to the landlord, an elderly gentleman with his daughters all safely married in other parts of the country.
There was no furniture in the flat except for a couple of beds, but we decided we would fill the place up gradually. Everyone at Dinesh’s home—brothers, sister-in-law, aunts, nephews and nieces—helped us to move in. Sunil and his younger brother were the first arrivals. Later the other children, some ten of them, arrived. You, Sushila, came only in the afternoon, but I had gone out for something and only saw you when I returned at teatime. You were sitting on the first-floor balcony and smiled down at me as I walked up the road.
I think you were pleased with the flat; or at any rate, with my courage in taking one. I took you up to the roof, and there, in a corner under the stairs, kissed you very quickly. It had to be quick, because the other children were close on our heels. There wouldn’t be much opportunity for kissing you again. The mountains were far and in a place like Delhi, and with a family like yours, private moments would be few and far between.
Hours later, when I sat alone on one of the beds, Sunil came to me, looking rather upset. He must have had a quarrel with you.
‘I want to tell you something,’ he said.
‘Is anything wrong?’
To my amazement he burst into tears.
‘Now you must not love me any more,’ he said.
‘Why not?’
‘Because you are going to marry Sushila, and if you love me too much it will not be good for you.’
I could think of nothing to say. It was all too funny and all too sad.
But a little later he was in high spirits, having apparently forgotten the reasons for his earlier dejection. His need for affection stemmed perhaps from his father’s long and unnecessary absence from the country.
Dinesh and I had no sleep during our first night in the new flat. We were near the main road and traffic roared past all night. I thought of the hills, so silent that the call of a nightjar startled one in the stillness of the night.
I was out most of the next day and when I got back in the evening it was to find that Dinesh had had a rumpus with the landlord. Apparently the landlord had really wanted bachelors, and couldn’t understand or appreciate a large number of children moving in and out of the house all day.
‘I thought landlords preferred having families,’ I said.
‘He wants to know how a bachelor came to have such a large family!’
‘Didn’t you tell him that the children were only temporary, and wouldn’t be living here?’
‘I did, but he doesn’t believe me.’
‘Well, anyway, we’re not going to stop the children from coming to see us,’ I said indignantly. (No children, no Sushila!) ‘If he doesn’t see reason, he can have his flat back.’
‘Did he cash my cheque?’
‘No, he’s given it back.’
‘That means he really wants us out. To hell with his flat! It’s too noisy here anyway. Let’s go back to your place.’
We packed our bedding, trunks and kitchen utensils once more; hired a bullock cart and arrived at Dinesh’s home (three miles distant) late at night, hungry and upset.
Everything seemed to be going wrong.
Living in the same house as you, but unable to have any real contact with you (except for the odd, rare moment when we were left alone in the same room and were able to exchange a word or a glance) was an exquisite form of self-inflicted torture: self-inflicted, because no one was forcing me to stay in Delhi. Sometimes you had to avoid me and I could not stand that. Only Dinesh (and of course Sunil and some of the children) knew anything about the affair—adults are much slower than children at sensing the truth—and it was still too soon to reveal the true state of affairs and my own feelings, to anyone else in the family. If I came out with the declaration that I was in love with you, it would immediately become obvious that something had happened during your holiday in the hill station. It would be said that I had taken advantage of the situation (which I had), and that I had seduced you—even though I was beginning to wonder if it was you who had seduced me! And if a marriage was suddenly arranged, people would say: ‘It’s been arranged so quickly. And she’s so young. He must have got her into trouble.’ Even though there were no signs of your having got into that sort of trouble.
And yet I could not help hoping that you would become my wife sooner than could be foreseen. I wanted to look after you. I did not want others to be doing it for me. Was that very selfish? Or was it a true state of being in love?
There were times—times when you kept at a distance and did not even look at me—when I grew desperate. I knew you could not show your familiarity with me in front of others and yet, knowing this, I still tried to catch your eye, to sit near you, to touch you fleetingly. I could not hold myself back. I became morose, I wallowed in self-pity. And self-pity, I realized, is a sign of failure, especially of failure in love.
It was time to return to the hills.
Sushila, when I got up in the morning to leave, you were still asleep and I did not wake you. I watched you stretched out on your bed, your dark face tranquil and untouched by care, your black hair spread over the white pillow, your long thin hands and feet in repose. You were so beautiful when you were asleep.
And as I watched, I felt a tig
htening around my heart, a sudden panic that I might somehow lose you.
