by Ruskin Bond
‘Are you doing it for your school founder’s day?’ I asked innocently.
‘No, nudes aren’t permitted. But you should see my study of angels in flight. It won the first prize!’
‘Well, if you give this one a halo and wings, it could be an angel.’
Anand turned from me in disgust and asked Sitaram for his opinion.
Sitaram stared at the painting quizzically and said, ‘She must have given all her clothes for washing.’
‘There speaks the garment manufacturer,’ I put in.
Anand saw us to the door, but not down the dark alley; he never took it alone. All his life he was to be afraid of being alone in the dark. Well, we all have our phobias. To this day, I won’t use a lift or escalator unless I have company.
Sitaram and I walked back quite comfortably in the dark. He linked his fingers with mine and broke into song, a little off-key; he was no Saigal or Rafi. We cut across the maidan, and a quarter-moon kept us company. I was overcome by a feeling of tranquillity, a love for all the world, and wondered if it had something to do with the vision of my father earlier in the day.
As we climbed the steps to the landing that separated my rooms from Sitaram’s quarters, we could hear his parents’ voices raised in their nightly recriminations. His mother was a virago, no doubt; and his father was a drunk who gambled away most of his earnings. For Sitaram it was a trap from which there was only one escape. And he voiced my thought.
‘I’ll leave home one of these days,’ he said.
‘Well, tonight you can stay with me.’
I’d said it without any forethought, simply on an impulse. He followed me into my room, without bothering to inform his parents that he was back.
My landlady’s large double bed provided plenty of space for both of us. She hadn’t used it since her husband’s death, some six or seven years previously. And it was unlikely that she would be using it again.
7
Someone was getting married, and the wedding band, brought up on military marches, unwittingly broke into the Funeral March. And they played loud enough to wake the dead.
After a medley of Souza marches, they switched to Hindi film tunes, and Sitaram came in, flung his arms around, and shattered my eardrums with Talat Mehmood’s latest love ballad. I responded with the Volga Boatmen in my best Nelson Eddy manner, and my landlady came running out of her shop downstairs wanting to know if the washerman had strangled his wife or viceversa.
Anyway, it was to be a week of celebrations …
When I opened my eyes next day, it was to find a bright red geranium staring me in the face, accompanied by the aromatic odour of a crushed geranium leaf. Sitaram was thrusting a potted geranium at me and wishing me a happy birthday. I brushed a caterpillar from my pillow and sat up. Wordsworthian though I was in principle, I wasn’t prepared for nature red in tooth and claw.
I picked up the caterpillar on its leaf and dropped it outside.
‘Come back when you’re a butterfly,’ I said.
Sitaram had taken his morning bath and looked very fresh and spry. Unfortunately, he had doused his head with some jasmine-scented hair oil, and the room was reeking of it. Already a bee was buzzing around him.
‘Thank you for the present,’ I said. ‘I’ve always wanted a geranium.’
‘I wanted to bring a rose bush but the pot was too heavy.’
‘Never mind, geraniums do better on verandas.’
I placed the pot in a sunny corner of the small balcony, and it certainly did something for the place. There’s nothing like a red geranium for bringing a balcony to life.
While we were about to plan the day’s festivities, a stranger walked through my open door (one day, I’d have to shut it), and declared himself the inventor of a new flush-toilet which, he said, would revolutionize the sanitary habits of the town. We were still living in the thunderbox era, and only the very rich could afford western-style lavatories. My visitor showed me diagrams of a seat which, he said, combined the best of East and West. You could squat on it, Indian-style, without putting too much strain on your abdominal muscles, and if you used water to wash your bottom, there was a little sprinkler attached which, correctly aimed, would do that job for you. It was comfortable, efficient, safe. Your effluent would be stored in a little tank, which could be detached when full, and emptied—where? He hadn’t got around to that problem as yet, but he assured me that his invention had a great future.
‘But why are you telling me all this?’ I asked, ‘I can’t afford a fancy toilet seat.’
‘No, no, I don’t expect you to buy one.’
