by Ruskin Bond
The old man woke from his daydream with a start, and raising his head, displayed a beard that would have been white, had it not been dyed red with mehndi leaves.
‘Did the twine break?’ he asked. ‘I know that kite twine is not what it used to be.’
‘No, grandfather, the kite is stuck in the banyan tree.’
The old man chuckled. ‘You have yet to learn how to fly a kite properly, my child. And I am too old to teach you, that’s the pity of it. But you shall have another.’
He had just finished making a new kite from bamboo paper and thin silk, and it lay in the sun, firming up. It was a pale pink kite, with a small green tail. The old man handed it to Ali, and the boy raised himself on his toes and kissed his grandfather’s hollowed-out cheek.
‘I will not lose this one,’ he said. ‘This kite will fly like a bird.’ And he turned on his heels and skipped out of the courtyard.
The old man remained dreaming in the sun. His kite shop was gone, the premises long since sold to a junk dealer; but he still made kites, for his own amusement and for the benefit of his grand
son, Ali. Not many people bought kites these days. Adults disdained them, and children preferred to spend their money at the cinema. Moreover, there were not many open spaces left for the flying of kites. The city had swallowed up the open grassland that had stretched from the old fort’s walls to the river bank.
But the old man remembered a time when grown men flew kites, and great battles were fought, the kites swerving and swooping in the sky, tangling with each other until the string of one was severed. Then the defeated but liberated kite would float away into the blue unknown. There was a good deal of betting, and money frequently changed hands.
Kite-flying was then the sport of kings, and the old man remem- bered how the Nawab himself would come down to the riverside with his retinue to participate in this noble pastime. There was time, then, to spend an idle hour with a gay, dancing strip of paper. Now everyone hurried, hurried in a heat of hope, and delicate things like kites and daydreams were trampled underfoot.
He, Mehmood the kite-maker, had in the prime of his life been well-known throughout the city. Some of his more elaborate kites once sold for as much as three or four rupees each.
At the request of the Nawab he had once made a very special kind of kite, unlike any that had been seen in the district. It consisted of a series of small, very light paper disks, trailing on a thin bamboo frame. To the end of each disk he fixed a sprig of grass, forming a balance on both sides.
The surface of the foremost disk was slightly convex, and a fantas- tic face was painted on it, having two eyes made of small mirrors. The disks, decreasing in size from head to tail, assumed an undula- tory form, and gave the kite the appearance of a crawling serpent. It required great skill to raise this cumbersome device from the ground, and only Mehmood could manage it.
Everyone had heard of the ‘Dragon Kite’ that Mehmood had built, and word went round that it possessed supernatural powers. A large crowd assembled in the open to watch its first public launching in the presence of the Nawab.
At the first attempt it refused to leave the ground.
The disks made a plaintive, protesting sound, and the sun was trapped in the little mirrors, and made of the kite a living, complain- ing creature. And then the wind came from the right direction, and the Dragon Kite soared into the sky, wriggling its way higher and higher, with the sun still glinting in its devil-eyes. And when it went very high, it pulled fiercely on the twine, and Mehmood’s young sons had to help him with the reel; but still the kite pulled, deter- mined to be free, to break loose, to live a life of its own. And eventually it did so.
The twine snapped, the kite leaped away toward the sun, sailed on heavenward until it was lost to view. It was never found again, and Mehmood wondered afterwards if he had made too vivid, too living a thing of the great kite. He did not make another like it, and instead he presented to the Nawab a musical kite, one that made a sound like a violin when it rose in the air.
Those were more leisurely, more spacious days. But the Nawab had died years ago, and his descendants were almost as poor as Mehmood himself. Kite-makers, like poets, once had their patrons; but no one knew Mehmood, simply because there were too many people in the Gali, and they could not be bothered with their neighbours.
When Mehmood was younger and had fallen sick, everyone in the neighbourhood had come to ask after his health; but now, when his days were drawing to a close, no one visited him. True, most of his old friends were dead and his sons had grown up: one was working in a local garage, the other had been in Pakistan at the time of Partition and had not been able to rejoin his relatives.