The others were up and there was no time to steal a kiss. A taxi was at the gate. A baby was bawling. Your grandmother was giving me advice. The taxi driver kept blowing his horn.
Goodbye, Sushila!
We were in the middle of the rains. There was a constant drip and drizzle and drumming on the corrugated tin roof. The walls were damp and there was mildew on my books and even on the pickle that Dinesh had made.
Everything was green, the foliage almost tropical, especially near the stream. Great stagferns grew from the trunks of trees, fresh moss covered the rocks, and the maidenhair fern was at its loveliest. The water was a torrent, rushing through the ravine and taking with it bushes and small trees. I could not remain out for long, for at any moment it might start raining. And there were also the leeches who lost no time in fastening themselves on to my legs and fattening themselves on my blood.
Once, standing on some rocks, I saw a slim brown snake swimming with the current. It looked beautiful and lonely.
I dreamt a dream, a very disturbing dream, which troubled me for days.
In the dream, Sunil suggested that we go down to the stream.
We put some bread and butter into an airbag, along with a long bread knife, and set off down the hill. Sushila was barefoot, wearing the old cotton tunic which she had worn as a child, Sunil had on a bright yellow T-shirt and black jeans. He looked very dashing. As we took the forest path down to the stream, we saw two young men following us. One of them, a dark, slim youth, seemed familiar. I said, ‘Isn’t that Sushila’s boyfriend?’ But they denied it. The other youth wasn’t anyone I knew.
When we reached the stream, Sunil and I plunged into the pool, while Sushila sat on the rock just above us. We had been bathing for a few minutes when the two young men came down the slope and began fondling Sushila. She did not resist but Sunil climbed out of the pool and began scrambling up the slope. One of the youths, the less familiar one, had a long knife in his hand. Sunil picked up a stone and flung it at the youth, striking him on the shoulder. I rushed up and grabbed the hand that held the knife. The youth kicked me on the shins and thrust me away and I fell beneath him. The arm with the knife was raised over me, but I still held the wrist. And then I saw Sushila behind him, her face framed by a passing cloud. She had the bread knife in her hand, and her arm swung up and down, and the knife cut through my adversary’s neck as though it were passing through a ripe melon.
I scrambled to my feet to find Sushila gazing at the headless corpse with the detachment and mild curiosity of a child who has just removed the wings from a butterfly.
The other youth, who looked like Sushila’s boyfriend, began running away. He was chased by the three of us. When he slipped and fell, I found myself beside him, the blade of the knife poised beneath his left shoulder blade. I couldn’t push the knife in. Then Sunil put his hand over mine and the blade slipped smoothly into the flesh.
At all times of the day and night I could hear the murmur of the stream at the bottom of the hill. Even if I didn’t listen, the sound was there. I had grown used to it. But whenever I went away, I was conscious of something missing and I was lonely without the sound of running water.
I remained alone for two months and then I had to see you again, Sushila. I could not bear the long-drawn-out uncertainty of the situation. I wanted to do something that would bring everything nearer to a conclusion. Merely to stand by and wait was intolerable. Nor could I bear the secrecy to which Dinesh had sworn me. Someone else would have to know about my intentions—someone would have to help. I needed another ally to sustain my hopes; only then would I find the waiting easier.
You had not been keeping well and looked thin, but you were as cheerful, as serene as ever.
When I took you to the pictures with Sunil, you wore a sleeveless kameez made of purple silk. It set off your dark beauty very well. Your face was soft and shy and your smile hadn’t changed. I could not keep my eyes off you.
Returning home in the taxi, I held your hand all the way.
Sunil (in Punjabi): ‘Will you give your children English or Hindi names?’
Me: ‘Hindustani names.’
Sunil (in Punjabi): ‘Ah, that is the right answer, Uncle!’
And first I went to your mother.
She was a tiny woman and looked very delicate. But she’d had six children—a seventh was on the way—and they had all come into the world without much difficulty and were the healthiest in the entire joint family.
She was on her way to see relatives in another part of the city and I accompanied her part of the way. As she was pregnant, she was offered a seat in the crowded bus. I managed to squeeze in beside her. She had always shown a liking for me and I did not find it difficult to come to the point.
‘At what age would you like Sushila to get married?’ I asked casually, with almost paternal interest.
‘We’ll worry about that when the time comes. She has still to finish school. And if she keeps failing her exams, she will never finish school.’
