by Ruskin Bond
I really don’t recall how the rest of that day passed, except that late evening, when the celebrations with friends were over, I found myself alone in my little room, trimming my kerosene lamp. It was too early to sleep, and I’d done enough walking that day. So I pulled out my writing pad and began a new story. I knew even then that the first wasn’t going to be enough. Sheherzade had to keep telling stories in order to put off her execution. I would have to keep writing them in order to keep that munshi at bay and put off my eviction.
A Handful of Nuts
1
IT WASN’T THE room on the roof, but a large room with a balcony in front and a small veranda at the back. On the first floor of an old shopping complex, still known as Astley Hall, it faced the town’s main road, although a walled-in driveway separated it from the street pavement. A neem tree grew in front of the building, and during the early rains, when the neem pods fell and were crushed underfoot, they gave off a rich, pungent odour which I can never forget.
I had taken the room at the very modest rent of thirty-five rupees a month, payable in advance to the stout Punjabi widow who ran the provisions store downstairs. Her provisions ran to rice, lentils, spices and condiments, but I wasn’t doing any cooking then; there wasn’t time, so for a quick snack I’d cross the road and consume a couple of samosas or vegetable patties. Whenever I received a decent fee for a story, I’d treat myself to some sliced ham and a loaf of bread, and make myself ham sandwiches. If any of my friends were around, like Peter or Anand, they’d make short work of the ham sandwiches.
I don’t think I ever went hungry, but I was certainly underweight and undernourished, eating irregularly in cheap restaurants and dhabas and suffering frequent stomach upheavals. The years I spent abroad had done nothing to improve my constitution, as there, too, I had lived largely on what was sold over the counter in snack bars—baked beans on toast being the standard fare.
At the corner of the block, near the Orient Cinema, was a little restaurant called Komal’s, run by a rotund Sikh gentleman who seldom left his seat near the window. Here I had a reasonably good lunch of dal, rice and a vegetable curry for two or three rupees.
There were a few other regulars—a college teacher, a couple of salesmen and occasionally someone waiting for a film show to begin. Peter and Anand did not trail me to this place, as it was a little lowbrow for them (Peter being Swiss and Anand being from Doon School); nor was it frequented much by students or children. It was lower middle-class, really; professional men who were still single and forced to eat in the town came here. I wasn’t bothered by anyone here. And it suited me in other ways, because there was a news stand close by and I could buy a paper or a magazine and skim through it before or after my meal. Determined as I was to make a living by writing, I had made it my duty to study every English language publication that found its way to Dehra (most of them did), to see which of them published short fiction. A surprisingly large number of magazines did publish short stories; the trouble was, the rates of payment were not very high, the average being about twenty-five rupees a story.
Ten stories a month would therefore fetch me two hundred and fifty rupees—just enough for me to get by!
After eating at Komal’s, I’d make my way to the upmarket Indiana for a cup of coffee, which was all I could afford there. Indiana was for the smart set. In the evenings it boasted a three-piece band, and you could dance if you had a partner, although dancing cheek to cheek went out with the Second World War. From noon to three, Larry Gomes, a Dehra boy of Goan origin, tinkled on the piano, playing old favourites or new hits.
That spring morning, only one or two tables were occupied—by business people, who weren’t listening to the music—so Larry went through a couple of old numbers for my benefit, September Song and I’ll See You Again. At twenty-four, I was very old-fashioned.
Larry received three hundred rupees a month and a free lunch, so he was slightly better off than me. Also, his father owned a small music and record shop a short distance away.
While I was sipping my coffee and pondering upon my financial affairs (which were non-existent, as I had no finances), in walked the rich and baggy-eyed Maharani of Magador with her daughter Indu. I stood up to greet her and she gave me a gracious smile.
