by Ruskin Bond
Driving an engine must be fun,’ I said.
‘Yes, but lions are safer,’ said Grandfather. And he used his friendship with the circus folk to get free passes for me, my cousin Melanie, and my small friend Gautam who lived next door.
‘Aren’t you coming with us?’ I asked Grandfather. ‘I’ll be there,’ he said. ‘I’ll be with my friends. See it you can spot me!’
We were convinced that Grandfather was going to adopt one of his disguises and take part in the evening’s entertainment. So for Melanie, Gautam and me the evening turned out to be a guessing game.
We were enthralled by the show’s highlights—the tigers going through their drill, the beautiful young men and women on the flying trapeze, the daring motorcyclist bursting through a hoop of fire, the jugglers and clowns—but we kept trying to see if we could recognize Grandfather among the performers. We couldn’t make too much of a noise because in the row behind us sat some of the town’s senior citizens—the mayor, a turbaned Maharaja, a formally dressed Englishman with a military bearing, a couple of nuns, and Gautam’s class teacher—but we kept up our chatter for most of the show.
‘Is your Grandfather the lion tamer?’ asked Gautam.
‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘He hasn’t had any practise with lions. He’s better with tigers!’ But there was someone else in charge of the tigers.
‘He could be one of the jugglers,’ said Melanie.
‘He’s taller than the jugglers,’ I said.
Gautam made an inspired guess: ‘Maybe he’s the bearded lady!’
We looked hard and long at the bearded lady when she came to our side of the ring. She waved to us in a friendly manner, and Gautam called out, ‘Excuse me, are you Ruskin’s grandfather?’
‘No, dear,’ she replied with a deep laugh. ‘I’m his girlfriend!’ And she skipped away to another part of the ring.
A clown came up to us and made funny faces.
‘Are you Grandfather?’ asked Melanie.
But he just grinned, somersaulted backwards, and went about his funny business.
‘I give up,’ said Melanie. ‘Unless he’s the dancing bear.’
‘It’s a real bear,’ said Gautam. ‘Just look at those claws!’
The bear looked real enough. So did the lion, though a trifle mangy. And the tigers looked tigerish.
We went home convinced that Grandfather hadn’t been there at all.
‘So did you enjoy the circus!’ he asked, when he sat down to dinner late that evening.
‘Yes, but you weren’t there,’ I complained. And we took a close look at everyone—including the bearded lady!’
‘Oh, I was there all right,’ said Grandfather. ‘I was sitting just behind you. But you were too absorbed in the circus and the performers to notice the audience. I was that smart-looking Englishman in the suit and tie, sitting between the Maharaja and the nuns. I thought I’d just be myself for a change!’
On Foot with Faith
All my life I’ve been a walking person. To this day, I have neither owned nor driven a car, bus, tractor, aeroplane, motor-boat, scooter, truck, or steam-roller. Forced to make a choice, I would drive a steam-roller, because of its slow but solid progress and unhurried finality.
In my early teens, I did for a brief period ride a bicycle, until I rode into a bullock cart and broke my arm; the accident only serving to underline my unsuitability for wheeled conveyance or any conveyance that is likely to take my feet off the ground. Although dreamy and absent-minded, I have never walked into a bullock cart.
Perhaps there is something to be said for sun signs. Mine being Taurus, I have, like the bull, always stayed close to grass, and have lived my life at my own leisurely pace, only being stirred into furious activity when goaded beyond endurance. I have every sympathy for bulls and none for bull-fighters.
I was born in the Kasauli Military Hospital in 1934, and was baptised in the little Anglican church which still stands in this hill station. My father had done his schooling at the Lawrence Royal Military School, at Sanwar, a few miles away, but he had gone into ‘tea’ and then teaching, and at the time I was born, he was out of a job.