I took a deep breath and made the plunge.
‘When the time comes,’ I said, ‘when the time comes, I would like to marry her.’ And without waiting to see what her reaction would be, I continued: ‘I know I must wait, a year or two, even longer. But I am telling you this, so that it will be in your mind. You are her mother and so I want you to be the first to know.’ (Liar that I was! She was about the fifth to know. But what I really wanted to say was, ‘Please don’t be looking for any other husband for her just yet.’)
She didn’t show much surprise. She was a placid woman. But she said, rather sadly, ‘It’s all right but I don’t have much say in the family. I do not have any money, you see. It depends on the others, especially her grandmother.’
‘I’ll speak to them when the time comes. Don’t worry about that. And you don’t have to worry about money or anything—what I mean is, I don’t believe in dowries—I mean, you don’t have to give me a Godrej cupboard and a sofa set and that sort of thing. All I want is Sushila. . .’
‘She is still very young.’
But she was pleased—pleased that her flesh and blood, her own daughter, could mean so much to a man.
‘Don’t tell anyone else just now,’ I said.
‘I won’t tell anyone,’ she said with a smile.
So now the secret—if it could be called that—was shared by at least five people.
The bus crawled on through the busy streets and we sat in silence, surrounded by a press of people but isolated in the intimacy of our conversation.
I warmed towards her—towards that simple, straightforward, uneducated woman (she had never been to school, could not read or write), who might still have been young and pretty had her circumstances been different. I asked her when the baby was due.
‘In two months,’ she said. She laughed. Evidently she found it unusual and rather amusing for a young man to ask her such a question.
‘I’m sure it will be a fine baby,’ I said. And I thought: That makes six brothers-in-law!
I did not think I would get a chance to speak to your Uncle Ravi (Dinesh’s elder brother) before I left. But on my last evening in Delhi, I found myself alone with him on the Karol Bagh road. At first we spoke of his own plans for marriage, and, to please him, I said the girl he’d chosen was both beautiful and intelligent.
He warmed towards me.
Clearing my throat, I went on. ‘Ravi, you are five years younger than me and you are about to get married.’
‘Yes, and it’s time you thought of doing the same thing.’
‘Well, I’ve never thought seriously about it before—I’d always scorned the institution of marriage—but now I’ve changed my mind. Do you know whom I’d like to marry?’
To my surprise Ravi unhesitatingly took the name of Asha, a distant cousin I’d met only once. She came from Ferozepur, and her hips were so large that from a distance she looked like an oversi
zed pear.
‘No, no,’ I said. ‘Asha is a lovely girl but I wasn’t thinking of her. I would like to marry a girl like Sushila. To be frank, Ravi, I would like to marry Sushila.’
There was a long silence and I feared the worst. The noise of cars, scooters and buses seemed to recede into the distance and Ravi and I were alone together in a vacuum of silence.
So that the awkwardness would not last too long, I stumbled on with what I had to say. ‘I know she’s young and that I will have to wait for some time.’ (Familiar words!) ‘But if you approve, and the family approves, and Sushila approves, well then, there’s nothing I’d like better than to marry her.’
Ravi pondered, scratched himself, and then, to my delight, said: ‘Why not? It’s a fine idea.’
The traffic sounds returned to the street, and I felt as though I could set fire to a bus or do something equally in keeping with my high spirits.
‘It would bring you even closer to us,’ said Ravi. ‘We would like to have you in our family. At least I would like it.’
‘That makes all the difference,’ I said. ‘I will do my best for her, Ravi. I’ll do everything to make her happy.’
‘She is very simple and unspoilt.’
‘I know. That’s why I care so much for her.’
‘I will do what I can to help you. She should finish school by the time she is seventeen. It does not matter if you are older. Twelve years difference in age is not uncommon. So don’t worry. Be patient and all will be arranged.’
And so I had three strong allies—Dinesh, Ravi and your mother. Only your grandmother remained, and I dared not approach her on my own. She was the most difficult hurdle because she was the head of the family and she was autocratic and often unpredictable. She was not on good terms with your mother and for that very reason I feared that she might oppose my proposal. I had no idea how much she valued Ravi’s and Dinesh’s judgement. All I knew was that they bowed to all her decisions.
How impossible it was for you to shed the burden of your relatives! Individually, you got on quite well with all of them; but because they could not live without bickering among themselves, you were just a pawn in the great Joint Family Game.