The children who had bought kites from him 10 years ago were now grown men, struggling for a living; they did not have time for the old man and his memories. They had grown up in a swiftly changing and competitive world, and they looked at the old kite- maker and the banyan tree with the same indifference.
Both were taken for granted — permanent fixtures that were of no concern to the raucous, sweating mass of humanity that sur- rounded them. No longer did people gather under the banyan tree to discuss their problems and their plans: only in the summer months did a few seek shelter from the fierce sun.
But there was the boy, his grandson; it was good that Mehmood’s son worked close by, for it gladdened the old man’s heart to watch the small boy at play in the winter sunshine, growing under his eyes like a young and well-nourished sapling putting forth new leaves each day. There is a great affinity between trees and men. We grow at much the same pace, if we are not hurt or starved or cut down. In our youth we are resplendent creatures, and in our declining years we stoop a little, we remember, we, stretch our brittle limbs in the sun, and then, with a sigh, we shed our last leaves.
Mehmood was like the banyan, his hands gnarled and twisted like the roots of the ancient tree. Ali was like the young mimosa planted at the end of the courtyard. In two years both he and the tree would acquire the strength and confidence of their early youth.
The voices in the street grew fainter, and Mehmood wondered if he was going to fall asleep and dream, as he so often did, of a kite so beautiful and powerful that it would resemble the great white bird of the Hindus, Garuda, God Vishnu’s famous steed. He would like to make a wonderful new kite for little Ali. He had nothing else to leave the boy.
He heard Ali’s voice in the distance, but did not realise that the boy was calling him. The voice seemed to come from very far away.
Ali was at the courtyard door, asking if his mother had as yet returned from the bazaar. When Mehmood did not answer, the boy came forward repeating his question. The sunlight was slanting across the old man’s head, and a small white butterfly rested on his flowing beard. Mehmood was silent; and when Ali put his small brown hand on the old man’s shoulder, he met with no response. The boy heard a faint sound, like the rubbing of marbles in his pocket.
Suddenly afraid, Ali turned and moved to the door, and then ran down the street shouting for his mother. The butterfly left the old man’s beard and flew to the mimosa tree, and a sudden gust of wind caught the torn kite and lifted it into the air, carrying it far above the struggling city into the blind blue sky.
The Monkeys
I couldn’t be sure, next morning, if I had been dreaming or if I had really heard dogs barking in the night and had seen them scamper- ing about on the hillside below the cottage. There had been a Golden Cocker, a Retriever, a Peke, a Dachshund, a black Labrador, and one or two nondescripts. They had woken me with their bark- ing shortly after midnight, and made so much noise that I got out of bed and looked out of the open window. I saw them quite plainly in the moonlight, five or six dogs rushing excitedly through the bracket and long monsoon grass.
It was only because there had been so many breeds among the dogs that I felt a little confused. I had been in the cottage only a week, and I was already on nodding or speaking terms with most of my neighbours. Col
onel Fanshawe, retired from the Indian Army, was my immediate neighbour. He did keep a Cocker, but it was black. The elderly Anglo-Indian spinsters who lived beyond the deodars kept only cats. (Though why cats should be the prerogative of spinsters, I have never been able to understand.) The milkman kept a couple of mongrels. And the Punjabi industrialist who had bought a former prince’s palace — without ever occupying it — left the property in charge of a watchman who kept a huge Tibetan mastiff.
None of these dogs looked like the ones I had seen in the night. ‘Does anyone here keep a Retriever?’ I asked Colonel Fanshawe, when I met him taking his evening walk.
‘No one that I know of,’ he said, and he gave me a swift, penetrat- ing look from under his bushy eyebrows. ‘Why, have you seen one around?’
‘No, I just wondered. There are a lot of dogs in the area, aren’t there?’
‘Oh, yes. Nearly everyone keeps a dog here. Of course every now and then a panther carries one off. Lost a lovely little terrier myself, only last winter.’
Colonel Fanshawe, tall and red-faced, seemed to be waiting for me to tell him something more — or was he just taking time to recover his breath after a stiff uphill climb?