But my earliest memories are not of Kasauli, for we left when I was two or three months old; they are of Jamnagar, a small state in coastal Kathiawar, where my father took a job as English tutor to several young princes and princesses. This was in the tradition of Forster and Ackerley, but my father did not have literary ambitions, although after his death I was to come across a notebook filled with love poems addressed to my mother, presumably while they were courting.
This was where the walking really began, because Jamnagar was full of palaces and spacious lawns and gardens. And by the time I was three, I was exploring much of this territory on my own, with the result that I encountered my first cobra who, instead of striking me dead as the best fictional cobras are supposed to do, allowed me to pass.
Living as he did so close to the ground, and sensitive to every footfall, that intelligent snake must have known instinctively that I presented no threat, that I was just a small human discovering the use of his legs. Envious of the snake’s swift gliding movements, I went indoors and tried crawling about on my belly, but I wasn’t much good at it. Legs were better.
Amongst my father’s pupils in one of these small states were three beautiful princesses. One of them was about my age, but the other two were older, and they were the ones at whose feet I worshipped. I think I was four or five when I had this crush on two ‘older’ girls—eight and ten respectively. At first I wasn’t sure that they were girls, because they always wore jackets and trousers and kept their hair quite short. But my father told me they were girls, and he never lied to me.
My father’s schoolroom and our own living quarters were located in one of the older palaces, situated in the midst of a veritable jungle of a garden. Here I could roam to my heart’s content, amongst marigolds and cosmos growing rampant in the long grass. An ayah or a bearer was often sent post-haste after me, to tell me to beware of snakes and scorpions.
One of the books read to me as a child was a work called Little Henry and His Bearer, in which little Henry converts his servant to Christianity. I’m afraid something rather different happened to me. My ayah, bless her soul, taught me to eat paan and other forbidden delights from the bazaar, while the bearer taught me to abuse in choice Hindustani—an attribute that has stood me in good stead over the years.
Neither of my parents was overly religious, and religious tracts came my way far less frequently than they do today (Little Henry was a gift from a distant aunt). Today everyone seems to feel I have a soul worth saving, whereas when I was a boy, I was left severely alone by both preachers and adults. In fact the only time I felt threatened by religion was a few years later when, visiting the aunt I have mentioned, I happened to fall down her steps and sprain my ankle. She gave me a triumphant look and said, ‘See what happens when you don’t go to church!’
My father was a good man. He taught me to read and write long before I started going to school, although it’s true to say that I first learned to read upside down. This happened because I would sit on a stool in front of the three princesses watching them read and write, and so the view I had of them books was an upside-down one; I still read that way occasionally, especially when a book begins to get boring.
My mother was at least twelve years younger than my father, and liked going out to parties and dances. She was quite happy to leave me in the care of the ayah and bearer and other servants. I had no objection to the arrangement. The servants indulged me, and so did my father, bringing me books, toys, comics, chocolates and of course stamps, when he returned from visits to Bombay.
Walking along the beach, collecting seashells, I got into the habit of staring hard at the ground, a habit which has stayed with me all my life. Apart from helping my thought processes, it also results in my picking up odd objects—coins, keys, broken bangles, marbles, pens, bits of crockery, pretty stones
, ladybirds, feathers, snail-shells, seashells! Occasionally, of course, this habit results in my walking some way past my destination (if I happen to have one). And why not? It simply means discovering a new and different destination, sights and sounds that I might not have experienced had I concluded my walk exactly where it was supposed to end. And I am not looking at the ground all the time. Sensitive like the snake to approaching footfalls, I look up from time to time to examine the faces of passers-by just in case they have something they wish to say to me.
A bird singing in a bush or tree has my immediate attention; so does any unfamiliar flower or plant, particularly if it grows in an unusual place such as a crack in a wall or rooftop, or in a yard full of junk where I once found a rose bush blooming on the roof of an old Ford car.
There are other kinds of walks that I shall come to later but it wasn’t until I came to Dehra and my grandmother’s house that I really found my feet as a walker.
