by Ruskin Bond
‘Who eats hot cakes here?’
‘Well, then, hot chappaties.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ I said; but the idea repelled me. If I was going to misguide students, I would rather do it by writing second rate detective stories than by providing them with ready-made answer papers. Besides, I thought it would bore me.
II
The string of my cot needed tightening. The dip in the middle of the bed was so bad that I woke up in the mornings with a stiff back. But I was hopeless at tightening bed-strings and would have to wait until one of the boys from the tea shop paid me a visit. I was too long for the cot, anyway, and if my feet didn’t stick out at one end, my head lolled over the other.
Under the cot was my tin trunk. Apart from my clothes, it con- tained notebooks, diaries, photographs, scrapbooks, and other odds and ends that form a part of a writer’s existence.
I did not live entirely alone. During cold or rainy weather, the boys from the tea-shop, who normally slept on the pavement, crowded into the room. Apart from them, there were lizards on the walls and ceilings — friends these — and a large rat — definitely an enemy — who got in and out of the window and who sometimes carried away manuscripts and clothing.
June nights were the most uncomfortable. Mosquitoes emerged from all the ditches, gullies and ponds, to swarm over Pipalnagar. Bugs, finding it uncomfortable inside the wood work of the cot, scrambled out at night and found their way under the sheet. The lizards wandered listlessly over the walls, impatient for the mon- soon rains, when they would be able to feast off thousands of insects.
Everyone in Pipalnagar was waiting for the cool, quenching relief of the monsoon.
III
I woke every morning at five as soon as the first bus moved out of the shed, situated only twenty or thirty yards down the road. I dressed, went down to the tea-shop for a glass of hot tea and some buttered toast, and then visited Deep Chand the barber, in his shop.
At 18, I shaved about three times a week. Sometimes I shaved myself. But often, when I felt lazy, Deep Chand shaved me, at the special concessional rate of two annas.
‘Give my head a good massage, Deep Chand,’ I said. ‘My brain is not functioning these days. In my latest story there are three murders, but it is boring just the same.’
‘You must write a good book,’ and Deep Chand beginning the ritual of the head massage, his fingers squeezing my temples and tugging at my hair-roots. ‘Then you can make some money and clear out of Pipalnagar. Delhi is the place to go! Why, I know a man who arrived in Delhi in 1947 with nothing but the clothes he wore and a few rupees. He began by selling thirsty travellers glasses of cold- water at the railway-station then he opened a small tea-shop; now he has two big restaurants and lives in a house as large as the Prime Minister’s!’
Nobody intended living in Pipalnagar for ever. Delhi was the city most aspired to but as it was two-hundred miles away, few could afford to travel there.
Deep Chand would have shifted his trade to another town if he had had the capital. In Pipalnagar his main customers were small shopkeepers, factory workers and labourers from the railway sta- tion. ‘Here I can charge only six annas for a hair cut,’ he lamented. ‘In Delhi I could charge a rupee.’
IV
I was walking in the wheat fields beyond the railway tracks when I noticed a boy lying across the footpath, his head and shoulders hidden by the wheat. I walked faster, and when I came near I saw that the boy’s legs were twitching. He seemed to be having some kind of fit. The boy’s face was white his legs kept moving and his hands fluttered restlessly amongst the wheat-stalks.
‘What’s the matter?’ I said, kneeling down beside him; but he was still unconscious.
I ran down the path to a Persian well, and dipping the end of my shirt in a shallow trough of water, soaked it well before returning to the boy. As I sponged his face the twitching ceased, and though he still breathed heavily, his face was calm and his hands still. He opened his eyes and stared at me, but he didn’t really see me.
‘You have bitten your tongue,’ I said wiping a little blood from the corner of his mouth. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll stay here with you until you are all right.’
The boy raised himself and, resting his chin on his knees he passed his arms around his drawn-up legs.
‘I’m all right now,’ he said.
‘What happened?’ I asked sitting down beside him.
