by Ruskin Bond
It was not long before she took upon herself the responsibility for getting me married. I found it useless to protest. She did not believe me when I told her that I could not afford to marry, that I preferred a bachelor’s life. A wife, she insisted, was an asset to any man. A wife reduced expenses. Where did I eat? At a hotel, of course. That must cost me at least sixty rupees a month, even on a vegetarian diet. But if I had a simple homely wife to do the cooking, we could both eat well for less than that.
Leela fingered my shirt, observing that a button was missing and that the collar was frayed. She remarked on my pale face and general look of debility and told me that I would fall victim to all kinds of diseases if I did not find someone to look after me. What I needed, she declared between puffs at the hookah, was a woman—a young, healthy, buxom woman, preferably from a village near Agra.
‘If I could find someone like you,’ I said slyly, ‘I would not mind getting married.’
She appeared neither flattered nor offended by my remark.
‘Don’t marry an older woman,’ she advised. ‘Never take a wife who is more experienced in the ways of the world than you are. You just leave it to me, I’ll find a suitable bride for you.’
To please Leela, I agreed to this arrangement, thinking she would not take it seriously. But, two days later, when she suggested that I accompany her to a certain distinguished home for orphan girls, I became alarmed. I refused to have anything to do with her project.
‘Don’t you have confidence in me?’ she asked. ‘You said you would like a girl who resembled me. I know one who looks just as I did ten years ago.’
‘I like you as you are now,’ I said. ‘Not as you were ten years ago.’
‘Of course. We shall arrange for you to see the girl first.’
‘You don’t understand,’ I protested. ‘It’s not that I feel I have to be in love with someone before marrying her—I know you would choose a fine girl, and I would really prefer someone who is homely and simple to an M.A. with Honours in Psychology—it’s just that I’m not ready for it. I want another year or two of freedom. I don’t want to be chained down. To be frank, I don’t want the responsibility.’
‘A little responsibility will make a man of you,’ said Leela; but she did not insist on my accompanying her to the orphanage, and the matter was allowed to rest for a few days.
I was beginning to hope that Leela had reconciled herself to allowing one man to remain single in a world full of husbands when, one morning, she accosted me on the veranda with an open newspaper, which she thrust in front of my nose.
‘There!’ she said triumphantly. ‘What do you think of that? I did it to surprise you.’
She had certainly succeeded in surprising me. Her henna-stained forefinger rested on an advertisement in the matrimonial columns.
Bachelor journalist, age 25, seeks attractive young wife well-versed in household duties. Caste, religion no bar. Dowry optional.
I must admit that Leela had made a good job of it. In a few days the replies began to come in, usually from the parents of the girls concerned. Each applicant wanted to know how much money I was earning. At the same time, they took the trouble to list their own connections and the high positions occupied by relatives. Some parents enclosed their daughters’ photographs. They were very good photographs, though there was a certain amount of touching-up employed.
I studied the pictures with interest. Perhaps marriage wasn’t such a bad proposition, after all. I selected the photographs of the three girls I most fancied and showed them to Leela.
To my surprise, she disapproved of all three. One of the girls she said, had a face like a hermaphrodite; another obviously suffered from tuberculosis; and the third was undoubtedly an adventuress. Leela decided that the whole idea of the advertisement had been a mistake. She was sorry she had inserted it; the only replies we were likely to get would be from fortune hunters. And I had no fortune.
So we destroyed the letters. I tried to keep some of the photographs, but Leela tore them up too.
And so, for some time, there were no more attempts at getting me married.
Leela and I met nearly every day, but we spoke of other things. Sometimes, in the evenings, she would make me sit on the charpoy opposite her, and then she would draw up her hookah and tell me stories about her village and her family. I was getting used to the boy, too, and even growing rather fond of him.
All this came to an end when Leela’s husband went and got himself killed. He was shot by a bootlegger who had decided to get rid of the excise man rather than pay him an exorbitant sum of money. It meant that Leela had to give up her quarters and return to her village near Agra. She waited until the boy’s school term had finished, and then she packed their things and bought two tickets, third-class to Agra.
Something, I could see, had been troubling her, and when I saw her off at the station I realized what it was. She was having a fit of conscience about my continued bachelorhood.
‘In my village,’ she said confidently, leaning out from the carriage window, ‘there is a very comely young girl, a distant relative of mine, I shall speak to the parents.’
And then I said something which I had not considered before; which had never, until that moment, entered my head. And I was no less surprised than Leela when the words came tumbling out of my mouth: ‘Why don’t you marry me now?’
Arun didn’t have time to finish his story because, just at this interesting stage, the dinner arrived.
But the dinner brought with it the end of his story.
It was served by his wife, a magnificent woman, strong and handsome, who could only have been Leela. And a few minutes later, Chandu, Arun’s stepson, charged into the house, complaining that he was famished.
Arun introduced me to his wife, and we exchanged the usual formalities.
‘But why hasn’t your friend brought his family with him?’ she asked.
‘Family? Because he’s still a bachelor!’
And then as he watched his wife’s expression change from a look of mild indifference to one of deep concern, he hurriedly changed the subject.