‘You mean I should demonstrate?’
‘Not at all. But you are a writer, I hear. I want a name for my new toilet seat. Can you help?’
‘Why not call it the Sit-Safe?’ I suggested.
‘The Sit-Safe! How wonderful. Young Mr Bond, let me show my gratitude with a small present.’ And he thrust a ten-rupee note into my hand and left the room before I could protest. ‘It’s definitely my birthday,’ I said. ‘Complete strangers walk in and give me money.’
‘We can see three films with that,’ said Sitaram.
‘Or buy three bottles of beer,’ I said.
But there were no more windfalls that morning, and I had to go to the old Allahabad Bank—where my grandmother had kept her savings until they had dwindled away—and withdraw one hundred rupees.
‘Can you tell me my balance?’ I asked Mr Jain, the elderly clerk who knew my grandmother.
‘Two hundred and fifty rupees,’ he said with a smile. ‘Try to save something!’
I emerged into the hot sunshine and stood on the steps of the bank, where I had stood as a small boy some twelve years back, waiting for Granny to finish her work—I think she had been the only one in the family to put some money by for a rainy day—but there had been many rainy days what with all her various fickle relatives always battening off her.
Well, I had no relatives to support, but here was Peter waiting for me under the old peepal tree. His hands were shaking.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
‘Haven’t had a cigarette for a week. Come on, buy me a packet of Charminars.’
Sitaram went out and bought samosas and jalebis and little cakes with icing made from solidified ghee. I fetched a few bottles of beer, some orangeades and lemonades and a syrupy cold drink called Vimto which was all the rage then. My landlady, hearing that I was throwing a party, sent me pakoras made with green chillies.
The party, when it happened, was something of an anti climax.
Anand turned up promptly and ate all the jalebis. Peter arrived with Mohan, finished the beer, and demanded more.
Nobody paid much attention to Sitaram, he seemed so much at home. Caste didn’t count for much in a fairly modern town, as Dehra was in those days. In any case, from the way Sitaram was strutting around, acting as though he owned the place, it was generally presumed that he was the landlady’s son. He brought up a second relay of the lady’s pakoras, hotter than the first lot, and they arrived just as the Maharani and Indu appeared in the doorway.
‘Happy birthday, dear boy,’ boomed the Maharani and seized the largest chilli pakora. Indu appeared behind her and gave me a box wrapped in gold and silver cellophane. I put it on my desk and hoped it contained chocolates, not studs and a tiepin.
The chilli pakoras did not take long to violate the Maharani’s taste buds.
‘Water, water!’ she cried, and seeing the bathroom door open, made a dash for the tap.
Alas, the bathroom was the least attractive aspect of my flat. It had yet to be equipped with anything resembling the newly-invented Sit-Safe. But the lid of the thunderbox was fortunately down, as this particular safe hadn’t been emptied for a couple of days. It was crowned by a rusty, old tin mug. On the wall hung a towel that had seen better days. The remnants of a cake of Lifebuoy soap stood near a cracked washbasin. A lonely cockroach gave the Maharani a welcoming genuflection.
T
aking all this in at a glance, she backed out, holding her hand to her mouth.
‘Try a Vimto,’ said Peter, holding out a bottle gone warm and sticky.
‘A glass of beer?’ asked Anand.
The Maharani grabbed a glass of beer and swallowed it in one long gulp. She came up gasping, gave me a reproachful look—as though the chilli pakora had been intended for her—and said, ‘Must go now. Just stopped by to greet you. Thank you very much—you must come to Indu’s birthday party. Next year.’
Next year seemed a long way off.
‘Thank you for the present,’ I said.
And then they were gone, and I was left to entertain my cronies.
Mohan was demanding something stronger than beer, and as I felt that way myself, we trooped off to the Royal Cafe, all of us, except Sitaram, who had better things to do.
After two rounds of drinks, I’d gone through what remained of my money. And so I left Peter and Mohan to cadge drinks off one of the latter’s clients, while I bid Anand goodbye on the edge of the parade-ground. As it was still light, I did not have to see him home.