‘Oh, it is nothing, it often happens. I don’t know why. I cannot control it.’
‘Have you been to a doctor?’
‘Yes, when the fits first started, I went to the hospital. They gave me some pills which I had to take every day. But the pills made me so tired and sleepy that I couldn’t work properly. So I stopped taking them. Now this happens once or twice a week. What does it matter? I’m all right when it’s over and I do not feel anything when it happens.’
He got to his feet dusting his clothes and smiling at me. He was a slim boy, long-limbed and bony. There was a little fluff on his cheeks and the promise of a moustache. He told me his name was Suraj, that he went to a night school in the city, and that he hoped to finish his High School Exams in a few months time. He was studying hard, he said, and if he passed he hoped to get a scholarship to a good college. If he failed, there was only the prospect of continuing in Pipalnagar.
I noticed a small tray of merchandise lying on the ground. It contained combs and buttons and little bottles of perfume. The tray was made to hang at Suraj’s waist, supported by straps that went around his shoulders. All day he walked about Pipalnagar some- times covering ten or fifteen miles a day, selling odds and ends to people at their houses. He averaged about two rupees a day, which was enough for his food and other necessities; he managed to save about ten rupees a month for his school fees. He ate irregularly at little tea-shops, at the stall near the bus stop, under the shady jamun and mango trees. When the jamun fruit was ripe, he would sit in a tree, sucking the sour fruit until his lips were stained purple. There was a small, nagging fear that he might get a fit while sitting on the tree and fall off; but the temptation to eat jamuns was greater than his fear.
All this he told me while we walked through the fields towards the bazaar.
‘Where do you live?’ I asked. ‘I’ll walk home with you.’
‘I don’t live anywhere,’ said Suraj. ‘My home is not in Pipalnagar. Sometimes I sleep at the temple or at the railway station. In the summer month I sleep in the grass of the Municipal park.’
‘Well, wherever it is you stay, let me come with you.’
We walked together into the town, and parted near the bus stop. I returned to my room, and tried to do some writing while Suraj went into the bazaar to try selling his wares. We had agreed to meet each other again. I realised that Suraj was an epileptic, but there was nothing unusual about his being an orphan and a refugee. I liked his positive attitude to life, most people in Pipalnagar were resigned to their circumstances, but he was ambitious. I also liked his gen- tleness, his quite voice, and the smile that flickered across his face regardless of whether he was sad or happy.
V
The temperature had touched 110 Fahrenheit, and the small streets of Pipalnagar were empty. To walk barefoot on the scorching pave- ments was possible only for the labourers whose feet had deve- loped several hard layers of protective skin; and now even these hardy men lay stretched out in the shade provided by trees and buildings.
I hadn’t written anything in two weeks, and though one or two small payments were due from a Delhi newspaper, I could think of no substantial amount that was likely to come my way in the near future. I decided that I would dash off a couple of articles that same night, and post them the following morning.
Having made this comforting decision, I lay down on the floor in preference to the cot. I liked the touch of things, the touch of a cool floor on a hot day; the touch of earth — soft, grassy, grass was good, especially dew-drenched grass. Wet earth, too was soft, sensuous and sme
lt nice; splashing through puddles and streams.
I slept, and dreamt of a cool clear stream in a forest glade, where I bathed in gay abandon. A little further downstream was another bather, I hailed him, expecting to see Suraj but when the bather turned I found that it was my landlord’s pot-bellied rent-collector, holding an accounts ledger in his hands. This woke me up, and for the remainder of the day I worked feverishly at my articles.
Next morning, when I opened the door, I found Suraj asleep at the top of the steps. His tray lay at the bottom of the steps. He woke up as soon as I touched his shoulder.
‘Have you been sleeping here all night?’ I asked. ‘Why didn’t you come in?’
‘It was very late’ said Suraj. ‘I didn’t want to disturb you.’ ‘Someone could have stolen your things while you were asleep.’
‘ Oh, I sleep quite lightly. Besides I have nothing of great value. But I came here to ask you a favour.’