In 1939, when World War II broke out, my father joined the RAF, and my mother and I went to stay with her mother in Dehradun, while my father found himself in a tent on the outskirts of Delhi.
It took two or three days by train from Jamnagar to Dehradun, but trains were not quite as crowded then as they are today and, provided no one got sick, a long train journey was something of an extended picnic, with halts at quaint little stations, railway meals in abundance brought by waiters in smart uniforms, an ever-changing landscape, bridges over mighty rivers, forest, desert, farmland, everything sun-drenched, the air clear and unpolluted except when dust storms swept across the plains. Bottled drinks were a rarity then, the occasional lemonade or ‘Vimto’ being the only aerated soft drink, apart from soda water which was always available for whisky pegs. We made our own orange juice or lime juice, and took it with us.
By journey’s end we were wilting and soot-covered, but Dehra’s bracing winter climate soon brought us back to life.
Scarlet poinsettia leaves and trailing bougainvillaea adorned the garden walls, while in the compounds grew mangoes, lichis, papayas, guavas, and lemons large and small. It was a popular place for retiring Anglo-Indians, and my maternal grandfather, after retiring from the Railways, had built a neat, compact bungalow on Old Survey Road. There it stands today, unchanged except in ownership. Dehra was a small, quiet, garden town, only parts of which are still recognizable now, forty years after I first saw it.
I remember waking in the train early one morning, and looking out of the window at heavy forest trees of every description but mostly sal and shisharm; here and there a forest glade, or a stream of clear water—quite different from the muddied waters of the streams and rivers we had crossed the previous day. As we passed over a largish river (the Song) we saw a herd of elephants bathing; and leaving the forests of the Siwalik hills, we entered the Doon valley, where fields of rice and flowering mustard stretched away to the foothills.
Outside the station we climbed into a tonga, or pony trap, and rolled creakingly along quiet roads until we reached my grandmother’s house. Grandfather had died a couple of years previously and Grandmother lived alone, except for occasional visits from her married daughters and their families, and from her unmarred but wandering son Ken, who was to turn up from time to time, especially when his funds were low. Granny also had a tenant, Miss Kellner, who occupied a portion of the bungalow.
Miss Kellner had been crippled in a carriage accident in Calcutta when she was a girl, and had ben confined to a chair all her adult life. She had been left some money by her parents, and was able to afford an ayah and four stout palanquin-bearers, who carried her about when she wanted the chair moved, and took her for outings in a real sedan chair or sometimes a rickshaw—she had both. Her hands were deformed and she could scarcely hold a pen, but she managed to play cards quite dexterously and taught me a number of card games, which I have now forgotten. Miss Kellner was the only person with whom I could play cards: she allowed me to cheat.
Granny employed a full-time gardener, a wizened old character named Dhuki (Sad), and I don’t remember that he ever laughed or smiled. I’m not sure what deep tragedy dwelt behind those dark eyes (he never spoke about himself, even when questioned) but he was tolerant of me, and talked to me about the flowers and their characteristics.
There were rows and rows of sweet peas; beds full of phlox and sweet-smelling snapdragons; geraniums on the verandah steps, hollyhocks along the garden wall. Behind the house were the fruit trees, somewhat neglected since my grandfather’s death, and it was here that I liked to wander in the afternoons, for the old orchard was dark and private and full of possibilities. I made friends with an old jackfruit tree, in whose trunk was a large hole in which I stored marbles, coins, catapults, and other treasures, much as a crow stores the bright objects it picks up during its peregrinations.
I have never been a great tree-climber, having a tendency to fall off branches, but I liked climbing walls (and still do), and it was not long before I had climbed the wall behind the orchard, to drop into unknown territory and explore the bazaars and by-lanes of Dehra.
Who Kissed Me in the Dark?
This chapter, or story, could not have been written but for a phone call I received last week. I’ll come to the caller later. Suffice to say that it triggered off memories of a hilarious fortnight in the autumn of that year (can’t remember which one) when India and Pakistan went to war with each other. It did not last long, but there was plenty of excitement in our small town, set off by a rumour that enemy parachutists were landing in force in the ravine below Pari Tibba.