Some workmen were out on the parade-ground, digging holes for tent pegs.
Two children were discussing the coming attraction.
‘The circus is coming!’
‘Is it big?’
‘It’s the biggest! Tigers, elephants, horses, chimpanzees!
Tightrope walkers, acrobats, strong men …’
‘Is there a clown?’
‘There has to be a clown. How can you have a circus without a clown?’
I hurried home to tell Sitaram about the circus. It would make a change from the cinema. The room had been tidied up, and the Maharani’s present stood on my desk, still in its wrapper.
‘Let’s see what’s inside,’ I said, tearing open the packet.
It was a small box of nuts—almonds, pistachios, cashew nuts, along with a few dried figs.
‘Just a handful of nuts,’ said Sitaram, sampling a fig and screwing up his face.
I tried an almond, found it was bitter and spat it out.
‘Must have saved them from her wedding day,’ said Sitaram.
‘Appropriate in a way,’ I said. ‘Nuts for a bunch of nuts.’
8
Lines written on a hot summer’s night:
On hot summer nights I dream
Of you beside me, near a mountain stream
Cool in our bed of ferns we lie,
Lost in our loving, as the world slips by.
I tried to picture Indu in my arms, the two of us watching the moon come over the mountains. But her face kept dissolving and turning into her mother’s. This transition from dream to nightmare kept me from sleeping. Sitaram slept peacefully at the edge of the bed, immune to the mosquitoes that came in like squadrons of dive-bombers. It was much too hot for any body contact, but even then, the sheets were soaked with perspiration.
Tired of his parents’ quarrels and his father’s constant threat of turning him out if he did not start contributing towards the family’s earnings, Sitaram was practically living with me. I had been on my own for the past five years and had grown used to a form of solitary confinement. I don’t think I could have shared my life with an intellectual companion. Peter and Anand were stimulating company in the Indiana or Royal Cafe, but I doubt if I would have enjoyed waking up to their argumentative presences first thing every morning. Peter disagreed with everything I wrote or said; I was too sentimental, too whimsical, too descriptive. He was probably right, but I preferred to write in the manner that gave me the maximum amount of enjoyment. There was more give and take with Anand, but I knew he’d be writing a thousand words to my hundred, and this would have been a little disconcerting to a lazy writer.
Sitaram made no demands on my intellect. He left me to my writing pad and typewriter. As a physical presence, he was acceptable and grew more interesting by the day. He ran small errands for me, accompanied me on the bicycle rides which often took us past the Maharani’s house. And he took an interest in converting the small balcony into a garden—so much so, that my landlady began complaining that water was seeping through the floor and dripping on to the flour sacks in her ration shop.
The red geranium was joined by a cerise one, and I wondered where it had come from, until I heard the Indiana proprietor complaining that one of his pots was missing.
A potted rose plant, neglected by Mohan (who neglected his clients with much the same single-minded carelessness) was appropriated and saved from a slow and lingering death. Subjected to cigarette butts, the remnants of drinks and half-eaten meals, it looked as though it would never produce a rose. So it made the journey from Mohan’s veranda to mine without protest from its owner (since he was oblivious of its presence) and under Sitaram’s ministrations, soon perked up and put forth new leaves and a bud.
My landlady had thrown out a wounded succulent, and this too found a home on the balcony, along with a sickly asparagus fern left with me by Peter.
A plant hospital, no less!
Coming up the steps one evening, I was struck by the sweet smell of Raat-ki-Rani, Queen of the Night, and I was puzzled by its presence because I knew there was none growing on our balcony or anywhere else in the vicinity. In front of the building stood a neem tree, and a mango tree, the last survivor of the mango grove that had occupied this area before it was cleared away for a shopping block. There were no shrubs around— they would not have survived the traffic or the press of people. Only potted plants occupied the shopfronts and veranda spaces. And yet there was that distinct smell of Raat-ki-Rani, growing stronger all the time.