‘You need money?’
He laughed. ‘Do all your friends mean money when they ask for favours? No, I want you to take your meal with me tonight.’
‘But where?’ ‘You have no place of your own and it would be too expensive in a restaurant.’
‘In your room.’ said Suraj ‘I shall bring the meat and vegetable and cook them here. Do you have a cooker?’
‘I think so,’ I said scratching my head in some perplexity. ‘I will have to look for it.’
Suraj brought a chicken for dinner — a luxury, one to be indulged in only two or three times a year. He had bought the bird for seven rupees, which was cheap. We spiced it and roasted it on a spittle.
‘I wish we could do this more often,’ I said as I dug my teeth into the soft flesh of a second leg.
‘We could do it at least once a month if we worked hard,’ said Suraj.
‘You know how to work. You work from morning to evening and then you work again.’
‘But you are a writer. That is different. You have to wait for the right moment.’
I laughed. ‘Moods and moments are for geniuses. No it’s really a matter of working hard, and I’m just plain lazy, to tell you the truth.’
‘Perhaps you are writing the wrong things.’
‘Perhaps, I wish I could do something else. Even if I repaired bicycle tyres, I’d make more money!’
‘Then why don’t you repair bicycle tyres?’
‘Oh, I would rather be a bad writer than a good repairer of cycle- tyres,’ I brightened up. ‘I could go into business, though. Do you know I once owned a vegetable stall?’
‘Wonderful! When was that?’
‘A couple of months ago. But it failed after two days.’
‘Then you. are not good at business. Let us think of something else.’
‘I can tell fortunes with cards.’
‘There are already too many fortune-tellers in Pipalnagar.’
‘Then we won’t talk of fortunes. And you must sleep here tonight. It is better than sleeping on the roadside.’
VI
At noon when the shadows shifted and crossed the road, a band of children rushed down the empty street, shouting and waving their satchels. They had been at their desks from early morning, and now, despite the hot sun, they would have their fling while their elders slept on string charpoys beneath leafy neem trees.
On the soft sand near the river-bed, boys wrestled or played leap-frog. At alley-corners, where tall building shaded narrow pas-
sages, the favourite game was gulli-danda. The gulli — a small piece of wood, about four inches long sharpened to a point at each end — is struck with the danda a short, stout stick. A player is allowed three hits, and his score is the distance, in danda lengths, he hits the gulli. Boys who were experts at the game sent the gulli flying far down the road — sometimes into a shop or through a window- pane, which resulted in confusion, loud invective, and a dash for cover.
A game for both children and young men was Kabbadi. This is a game that calls for good breath control and much agility. It is also known in different parts of India, as hootoo-too, kho-kho and atyapatya. Ramu, Deep Chand’s younger brother, excelled at this game. He was the Pipalnagar Kabbadi champion.
The game is played by two teams, consisting of eight or nine members each, who face each other across a dividing line. Each side in turn sends out one of its players into the opponent’s area. This person has to keep on saying ‘Kabbadi, kabbadi’ very fast and without taking a second breath. If he returns to his side after touching an opponent, that opponent is ‘dead’ and out of the game. If however, he is caught and cannot struggle back to his side while still holding his breath, he is ‘dead’.
Ramu who was also a good wrestler, knew all the Kabbadi holds, and was particularly good at capturing opponents. He had vitality and confidence, rare things in Pipalnagar. He wanted to go into the Army after finishing school, a happy choice I thought.
VII
Suraj did not know if his parents were dead or alive. He had literally lost them when he was six. His father had been a farmer, a dark unfathomable man who spoke little, thought perhaps even less and was vaguely aware he had a son — a weak boy given to introspec- tion and dawdling at the river-bank when he should have been helping in the fields.
Suraj’s mother had been a subdued, silent woman, frail, and con- sumptive. Her husband seemed to expect that she would not live long; but Suraj did not know if she was living or dead. He had lost his parents at Amritsar railway-station in the days of the partition, when trains coming across the border from Pakistan disgorged themselves of thousands of refugees or pulled into the station half-
empty, drenched with blood and littered with corpses.