She knew that some years previously, I had been infatuated with her daughter. She had even intercepted one of my love letters, but she had been quite sporting about it, and had told me that I wrote a nice letter. Now she knew that I was writing stories for magazines, and she said, ‘We read your story in the Weekly last week. It was quite charming, didn’t I say you’d make a good writer?’ I blushed and thanked her, while Indu gave me a mischievous smile. She was still at college.
‘You must come and see us someday,’ said the Maharani and moved on majestically. Indu, small-boned and petite and dressed in something blue, looked more than ever like a butterfly, soft, delicate, flitting away just as you thought you could touch her.
They sat at a table in a corner, and I returned to contemplate the coffee stains on the tablecloth for, I had, of course, splashed my coffee all over the place.
Larry had observed my confusion, and guessing its cause, now played a very old tune which only Indu’s mother would have recognized: ‘I kiss your little hands, madame, I long to kiss your lips …’
On my way out, Larry caught my eye and winked at me.
‘Next time I’ll give you a tip,’ I said.
‘Save it for the waiter,’ said Larry.
It was hot in the April sunshine, and I headed for my room, wishing I had a fan.
Stripping to vest and underwear, I lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. The ceiling stared back at me. I turned on my side and looked across the balcony, at the leaves of the neem tree. They were absolutely still. There was not even the promise of a breeze.
I dozed off, and dreamt of my princess, her deep dark eyes and the tint of winter moonlight on her cheeks. I opened my eyes to find Sitaram, the washerman’s son, sitting at the foot of my bed.
Sitaram must have been about sixteen, a skinny boy with large hands, large feet and large ears. He had loose, sensual lips. An unprepossessing youth, whom I found irritating in the extreme; but as he lived with his parents in the quarters behind the flat, there was no avoiding him.
‘How did you get in here?’ I asked brusquely.
‘The door was open.’
‘That doesn’t mean you can walk right in. What do you want?’
‘Don’t you have any clothes for washing? My father asked.’
‘I wash my own clothes.’
‘And sheets?’ He studied the sheet I was lying on. ‘Don’t you wash your sheet? It is very dirty.’
‘Well, it’s the only one I’ve got. So buzz off.’
But he was already pulling the sheet out from under me. ‘I’ll wash it for you free. You are a nice man. My mother says you are seedha-saada, very innocent.’
‘I am not innocent. And I need the sheet.’
‘I will bring you another. I will lend it to you free. We get lots of sheets to wash. Yesterday six sheets came from the hospital. Some people were killed in a bus accident.’
‘You mean the sheets came from the morgue—they were used to cover dead bodies? I don’t want a sheet from the morgue.’
‘But it is very clean. You know khatmals (bedbugs) can’t live on dead bodies. They like fresh blood.’
He went away with my sheet and came back five minutes later with a freshly-ironed, clean bedsheet.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘It’s not from the hospital.’ ‘Where is this one from?’
‘Indiana Hotel. I will give them a hospital sheet in exchange.’
2
The gardens were bathed in moonlight as I walked down the narrow old roads of Dehra—I stopped near the Maharani’s house and looked over the low wall. The lights were still on in some of the rooms. I waited for some time until I saw Indu come to a window. She had a book in her hand, so I guessed
she’d been reading. Maybe if I sent her a poem, she’d read it. A poem about a small, red virgin rose.
But it wouldn’t bring me any money.
I walked back to the bazaar, to the bright lights of the cinemas and small eating houses. It was only eight o’clock. The street was still crowded. Nowadays it’s traffic; then it was just full of people. And so you were constantly bumping into people you knew—or did not know …
I was staring at a poster of Nimmi, sexiest of Indian actresses, when a hand descended on my shoulder, and I turned to see Anand, the genius from Doon School, whose father owned the New Empire cinema.
‘Jalebis, Rusty, jalebis,’ he crooned. Although he was from a rich family, he never seemed to have any pocket money. And of course it’s easier to borrow from a poor man than it is to borrow from a rich one! Why is that, I wonder? There was Peter, for instance, who lived in a posh boarding house, but was always cadging small sums off me—to pay his laundry bill or assist in his consumption of Charminar cigarettes: without them he was a nervous wreck. And with Anand it was jalebis …
‘I haven’t had a cheque for weeks,’ I told him. ‘What about the story you were writing for the BBC?’