The road to this ravine led past my dwelling, and one afternoon I was amazed to see the town’s constabulary, followed by hundreds of concerned citizens (armed mostly with hockey sticks) taking the trail down to the little stream where I usually went bird-watching. The parachutes turned out to be bedsheets from a nearby school, spread out to dry by the dhobis who lived on the opposite hill. After days of incessant rain the sun had come out, and the dhobis had finally got a chance to dry the school bedsheets on the verdant hillside. From afar they did look a bit like open parachutes. In times of crisis, it’s wonderful what the imagination will do.
There were also black-outs. It’s hard for a hill station to black itself out, but we did our best. Two or three respectable people were arrested for using their torches to find their way home in the dark. And of course, nothing could be done about the lights on the next mountain, as the people there did not even know there was a war on. They did not have radio or television or even electricity. They used kerosene lamps or lit bonfires!
We had a smart young set in Mussoorie in those days, mostly college students who had also been to convent schools and some of them decided it would be a good idea to put on a show—or old-fashioned theatrical extravaganza—to raise funds for the war effort. And they thought it would be a good idea to rope me in, as I was the only writer living in Mussoorie in those innocent times. I was thirty-one and I had never been a college student but they felt I was the right person to direct a one-act play in English. This was to be the centrepiece of the show.
I forget the name of the play. It was one of those drawing-room situation comedies popular from the 1920s, inspired by such successes as Charley’ Aunt and Tons of Money. Anyway, we went into morning rehearsals at Hakman’s, one of the older hotels, where there was a proper stage and a hall large enough to seat at least two hundred spectators.
The participants were full of enthusiasm, and rehearsals went along quite smoothly. They were an engaging bunch of young people—Guttoo, the intellectual among them; Ravi, a schoolteacher; Gita, a tiny ball of fire; Neena, a heavy-footed Bharatnatyam exponent; Nellie, daughter of a nurse; Chameli, who was in charge of make-up (she worked in a local beauty saloon); Rajiv, who served in the bar and was also our prompter; and a host of others, some of whom would sing and dance before and after our one-act play.
The performance was well attended, Ravi having rounded up a number of students from the local schools; and t
he lights were working, although we had to cover all doors, windows and exits with blankets to maintain the regulatory black-out. But the stage was old and rickety and things began to go wrong during Neena’s dance number when, after a dazzling pirouette, she began stamping her feet and promptly went through the floorboards. Well, to be precise, her lower half went through, while the rest of her remained above board and visible to the audience.
The schoolboys cheered, the curtain came down and we rescued Neena, who had to be sent to the civil hospital with a sprained ankle, Mussoorie’s only civilian war casualty.
There was a hold-up, but before the audience could get too restless the curtain went up on our play, a tea-party scene, which opened with Guttoo pouring tea for everyone. Unfortunately, our stage manager had forgotten to put any tea in the pot and poor Guttoo looked terribly put out as he went from cup to cup, pouring invisible tea. ‘Damn. What happened to the tea?’ muttered Guttoo, a line, which was not in the script. ‘Never mind,’ said Gita, playing opposite him and keeping her cool. ‘I prefer my milk without tea,’ and proceeded to pour herself a cup of milk.
After this, everyone began to fluff their lines and our prompter had a busy time. Unfortunately, he’d helped himself to a couple of rums at the bar, so that, whenever one of the actors faltered, he’d call out the correct words in a stentorian voice which could be heard all over the hall. Soon there was more prompting than acting and the audience began joining in with dialogue of their own.
Finally, to my great relief, the curtain came down—to thunderous applause. It went up again, and the cast stepped forward to take a bow. Our prompter, who was also the curtain-puller, released the ropes prematurely and the curtain came down with a rush, one of the sandbags hitting poor Guttoo on the head. He has never fully recovered from the blow.