Suraj and his parents were lucky to escape one of these massa- cres. Had they travelled on an earlier train (which they had tried desperately to catch), they might have been killed. Suraj was cling- ing to his mother’s sari while she tried to keep up with her husband who was elbowing his way through the frightened bewildered throng of refugees. Suraj collided with a burly Sikh and lost his grip on the sari. The Sikh had a long curved sword at his waist, and Suraj stared up at him in awe and fascination, at the man’s long hair, which had fallen loose, at his wild black beard, and at the blood- stains on his white shirt. The Sikh pushed him aside and when Suraj looked round for his mother she was not to be seen. She was hidden from him by a mass of restless bodies, all pushing in differ- ent directions. He could hear her calling his name and he tried to force his way through the crowd, in the direction of her voice, but he was carried the other way.
At night, when the platform was empty he was still searching for his mother. Eventually the police came and took him away. They looked for his parents but without success, and finally they sent him to a home for orphans. Many children lost their parents at about the same time.
Suraj stayed at the orphanage for two years and when he was eight and felt himself a man, he ran away. He worked for some time as a helper in a tea-shop; but when he started having epileptic fits the shopkeepers asked him to leave, and the boy found himself on the streets, begging for a living. He begged for a year, moving from one town to the next and ending up finally at Pipalnagar. By then he was twelve and really too old to beg; but he had saved some money, and with it he bought a small stock of combs, buttons, cheap perfumes and bangles, and converting himself into a mobile shop, went from door to door selling his wares.
Pipalnagar is a small town, and there was no house which Suraj hadn’t visited. Everyone knew him; some had offered him food and drink; and the children liked him because he often played on a small flute when he went on his rounds.
VIII
Suraj came to see me quite often and, when he stayed late he slept in my room, curling up on the floor and sleeping fitfully. He would always leave early in the morning before I could get him anything to eat.
‘Should I go to Delhi, Suraj?’ I asked him one evening.
‘Why not? In Delhi, there are many ways of making money.’ ‘And spendi
ng it too. Why don’t you come with me?’
‘After my exams, perhaps. Not now.’
‘Well, I can wait. I don’t want to live alone in a big city.’
‘In the meantime, write your book.’
‘All right, I will try.’
We decided we could try to save a little money from Suraj’s earn- ings and my own occasional payments from newspapers and maga- zines. Even if we were to give Delhi only a few days trail, we would need money to live on. We managed to put away twenty rupees one week, but withdrew it the next when a friend, Pitamber, asked for a loan to repair his cycle-rickshaw. He returned the money in three instalments but we could not save any of it. Pitamber and Deep Chand also had plans for going to Delhi. Pitamber wanted to own his own scooter-rickshaw; Deep Chand dreamt of a swank barber-shop in the capital.
One day Suraj and I hired bicycles and rode out of Pipalnagar. It was a hot, sunny morning, and we were perspiring after we had gone two miles; but a fresh wind sprang up suddenly, and we could smell the rain in the air though there were no clouds to be seen.
‘Let us go where there are no people at all,’ said Suraj. ‘I am a little tired of people. I see too many of them all day.’
We got down from our cycles, and pushing them off the road, took a path through a paddy field and then a path through a field of young maize, and in the distance we saw a tree, a crooked tree, growing beside a well. I do not even today know the name of that tree. I had never seen its kind before. It had a crooked trunk, crooked branches, and it was clothed in thick, broad crooked leaves, like the leaves on which food is served in bazaars.
In the trunk of the tree was a large hole, and when I set my cycle down with a crash, two green parrots flew out of the hole, and went dipping and swerving across the fields.
There was grass around the well, cropped short by grazing cattle, so we sat in the shade of the crooked tree and Suraj untied the red cloth in which he had brought our food . We ate our bread and vegetable curry, and meanwhile the parrots returned to the tree.