Halfway up the steps, I looked up, and saw my father standing at the top of the steps, in the half-light of a neighbouring window. He was looking at me the way he had done that day near the canal—with affection and a smile playing on his lips—and at first I stood still surprised by happiness. Then, waves of love and the old companionship sweeping over me, I advanced up the steps; but when I reached the top, the vision faded and I stood there alone, the sweet smell of Raatki-Rani still with me, but no one else, no sound but the distant shunting of an engine.
This was the second time I’d seen my father, or rather his apparition, and I did not know if it portended anything, or if it was just that he wanted to see me again, was trying to cross the gulf between our different worlds, the worlds of yesterday, today and tomorrow.
Alone on the balcony, looking down at the badly-lit street, I indulged in a bout of nostalgia, recalling boyhood days when my father was my only companion—in the RAF tent outside Delhi, with the hot winds of May and June swirling outside; then the cool evening walks in Dehra, with no destination in mind; and earlier, exploring the beach at Jamnagar, picking up and storing away different kinds of seashells.
I still had one with me—a smooth, round shell which must have belonged to a periwinkle. I put it to my ear and heard the hum of the ocean, the siren song of the sea. I knew that one day I would have to choose between the sea and the mountains, but for the moment it was this little sub-tropical valley, hot and humid, patiently waiting for the monsoon rains …
The mango trees were sweet with blossom. ‘My love is like a red, red rose,’ sang Robbie Burns, while John Clare, another poet of the countryside, declared: ‘My love is like a bean-field in blossom.’ In India, sweethearts used to meet in the mango groves at blossom time. They don’t do that any more. Mango groves are no longer private places. Better a dark corner of the Indiana, with Larry Gomes playing old melodies on his piano …
I walked down to A.N. John’s salon for a haircut, but couldn’t get anywhere near the entrance. An excited but good-natured crowd had taken up most of the narrow road as well as a resident’s front garden.
‘What’s happening?’ I asked a man who was selling candyfloss.
‘Dilip Kumar is inside. He’s having a haircut.’
Dilip Kumar! The most popular male star of the silver screen!
‘But what’s he doing in De
hra?’ I asked.
The candyfloss-seller looked at me as though I was a cretin. ‘I just told you—having a haircut.’
I moved on to where the owner of the bicycle-hire shop was standing. ‘What’s Dilip Kumar doing in town?’ I asked. He shrugged. ‘Don’t know. Must be something to do with the circus.’
‘Is he the ringmaster for the circus?’ asked a little boy in a pyjama suit.
‘Of course not,’ said the pigtailed girl beside him. ‘The circus won’t be able to pay him enough.’
‘Maybe he owns the circus,’ said the little boy.
‘It belongs to a friend of his,’ said a tongawallah with a knowing air. ‘He’s come for the opening night.’
Whatever the reasons for Dilip Kumar’s presence in Dehra, it was agreed by all that he was in A.N. John’s, having a haircut. There was only one way out of A.N. John’s and that was by the front door. There were a couple of windows on the side, but the crowd had them well covered.
Finally, the star emerged, beaming, waving to people, looking very handsome indeed in a white bush shirt and neatly-ironed silvery grey trousers. There was a nice open look about him. No histrionics. No impatience to get away. He was the ordinary guy who’d made good.
Where was Sitaram? Why wasn’t my star-struck friend in the crowd? I found him later, watching the circus tents go up, but by then Dilip Kumar was on his way to Delhi. He hadn’t come for the circus at all. He’d been visiting his young friend Nandu Jauhar at the Savoy in neighbouring Mussoorie.
9
The circus opened on time, and the parade-ground became a fairyland of lights and music. This happened only once in every five years when the Great Gemini Circus came to town. This particular circus toured every town, large and small, throughout the length and breadth of India, so naturally it took some time for it to return to scenes of past triumphs; and by the time it did so, some of the acts had changed, younger performers had taken the place of some of the older ones, and a new generation of horses, tigers and elephants were on display. So, in effect, it was a brand new circus in Dehra, with only a few familiar faces in the ring or on the trapeze.