Susanna’s Seven Husbands
ocally, the tomb was known as ‘the grave of the seven times married one’.
You’d be forgiven for thinking it was Bluebeard’s grave; he was reputed to have killed several wives in turn because they showed undue curiosity about a locked room. But this was the tomb of Susanna Anna-Maria Yeates, and the inscription (most of it in Latin) stated that she was mourned by all who had benefited from her generosity, her beneficiaries having included various schools, orphanages and the church across the road. There was no sign of any other grave in the vicinity and presumably her husbands had been interred in the old Rajpur graveyard, below the Delhi Ridge.
I was still in my teens when I first saw the ruins of what had once been a spacious and handsome mansion. Desolate and silent, its well-laid paths were overgrown with weeds, and its flower beds had disappeared under a growth of thorny jungle. The two-storeyed house had looked across the Grand Trunk Road. Now abandoned, feared and shunned, it stood encircled in mystery, reputedly the home of evil spirits.
Outside the gate, along the Grand Trunk Road, thousands of vehicles sped by—cars, trucks, buses, tractors, bullock carts—but few noticed the old mansion or its mausoleum, set back as they were from the main road, hidden by mango, neem and peepul trees. One old and massive peepul tree grew out of the ruins of the house, strangling it much as its owner was said to have strangled one of her dispensable paramours.
As a much-married person with a quaint habit of disposing of her husbands whenever she tired of them, Susanna’s malignant spirit was said to haunt the deserted garden. I had examined the tomb, I had gazed upon the ruins, I had scrambled through shrubbery and overgrown rose bushes, but I had not encountered the spirit of this mysterious woman. Perhaps, at the time, I was too pure and innocent to be targeted by malignant spirits. For malignant she must have been, if the stories about
her were true.
The vaults of the ruined mansion were rumoured to contain a buried treasure—the amassed wealth of the lady Susanna. But no one dared go down there, for the vaults were said to be occupied by a family of cobras, traditional guardians of buried treasure. Had she really been a woman of great wealth, and could treasure still be buried there? I put these questions to Naushad, the furniture maker, who had lived in the vicinity all his life, and whose father had made the furniture and fittings for this and other great houses in Old Delhi.
‘Lady Susanna, as she was known, was much sought after for her wealth,’ recalled Naushad. ‘She was no miser, either. She spent freely, reigning in state in her palatial home, with many horses and carriages at her disposal. Every evening she rode through the Roshanara Gardens, the cynosure of all eyes, for she was beautiful as well as wealthy. Yes, all men sought her favours, and she could choose from the best of them. Many were fortune hunters. She did not discourage them. Some found favour for a time, but she soon tired of them. None of her husbands enjoyed her wealth for very long!
‘Today no one enters those ruins, where once there was mirth and laughter. She was a zamindari lady, the owner of much land, and she administered her estate with a strong hand. She was kind if rents were paid when they fell due, but terrible if someone failed to pay.
‘Well, over fifty years have gone by since she was laid to rest, but still men speak of her with awe. Her spirit is restless, and it is said that she often visits the scenes of her former splendour. She has been seen walking through this gate, or riding in the gardens, or driving in her phaeton down the Rajpur road.’
‘And what happened to all those husbands?’ I asked.
‘Most of them died mysterious deaths. Even the doctors were baffled. Tomkins Sahib drank too much. The lady soon tired of him. A drunken husband is a burdensome creature, she was heard to say. He would eventually have drunk himself to death, but she was an impatient woman and was anxious to replace him. You see those datura bushes growing wild in the grounds? They have always done well here.’
‘Belladonna?’ I suggested.
‘That’s right, huzoor. Introduced in the whisky-soda, it put him to sleep forever.’
‘She was quite humane in her way.’
‘Oh, very humane, sir. She hated to see anyone suffer. One sahib, I don’t know his name, drowned in the tank behind the house, where the water lilies grew. But she made sure he was half-dead before he fell in. She had large, powerful hands, they said.’
‘Why did she bother to marry them? Couldn’t she just have had men friends?’
‘Not in those days, huzoor. Respectable society would not have tolerated it. Neither in India nor in the West would it have been permitted.’
‘She was born out of her time,’ I remarked.
‘True, sir. And remember, most of them were fortune hunters. So we need not waste too much pity on them.’
‘She did not waste any.’
‘She was without pity. Especially when she found out what they were really after. Snakes had a better chance of survival.’
‘How did the other husbands take their leave of this world?’
‘Well, the Colonel Sahib shot himself while cleaning his rifle. Purely an accident, huzoor. Although some say she had loaded his gun without his knowledge. Such was her reputation by now that she was suspected even when innocent. But she bought her way out of trouble. It was easy enough, if you were wealthy.’
‘And the fourth husband?’
‘Oh, he died a natural death. There was a cholera epidemic that year, and he was carried off by the haija. Although, again, there were some who said that a good dose of arsenic produced the same symptoms! Anyway, it was cholera on the death certificate. And the doctor who signed it was the next to marry her.’
‘Being a doctor, he was probably quite careful about what he ate and drank.’
‘He lasted about a year.’
‘What happened?’
