by Ruskin Bond
You put my hand to your cheek and to your breast. I kissed your closed eyes and took your face in my hands, and touched your lips with mine; a phantom kiss in the darkness of a veranda. And then, intoxicated, I stumbled on to the road and walked the streets all night.
I was sitting on the rocks above the oak forest when I saw a young man walking towards me down the steep path. From his careful manner of walking, and light clothing, I could tell that he was a stranger, one who was not used to the hills. He was about my height, slim, rather long in the face; good-looking in a delicate sort of way. When he came nearer, I recognized him as the young man in the photograph, the youth of my dream—your late admirer! I wasn’t too surprised to see him. Somehow, I had always felt that we would meet one day.
I remembered his name and said, ‘How are you, Pramod?’
He became rather confused. His eyes were already clouded with doubt and unhappiness; but he did not appear to be an aggressive person.
‘How did you know my name?’ he asked.
‘How did you know where to find me?’ I countered.
‘Your neighbours, the Kapoors, told me. I could not wait for you to return to the house. I have to go down again tonight.’
‘Well then, would you like to walk home with me, or would you prefer to sit here and talk? I know who you are but I’ve no idea why you’ve come to see me.’
‘It’s all right here,’ he said, spreading his handkerchief on the grass before sitting down on it. ‘How did you know my name?’
I stared at him for a few moments and got the impression that he was a vulnerable person—perhaps more vulnerable than myself. My only advantage was that I was older and therefore better able to conceal my real feelings.
‘Sushila told me,’ I said.
‘Oh. I did not think you would know.’
I was a little puzzled but said, ‘I knew about you, of course. And you must have known that or you would hardly have come here to see me.’
‘You knew about Sushila and me?’ he asked, looking even more confused.
‘Well, I know that you are supposed to be in love with her.’
He smote himself on the forehead. ‘My God! Do the others know, too?’
‘I don’t think so.’ I deliberately avoided mention of Sunil.
In his distraction he started plucking at tufts of grass. ‘Did she tell you?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Girls can’t keep secrets. But in a way I’m glad she told you. Now I don’t have to explain everything. You see, I came here for your help. I know you are not her real uncle but you are very close to her family. Last year in Delhi he often spoke about you. She said you were very kind.’
It then occurred to me that Pramod knew nothing about my relationship with you, other than that I was supposed to be the most benevolent of ‘uncles’. He knew that you had spent your summer holidays with me—but so had Dinesh and Sunil. And now, aware that I was a close friend of the family, he had come to make an ally of me—in much the same way that I had gone about making allies!
‘Have you seen Sushila recently?’ I asked.
‘Yes. Two days ago, in Delhi. But I had only a few minutes alone with her. We could not talk much. You see, Uncle—you will not mind if I also call you Uncle?—I want to marry her but there is no one who can speak to her people on my behalf. My own parents are not alive. If I go straight to her family, most probably I will be thrown out of the house. So I want you to help me. I am not well off but I will soon have a job and then I can support her.’
‘Did you tell her all this?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what did she say?’
‘She told me to speak to you about it.’
Clever Sushila! Diabolical Sushila!
‘To me?’ I repeated.
‘Yes, she said it would be better than talking to her parents.’
I couldn’t help laughing. And a long-tailed blue magpie, disturbed by my laughter, set up a shrill creaking and chattering of its own.
‘Don’t laugh, I’m serious, Uncle,’ said Pramod. He took me by the hand and looked at me appealingly.
‘Well, it ought to be serious,’ I said. ‘How old are you, Pramod?’
‘Twenty-three.’
‘Only seven years younger than me. So please don’t call me uncle. It makes me feel prehistoric. Use my first name, if you like. And when do you hope to marry Sushila?’
‘As soon as possible. I know she is still very young for me.’
‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘Young girls are marrying middle-aged men every day! And you’re still quite young yourself. But she can’t get married as yet, Pramod, I know that for a certainty.’
‘That’s what I feared. She will have to finish school, I suppose.’
‘That’s right. But tell me something. It’s obvious that you are in love with her and I don’t blame you for it. Sushila is the kind of girl we all fall in love with! But do you know if she loves you? Did she say she would like to marry you?’
‘She did not say—I do not know. . .’ There was a haunted, hurt look in his eyes and my heart went out to him. ‘But I love her—isn’t that enough?’
‘It could be enough—provided she doesn’t love someone else.’
‘Does she, Uncle?’
‘To be frank, I don’t know.’
He brightened up at that. ‘She likes me,’ he said. ‘I know that much.’
‘Well, I like you too but that doesn’t mean I’d marry you.’
He was despondent again. ‘I see what you mean. . . But what is love, how can I recognize it?’
And that was one question I couldn’t answer. How do we recognize it?
I persuaded Pramod to stay the night. The sun had gone down and he was shivering. I made a fire, the first of the winter, using oak and thorn branches. Then I shared my brandy with him.
I did not feel any resentment against Pramod. Prior to meeting him, I had been jealous. And when I first saw him coming along the path, I remembered my dream, and thought, ‘Perhaps I am going to kill him, after all. Or perhaps he’s going to kill me.’ But it had turned out differently. If dreams have any meaning at all, the meaning doesn’t come within our limited comprehension.