‘Well, I’ve just sent it to them.’
‘And the novel you were writing?’
‘I’m still writing it.’
‘Jalebis will cost only two rupees.’
‘Oh, all right …’
Anand stuffed himself with jalebis while I contented myself with a samosa. Anand wished to be an artist, poet and diarist, somewhat in the manner of Andre Gide, and had even given me a copy of Gide’s Fruits of the Earth in an endeavour to influence me in the same direction. It is still with me today, fifty years later, his spidery writing scrawling a message across the dancing angel drawn on the title page. Our favourite books outlast our dreams …
Of course, after the jalebis I had to see Anand home. If I hadn’t met him that day, someone else would have had to walk home with him. He was terrified of walking down the narrow lane to his house once darkness had fallen. There were no lights and the overhanging mango, neem and peepal trees made it a place of Stygian gloom. It was said that a woman had hanged herself from a mango tree on this very lane, and Anand was always in a dither lest he should see the lady dangling in front of him.
He kept a small pocket torch handy, but after leaving him at his gate I would have to return sans torch, for nothing could persuade him to part with it. On the way back, I would bump into other pedestrians who would be stumbling along the lane, guided by slivers of moonlight or the pale glimmer from someone’s window.
Only the blind man carried a lamp.
‘And what need have you of a light?’ we asked.
‘So that fools do not stumble against me in the dark.’
But I did not care for torchlight. I had taught myself to use whatever the night offered—moonlight, full and partial; starlight; the light from street lamps, from windows, from half-open doors. The night is beautiful, made ugly only by the searing headlights of cars.
When I got back to my room, the shops had closed and only the lights in Sitaram’s quarters were on. His parents were quarrelling, and the entire neighbourhood could hear them. It was always like that. The husband was drunk and abusive; she refused to open the door for him, told him to go and sleep elsewhere. After some time he retreated into the dark.
I had no lights, as my landlady had neglected to pay the electricity bill for the past six months. But I did not mind the absence of light, although at times I would have liked an electric fan.
It meant, of course, that I could not type or even write by hand except when the full moon poured over the balcony. But I could always manage a few lines of poetry on a large white sheet of paper.
This sheet of paper is my garden,
These words my flowers.
I do not ask a miracle this night,
Other than you beside me in the bright moonlight.
And there I got stuck. The last lines always fox me, one reason why I never became a poet, I guess.
‘And we cling to each other for a long, long time …’ Shades of September Song?
In any case, I couldn’t send it to Indu, as her mother would be sure to intercept the letter and read it first. The idea of her daughter clinging to me like a vine would not have appealed to the Maharani.
I would have to think of a more mundane method of making my feelings known.
3
There was some excitement, as Stewart Granger, the British film actor, was in town.
Stewart Granger in Dehra? Occasionally, a Bombay film star passed through, but this was the first time we were going to see a foreign star. We all knew what he looked like, of course. The Odeon and Orient cinemas had been showing British and American films since the days of the silent movies. Occasionally, they still showed ‘silents’, as their sound systems were antiquated and the projectors rattled a good deal, drowning the dialogue. This did not matter if the star was John Wayne (or even Stewart Granger) as their lines were quite predictable, but it made a difference if you were trying to listen to Nelson Eddy sing At the Balalaika or Hope and Crosby exchanging wisecracks.
We had assembled outside the Indiana and were discussing the phenomenon of having Stewart Granger in town. What was he doing here?
‘Making a film, I suppose,’ I ventured.
Mohan, the lawyer, demurred, ‘What about? Nobody’s written a book about Dehra, except you, Rusty, and no one has read yours. Has someone bought the film rights?’
‘No such luck. And besides, my hero is eighteen and Stewart Granger is thirty-six.’