That night I heard the dogs again. I went to the window and looked out. The moon was at the full, silvering the leaves of the oak trees.
The dogs were looking up into the trees, and barking. But I could see nothing in the trees, not even an owl.
I gave a shout, and the dogs disappeared into the forest. Colonel Fanshawe looked at me expectantly when I met him the following day. He knew something about those dogs, of that I was certain; but he was waiting to hear what I had to say. I decided to oblige him.
‘I saw at least six dogs in the middle of the night,’ I said. ‘A Cocker, a Retriever, a Peke, a Dachshund, and two mongrels. Now, Colonel, I’m sure you must know whose they are.’
The Colonel was delighted. I could tell by the way his eyes glinted that he was going to enjoy himself at my expense.
‘You’ve been seeing Miss. Fairchild’s dogs,’ he said with smug satisfaction.
‘Oh, and where does she live?’
‘She doesn’t, my boy. Died fifteen years ago.’
‘Then what are her dogs doing here?’
‘Looking for monkeys,’ said the Colonel. And he stood back to watch my reactions.
‘I’m afraid I don’t understand,’ I said.
‘Let me put it this way,’ said the Colonel. ‘Do you believe in ghosts?’
‘I’ve never seen any,’ I said.
‘But you have, my boy, you have. Miss. Fairchild’s dogs died years ago — a Cocker, a Retriever, a Dachshund, a Peke, and two mon- grels. They were buried on a little knoll under the oaks. Nothing odd about their deaths, mind you. They were all quite old, and didn’t survive their mistress very long. Neighbours looked after them until they died.’
‘And Miss. Fairchild lived in the cottage where I stay? Was she young?’
‘She was in her mid-forties, an athletic sort of woman, fond of the outdoors. Didn’t care much for men. I thought you knew about her.’
‘No, I haven’t been here very long, you know. But what was it you said about monkeys? Why were the dogs looking for monkeys?’
‘Ah, that’s the interesting part of the story. Have you seen the langur monkeys that sometimes come to eat oak leaves?’
‘No.’
‘You will, sooner or later. There has always been a band of them roaming these forests. They’re quite harmless really, except that they’ll ruin a garden if given half a chance . . . Well, Miss. Fairchild fairly loathed those monkeys. She was very keen on her dahlias — grew some prize specimens — but the monkeys would come at night, dig up the plants, and eat the dahlia-bulbs. Apparently they found the bulbs much to their liking. Miss. Fairchild would be furious. People who are passionately fond of gardening often go off balance when their best plants are ruined — that’s only human, I suppose. Miss. Fairchild set her dogs at the monkeys, whenever she could, even if it was in the middle of the night. But the monkeys simply took to the trees and left the dogs barking.’
‘Then one day — or rather, one night — Miss. Fairchild took desperate measures. She borrowed a shotgun, and sat up near a window. And when the monkeys arrived, she shot one of them dead.’
The Colonel paused and looked out over the oak trees which were shimmering in the warm afternoon sun.
‘She shouldn’t have done that,’ he said.
‘Never shoot a monkey. It’s not only that they’re sacred to Hindus — but they are rather human, you know. Well, I must be getting on. Good-day!’ And the Colonel, having ended his story rather abruptly, set off at a brisk pace through the deodars.
I didn’t hear the dogs that night. But next day I saw the monkeys — the real ones, not ghosts. There were about twenty of them, young and old, sitting in the trees munching oak leaves. They didn’t pay much attention to me, and I watched them for some time.
They were handsome creatures, their fur a silver-grey, their tails long and sinuous. They leapt gracefully from tree to tree, and were very polite and dignified in their behaviour towards each other — unlike the bold, rather crude red monkeys of the plains. Some of the younger ones scampered about on the hillside, playing and wres- tling with each other like schoolboys.
There were no dogs to molest them — and no dahlias to tempt them into the garden.
But that night, I heard the dogs again. They were barking more furiously than ever.
‘Well, I’m not getting up for them this time’ I mumbled, and pulled the blankets over my ears.