I had visualized Pramod as being rather crude, selfish and irresponsible, an unattractive college student, the type who has never known or understood girls very well and looks on them as strange exotic creatures who are to be seized and plundered at the first opportunity. Such men do exist but Pramod was not one of them. He did not know much about women; neither did I. He was gentle, polite, unsure of himself. I wondered if I should tell him about my own feelings for you.
After a while he began to talk about himself and about you. He told me how he fell in love with you. At first he had been friendly with another girl, a classfellow of yours but a year or two older. You had carried messages to him on the girl’s behalf. Then the girl had rejected him. He was terribly depressed and one evening he drank a lot of cheap liquor. Instead of falling dead, as he had been hoping, he lost his way and met you near your home. He was in need of sympathy and you gave him that. You let him hold your hand. He told you how hopeless he felt and you comforted him. And when he said the world was a cruel place, you consented. You agreed with him. What more can a man expect from a woman? Only fourteen at the time, you had no difficulty in comforting a man of twenty-two. No wonder he fell in love with you!
Afterwards you met occasionally on the road and spoke to each other. He visited the house once or twice, on some pretext or other. And when you came to the hills, he wrote to you.
That was all he had to tell me. That was all there was to tell. You had touched his heart once and touching it, had no difficulty in capturing it.
Next morning I took Pramod down to the stream. I wanted to tell him everything and somehow I could not do it in the house.
He was charmed by the place. The water flowed gently, its music subdued, soft chamber music after the monsoon orchestration. Cowbe
lls tinkled on the hillside and an eagle soared high above.
‘I did not think water could be so clear,’ said Pramod. ‘It is not muddy like the streams and rivers of the plains.’
‘In the summer you can bathe here,’ I said. ‘There is a pool further downstream.’
He nodded thoughtfully. ‘Did she come here too?’
‘Yes, Sushila and Sunil and I. . . We came here on two or three occasions.’ My voice trailed off and I glanced at Pramod standing at the edge of the water. He looked up at me and his eyes met mine.
‘There is something I want to tell you,’ I said.
He continued staring at me and a shadow seemed to pass across his face—a shadow of doubt, fear, death, eternity, was it one or all of these, or just a play of light and shade? But I remembered my dream and stepped back from him. For a moment both of us looked at each other with distrust and uncertainty. Then the fear passed. Whatever had happened between us, dream or reality, had happened in some other existence. Now he took my hand and held it, held it tight, as though seeking assurance, as though identifying himself with me.
‘Let us sit down,’ I said. ‘There is something I must tell you.’
We sat down on the grass and when I looked up through the branches of the banj-oak, everything seemed to have been tilted and held at an angle, and the sky shocked me with its blueness, and the leaves were no longer green but purple in the shadows of the ravine. They were your colour, Sushila. I remembered you wearing purple—dark smiling Sushila, thinking your own thoughts and refusing to share them with anyone.
‘I love Sushila too,’ I said.
‘I know,’ he said naively. ‘That is why I came to you for help.’
‘No, you don’t know,’ I said. ‘When I say I love Sushila, I mean just that. I mean caring for her in the same way that you care for her. I mean I want to marry her.’
‘You, Uncle?’
‘Yes. Does it shock you very much?’
‘No, no.’ He turned his face away and stared at the worn face of an old grey rock and perhaps he drew some strength from its permanency. ‘Why should you not love her? Perhaps, in my heart, I really knew it, but did not want to know—did not want to believe. Perhaps that is why I really came here—to find out. Something that Sunil said. . . But why didn’t you tell me before?’
‘Because you were telling me!’
‘Yes, I was too full of my own love to think that any other was possible. What do we do now? Do we both wait and then let her make her choice?’
‘If you wish.’
‘You have the advantage, Uncle. You have more to offer.’
‘Do you mean more security or more love? Some women place more value on the former.’
‘Not Sushila.’
‘Not Sushila.’
‘I mean you can offer her a more interesting life. You are a writer. Who knows, you may be famous one day.’
‘You have your youth to offer, Pramod. I have only a few years of youth left to me—and two or three of them will pass in waiting.’
‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘You will always be young. If you have Sushila, you will always be young.’
Once again I heard the whistling-thrush. Its song was a crescendo of sweet notes and variations that rang clearly across the ravine. I could not see the bird but its call emerged from the forest like some dark sweet secret and again it was saying, ‘It isn’t time that’s passing by, my friend. It is you and I.’
Listen. Sushila, the worst has happened. Ravi has written to say that a marriage will not be possible—not now, not next year; never. Of course he makes a lot of excuses—that you must receive a complete college education (‘higher studies’), that the difference in our age is too great, that you might change your mind after a year or two—but reading between the lines, I can guess that the real reason is your grandmother. She does not want it. Her word is law and no one, least of all Ravi, would dare oppose her.
But I do not mean to give in so easily. I will wait my chance. As long as I know that you are with me, I will wait my chance.
I wonder what the old lady objects to in me. Is it simply that she is conservative and tradition-bound? She has always shown a liking for me and I don’t see why her liking should change because I want to marry her grandniece. Your mother has no objection. Perhaps that’s why your grandmother objects.