‘Doesn’t matter. They’ll change the story.’
‘Not if I can help it.’
Peter had another theory.
‘He’s visiting his old aunt in Rajpur.’
‘We never knew he had an aunt in Rajpur.’
‘Nor did I. It’s just a theory.’
‘You and your theories. We’ll ask the owner of Indiana. Stewart Granger is going to stay here, isn’t he?’
Mr Kapoor of Indiana enlightened us. ‘They’re location-hunting for a shikar movie. It’s called Harry Black and the Tiger.’
‘Stewart Granger is playing a black man?’ asked Peter.
‘No, no, that’s an English surname.’
‘English is a funny language,’ said Peter, who believed in the superiority of the French tongue.
‘We don’t have any tigers left in these forests,’ I said.
‘They’ll bring in a circus tiger and let it loose,’ said Mohan.
‘In the jungle, I hope,’ said Peter. ‘Or will they let it loose on Rajpur Road?’
‘Preferably in the Town Hall,’ said Mohan, who was having some trouble with the municipality over his house tax.
Stewart Granger did not disappoint.
At about two in the afternoon, the hottest part of the day, he arrived in an open Ford convertible, shirtless and vestless. He was in his prime then, in pretty good condition after playing opposite Ava Gardner in Bhowani Junction, and everyone remarked on his fine torso and general good looks. He made himself comfortable in a cool corner of the Indiana and proceeded to down several bottles of chilled beer, much to everyone’s admiration. Larry Gomes, at the piano, started playing Sweet Rosie o’ Grady until Granger, who wasn’t Irish, stopped him and asked for something more modern. Larry obliged with Goodnight Irene, and Stewart, now into his third bottle of beer, began singing the refrain. At the next table, Peter, Mohan and I, trying to keep pace with the star’s consumption of beer, joined in the chorus, and before long there was a mad sing-song in the restaurant.
The editor of the local paper, the Doon Chronicle, tried interviewing the star, but made little progress. Someone gave him an information and publicity sheet which did the rounds. It said Stewart Granger was born in 1913, and that he had black hair and brown eyes. He still had them—unless the hair was a toupe. It said his height was 6 feet 2 inches, and that he weighed 196 lbs. He
looked every pound of it. It also said his youthful ambition was to become a ‘nerve specialist’. We looked at him with renewed respect, although none of us was quite sure what a ‘nerve specialist’ was supposed to do.
‘We just get on your nerves,’ said Mr Granger when asked, and everyone laughed.
He tucked into his curry and rice with relish, downed another beer, and returned to his waiting car. A few good-natured jests, a wave and a smile, and the star and his entourage drove off into the foothills.
We heard, later, that they had decided to make the film in Mysore, in distant south India. No wonder it turned out to be a flop.
Two months later, Yul Brynner passed through but he didn’t cause the same excitement. We were getting used to film stars. His film wasn’t made in Dehra, either. They did it in Spain. Another flop.
4
Why have I chosen to write about the twenty-fourth year of my life?
Well, for one thing, it’s often one of the most significant years in any young person’s life. A time for falling in love; a time to set about making your dreams come true; a time to venture forth, to blaze new trails, take risks, do your own thing, follow your star … And so it was with me.
I was just back after four years of living in the West; I had found a publisher in London for my first novel; I was looking for fresh fields and new laurels; and I wanted to prove that I could succeed as a writer with my small home town in India as a base, without having to live in London or Paris or New York.
In a couple of weeks’ time it would be my twenty-fifth birthday, and I was feeling good about it.
I had mentioned the date to someone—Mohan, I think—and before long I was being told by everyone I knew that I would have to celebrate the event in a big way, twenty-five being an age of great significance in a young man’s life. To tell the truth I wasn’t feeling very youthful. The Komal restaurant’s rich food, swimming in oil, was beginning to take its toll, and I spent a lot of time turning input into output, so to speak.