But the barking grew louder, and was joined by other sounds, a squealing and a scuffling.
Then suddenly the piercing shriek of a woman rang through the forest. It was an unearthly sound, and it made my hair stand up.
I leapt out of bed and dashed to the window.
A woman was lying on the ground, and three or four huge mon- keys were on top of her, biting her arms and pulling at her throat. The dogs were yelping and trying to drag the monkeys off, but they were being harried from behind by others. The woman gave another bloodcurdling shriek, and I dashed back into the room, grabbed hold of a small axe, and ran into the garden.
But everyone — dogs, monkeys and shrieking woman — had disappeared, and I stood alone on the hillside in my pyjamas, clutching an axe and feeling very foolish.
The Colonel greeted me effusively the following day.
‘Still seeing those dogs?’ he asked in a bantering tone.
‘I’ve seen the monkeys too,’ I said.
‘Oh, yes, they’ve come around again. But they’re real enough, and quite harmless.’
‘I know — but I saw them last night with the dogs.’
‘Oh, did you really? That’s strange, very strange.’
The Colonel tried to avoid my eye, but I hadn’t quite finished with him.
‘Colonel,’ I said. ‘You never did get around to telling me how Miss. Fairchild died.’
‘Oh, didn’t I? Must have slipped my memory. I’m getting old, don’t remember people as well as I used to. But of course I remember about Miss. Fairchild, poor lady. The monkeys killed her. Didn’t you know? They simply tore her to pieces . . .’
His voice trailed off, and he looked thoughtfully at a caterpillar that was making its way up his walking-stick.
‘She shouldn’t have shot one of them,’ he said. ‘Never shoot a monkey — they’re rather human, you know . . .’
The Prospect of Flowers
Fern Hill, The Oaks, Hunter’s Lodge, The Parsonage, The Pines, Dumbarnie, Mackinnon’s Hall and Windermere. These are the names of some of the old houses that still stand on the outskirts of one of the smaller Indian hill stations. Most of them have fallen into decay and ruin. They are very old, of course — built over a hundred years ago by Britishers who sought relief from the searing heat of the plains. Today’s visitors to the hill stations prefer to live near the markets and cinema
s and many of the old houses, set amidst oak and maple and deodar, are inhabited by wild cats, bandicoots, owls, goats, and the occasional charcoal-burner or mule-driver.
But amongst these neglected mansions stands a neat, white- washed cottage called Mulberry Lodge. And in it, up to a short time ago, lived an elderly English spinster named Miss. Mackenzie.
In years Miss Mackenzie was more than ‘elderly,’ being well over eighty. But no one would have guessed it. She was clean, sprightly, and wore old-fashioned but well-preserved dresses. Once a week, she walked the two miles to town to buy butter and jam and soap and sometimes a small bottle of eau-de-Col’ogne.
She had lived in the hill station since she had been a girl in her teens, and that had been before the First World War. Though she had never married, she had experienced a few love affairs and was far from being the typical frustrated spinster of fiction. Her parents had been dead thirty years; her brother and sister were also dead. She had no relatives in India, and she lived on a small pension of forty rupees a month and the gift parcels that were sent out to her from New Zealand by a friend of her youth.
Like other lonely old people, she kept a pet, a large black cat with bright yellow eyes. In her small garden she grew dahlias, chrysanth- emums, gladioli and a few rare orchids. She knew a great deal about plants, and about wild flowers, trees, birds and insects. She had never made a serious study of these things, but, having lived with them for so many years, had developed an intimacy with all that grew and flourished around her.
She had few visitors. Occasionally the padre from the local church called on her, and once a month the postman came with a letter from New Zealand or her pension papers. The milkman called every second day with a litre of milk for the lady and her cat. And some- times she received a couple of eggs free, for the egg-seller remem- bered a time when Miss. Mackenzie, in her earlier prosperity, bought eggs from him in large quantities. He was a sentimental man. He remembered her when she was a ravishing beauty in her twenties and he had gazed at her in round-eyed, nine-year-old wonder and consternation.