Whatever the reason, I am coming down to Delhi to find out how things stand.
Of course the worst part is that Ravi has asked me—in the friendliest terms and in a most roundabout manner—not to come to the house for some time. He says this will give the affair a chance to cool off and die a natural (I would call it an unnatural) death. He assumes, of course, that I will accept the old lady’s decision and simply forget all about you. Ravi has yet to fall in love.
Dinesh was in Lucknow. I could not visit the house. So I sat on a bench in the Talkatora Gardens and watched a group of children playing gulli-danda. Then I recalled that Sunil’s school got over at three o’clock and that if I hurried I would be able to meet him outside St Columba’s gate.
I reached the school on time. Boys were streaming out of the compound and as they were all wearing green uniforms—a young forest on the move—I gave up all hope of spotting Sunil. But he saw me first. He ran across the road, dodged a cyclist, evaded a bus and seized me about the waist.
‘I’m so happy to see you, Uncle!’
‘As I am to see you, Sunil.’
‘You want to see Sushila?’
‘Yes, but you too. I can’t come to the house, Sunil. You probably know that. When do you have to be home?’
‘About four o’clock. If I’m late, I’ll say the bus was too crowded and I couldn’t get in.’
‘That gives us an hour or two. Let’s go to the exhibition grounds. Would you like that?’
‘All right, I haven’t seen the exhibition yet.’
We took a scooter rickshaw to the exhibition grounds on Mathura Road. It was an industrial exhibition and there was little to interest either a schoolboy or a lovesick author. But a cafe was at hand, overlooking an artificial lake, and we sat in the sun consuming hot dogs and cold coffee.
‘Sunil, will you help me?’ I asked.
‘Whatever you say, Uncle.’
‘I don’t suppose I can see Sushila this time. I don’t want to hang about near the house or her school like a disreputable character. It’s all right lurking outside a boy’s school; but it wouldn’t do to be hanging about the Kanyadevi Pathshala or wherever it is she’s studying. It’s possible the family will change their minds about us later. Anyway, what matters now is Sushila’s attitude. Ask her this, Sunil. Ask her if she wants me to wait until she is eighteen. She will be free then to do what she wants, even to run away with me if necessary—that is, if she really wants to. I was ready to wait two years. I’m prepared to wait three. But it will help if I know she’s waiting too. Will you ask her that, Sunil?’
‘Yes, I’ll ask her.’
‘Ask her tonight. Then tomorrow we’ll meet again outside your school.’
We met briefly the next day. There wasn’t much time. Sunil had to be home early and I had to catch the night train out of Delhi. We stood in the generous shade of a pipal tree and I asked, ‘What did she say?’
‘She said to keep waiting.’
‘All right, I’ll wait.’
‘But when she is eighteen, what if she changes her mind? You know what girls are like.’
‘You’re a cynical chap, Sunil.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means you know too much about life. But tell me—what makes you think she might change her mind?’
‘Her boyfriend.’
‘Pramod? She doesn’t care for him, poor chap.’
‘Not Pramod. Another one.’
‘Another! You mean a new one?’
‘New,’ said Sunil. ‘An officer in a bank. He’s got a car.’
‘Oh,’ I said despondently. ‘I can’t compete with a c
ar.’
‘No,’ said Sunil. ‘Never mind, Uncle. You still have me for your friend. Have you forgotten that?’
I had almost forgotten but it was good to be reminded.
‘It is time to go,’ he said. ‘I must catch the bus today. When Will you come to Delhi again?’
‘Next month. Next year. Who knows? But I’ll come. Look after yourself, my friend.’
He ran off and jumped on to the footboard of a moving bus. He waved to me until the bus went round the bend in the road.
It was lonely under the pipal tree. It is said that only ghosts live in pipal trees. I do not blame them, for pipal trees are cool and shady and full of loneliness.
I may stop loving you, Sushila, but I will never stop loving the days I loved you.
Time Stops at Shamli
he Dehra Express usually drew into Shamli at about five o’clock in the morning at which time the station would be dimly lit and the jungle across the tracks would just be visible in the faint light of dawn. Shamli is a small station at the foot of the Siwalik hills and the Siwaliks lie at the foot of the Himalayas which in turn lie at the feet of God.
The station, I remember, had only one platform, an office for the stationmaster, and a waiting room. The platform boasted a tea stall, a fruit vendor, and a few stray dogs. Not much else was required because the train stopped at Shamli for only five minutes before rushing on into the forests.
Why it stopped at Shamli, I never could tell. Nobody got off the train and nobody got in. There were never any coolies on the platform. But the train would stand there a full five minutes and the guard would blow his whistle and presently Shamli would be left behind and forgotten. . .until I passed that way again.
I was paying my relations in Saharanpur an annual visit when the night train stopped at Shamli. I was thirty-six at the time and still single.
On this particular journey, the train came into Shamli just as I awoke from a restless sleep. The third-class compartment was crowded beyond capacity and I had been sleeping in an upright position with my back to the lavatory door. Now someone was trying to get into the lavatory. He was obviously hard pressed for time.