‘He was bitten by a cobra.’
‘Well, that was just bad luck, wasn’t it? You could hardly blame it on Susanna.’
‘No, huzoor, but the cobra was in his bedroom. It was coiled around the bedpost. And when he undressed for the night, it struck! He was dead when Susanna came into the room an hour later. She had a way with snakes. She did not harm them and they never attacked her.’
‘And there were no antidotes in those days. Exit the doctor. Who was the sixth husband?’
‘A handsome man. An indigo planter. He had gone bankrupt when the indigo trade came to an end. He was hoping to recover his fortune with the good lady’s help. But our Susanna mem, she did not believe in sharing her fortune with anyone.’
‘How did she remove the indigo planter?’
‘It was said that she lavished strong drink upon him, and when he lay helpless, she assisted him on the road we all have to take by pouring molten lead in his ears.’
‘A painless death, I’m told.’
‘But a terrible price to pay, huzoor, simply because one is no longer needed. . .’
We walked along the dusty highway, enjoying the evening breeze, and some time later we entered the Roshanara Gardens, in those days Delhi’s most popular and fashionable meeting place.
‘You have told me how six of her husbands died, Naushad. I thought there were seven?’
‘Ah, the seventh was a gallant young magistrate who perished right here, huzoor. They were driving through the park after dark when the lady’s carriage was attacked by brigands. In defending her, the young man received a fatal sword wound.’
‘Not the lady’s fault, Naushad.’
‘No, huzoor. But he was a magistrate, remember, and the assailants, one of whose relatives had been convicted by him, were out for revenge. Oddly enough, though, two of the men were given employment by the lady Susanna at a later date. You may draw your own conclusions.’
‘And were there others?’
‘Not husbands. But an adventurer, a soldier of fortune came along. He found her treasure, they say. And he lies buried with it, in the cellars of the ruined house. His bones lie scattered there, among gold and silver and precious jewels. The cobras guard them still! But how he perished was a mystery, and remains so till this day.’
‘And Susanna? What happened to her?’
‘She lived to a ripe old age. If she paid for her crimes, it wasn’t in this life! She had no children, but she started an orphanage and gave generously to the poor and to various schools and institutions, including a home for widows. She died peacefully in her sleep.’
‘A merry widow,’ I remarked. ‘The Black Widow spider!’
Don’t go looking for Susanna’s tomb. It vanished some years ago, along with the ruins of her mansion. A smart new housing estate has come up on the site, but not before several workmen and a contractor succumbed to snakebite! Occasionally, residents complain of a malignant ghost in their midst, who is given to flagging down cars, especially those driven by single men. There have also been one or two mysterious disappearances.
And after dusk, an old-fashioned horse and carriage can sometimes be seen driving through the Roshanara Gardens. If you chance upon it, ignore it, my friend. Don’t stop to answer any questions from the beautiful fair lady who smiles at you from behind lace curtains. She’s still looking for her final victim.
A Love of Long Ago
ast week, as the taxi took me to Delhi, I passed through the small town in the foothills where I had lived as a young man.
Well, it’s the only road to Delhi and one must go that way, but I seldom travel beyond the foothills. As the years go by, my visits to the city—any city—are few and far between. But whenever I am on the road, I look out of the window of my bus or taxi, to catch a glimpse of the first-floor balcony where a row of potted plants lend colour to an old and decrepit building. Ferns, a palm, a few bright marigolds, zinnias and nasturtiums—they made that balcony stand out from others. It was impossible to miss it.
But last week
, when I looked out of the taxi window, the balcony garden had gone. A few broken pots remained but the ferns had crumpled into dust, the palm had turned brown and yellow, and of the flowers nothing remained.
All these years I had taken that balcony garden for granted and now it had gone. It shook me. I looked back at the building for signs of life but saw none. The taxi sped on. On my way back, I decided, I would look again. But it was as though a part of my life had come to an abrupt end. The link between youth and middle age, the bridge that spanned that gap, had suddenly been swept away.
And what had happened to Kamla, I wondered. Kamla, who had tended those plants all these years, knowing I would be looking out for them even though I might not see her, even though she might never see me.
Chance gives and takes away and gives again. But I would have to look elsewhere now for the memories of my love, my young love, the girl who came into my life for a few blissful weeks and then went out of it for the remainder of our lives.
Was it almost thirty years ago that it all happened? How old was I then? Twenty-two at the most! And Kamla could not have been more than seventeen.
She had a laughing face, mischievous, always ready to break into smiles or peals of laughter. Sparkling brown eyes. How can I ever forget those eyes? Peeping at me from behind a window curtain, following me as I climbed the steps to my room—the room that was separated from her quarters by a narrow wooden landing that creaked loudly if I tried to move quietly across it. The trick was to dash across, as she did so neatly on her butterfly feet.
She was always on the move—flitting about on the veranda, running errands of no consequence, dancing on the steps, singing on the rooftop as she hung out the family washing. Only once was she still. That was when we met on the steps in the dark and I stole a kiss, a sweet phantom kiss. She was very still then, very close, a butterfly drawing out nectar, and then she broke away from me and ran away laughing.