by Ruskin Bond
PENGUIN BOOKS
RUSKIN BOND’S BOOK OF HUMOUR
Ruskin Bond’s first novel, The Room on the Roof, written when he was seventeen, won the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize in 1957. Since then he has written several novellas (including Vagrants in the Valley, A Flight of Pigeons and Delhi is not Far), essays, poems and children’s books, many of which have been published by Penguin India. He has also written over 500 short stories and articles that have appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies. He received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1993 and the Padma Shri in 1999.
Ruskin Bond was born in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh, and grew up in Jamnagar, Dehradun, Delhi and Shimla. As a young man, he spent four years in the Channel Islands and London. He returned to India in 1955 and has never left the country since. He now lives in Landour, Mussoorie, with his adopted family.
ALSO BY RUSKIN BOND
Fiction
The Room on the Roof & Vagrants in the Valley
The Night Train at Deoli and Other Stories
Time Stops at Shamli and Other Stories
Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra
Strangers in the Night: Two Novellas
A Season of Ghosts
When Darkness Falls and Other Stories
A Flight of Pigeons
Delhi Is Not Far
A Face in the Dark and Other Hauntings
Non-fiction
Rain in the Mountains
Scenes from a Writer’s Life
The Lamp Is Lit
The Little Book of Comfort
Landour Days
Anthologies
Collected Fiction (1955–1996)
The Best of Ruskin Bond
Friends in Small Places
Indian Ghost Stories (ed.)
Indian Railway Stories (ed.)
Classic Indian Love Stories and Lyrics (ed.)
Tales of the Open Road
Ruskin Bond’s Book of Nature
Poetry
Ruskin Bond’s Book of Verse
A delectable offering
from a writer
who not only knows
how to make us laugh
but also knows
how to laugh at himself
Playful tigers, ‘ghosts’, elephants, crows and old favourites like Uncle Ken, Miss Bun, the author’s slightly eccentric grandfather and Bond himself weave in and out of the pages of this wildly eclectic, thoroughly delightful and absolutely irresistible anthology featuring previously unpublished pieces like ‘Respect Your Breakfast’ and ‘Uncle Ken Goes to Sea’ as well as beloved classics from Bond’s books.
Marked by the signature charm and subtle wit of one of India’s best loved writers, Ruskin Bond’s Book of Humour will make even the hardened among us crack a smile.
The front cover shows a detail from an illustration by Ajit Ninan
Ruskin Bond’s
Book of
Humour
PENGUIN BOOKS
CONTENTS
Introduction
Crazy Relatives
Uncle Ken
At Sea with Uncle Ken
Grandpa Tickles a Tiger
Grandfather Fights an Ostrich
Owls in the Family
He Said It with Arsenic
Grandfather’s Many Faces
Crazy Creatures
A Crow for All Seasons
The Elephant and the Cassowary Bird
All Creatures Great and Small
The Parrot Who Wouldn’t Talk
Crazy Places
Ghosts of the Savoy
The Writers’ Bar
Voting at Barlowganj
The Night the Roof Blew Off
Up at Sisters Bazaar
Bhabiji’s House
Crazy People
Miss Bun and Others
Miss Ramola and Others
The Trouble with Jinns
Ghosts on the Veranda
Calypso Christmas
Crazy Writer
A Handful of Nuts
Landour Days
Getting the Juices Flowing
All about My Walkabouts
A Knock at the Door
Respect Your Breakfast
Battles Long Ago
Introduction
Men may sometimes be rather similar, but no two women are ever alike.
This was brought home to me last Saturday when, peering short-sightedly out of a crowded bookshop, I saw an attractive woman advancing towards me, all smiles and beaming eyes.
‘Julie!’ I cried and, stepping forward, took her in my arms and planted a resounding kiss on her cheek. The crowded bookshop was all attention.
‘But I’m not Julie!’ she exclaimed, extricating herself from my embrace. ‘That bear-hug was very generous of you, Mr Bond, but all I wanted was your autograph!’
At close quarters I could see that she wasn’t Julie or anyone else that I knew, and I made a mental note to have my eyes tested again. As I was apologising, the sun suddenly disappeared, eclipsed by the enormous figure of a gentleman who resembled a participant in a World Wrestling extravaganza.
‘And this is my husband Brigadier Bhupathi,’ said the woman who wasn’t Julie.
The Brigadier looked me up and down as though I were a corporal on parade.
‘Beetle Bailey at your service,’ I said.
‘And do you always greet your fans with such enthusiasm?’ he asked, twirling his moustache. (Actually, it was twirling on its own, aided by a soft breeze.)
‘Only when they are very special,’ I said, and fled the scene.
As my eyesight is no longer to be relied upon, I must be more careful in public. I have, on occasion worn socks of different colours (setting a trend, I hope), got into someone else’s car (all cars look alike in the dark), and absent-mindedly eaten my host’s fish mayonnaise, having already polished off my own.
Unlike Mr Pickwick, I have yet to get into the wrong bed, but that dreadful possibility (or tremendous adventure, depending on how you look at these things) seems only a few late-night cocktails away.
And I must be careful not to write funny stories about friends or relatives who are within striking distance of me. HH the Maharani of —— cut me out of her will because I’d compared her to a flower. True, it was only a cauliflower, but she took offence. Rules to follow if I want to stay alive:
Never call an actor an ‘ageing actor’.
Never call a writer a ‘minor writer’.
Never call a good drinker a ‘drunk’.
Never call a judge a ‘fathead’.
Never call a general ‘an old duffer’.
It is safest to stick to relatives, real or imaginary, belonging to the distant past. Such as my Uncle Ken, the hero of many misadventures during my boyhood days.
‘Did you really have an Uncle Ken?’ This is a question I am often asked by eager young readers. Uncle Ken is popular with them because he epitomises all that is silly, selfish and incompetent in adults. School children are so used to being called duffers that it’s nice to come across a grown-up who is an even bigger duffer!
I did have an Uncle Ken who perfected the art of doing nothing and still managing to live quite comfortably. Sometimes I think he wasn’t such a duffer after all.
And did Uncle Bill really try to poison me? Well, he was in the habit of carrying around little packets of arsenic, and sometimes these got mixed up with those little packets of sugar that you get in some hotels … But let’s confine him to the realm of fiction, and turn to Grandfather, who did keep a number of unusual pets; and Granny, who had to feed them in addition to feeding a hungry boy and others; and Aunt Mabel, who was afraid of moths (having swallowed one while attempting to sing an aria from Madame Butterfly); and Aunt Ruby, who saw fairies wher
ever she went; and Cousin Percy, who ran away to sea and was last seen struggling to free himself from the tentacles of a giant octopus.
Everyone has at least one aunt or uncle or distant relative who is a potential nutcase. I had several! And thanks to them, I have never run out of stories.
Ruskin Bond
Mussoorie
Dussehra, 2007
Crazy Relatives
Uncle Ken
Granny’s fabulous kitchen
As kitchens went, it wasn’t all that big. It wasn’t as big as the bedroom or the living room, but it was big enough, and there was a pantry next to it. What made it fabulous was all that came out of it: good things to eat like cakes and curries, chocolate fudge and peanut toffee, jellies and jam tarts, meat pies, stuffed turkeys, stuffed chickens, stuffed eggplants, and hams stuffed with stuffed chickens.
As far as I was concerned, Granny was the best cook in the whole wide world.
Two generations of Clerkes had lived in India and my maternal grandmother had settled in a small town called Dehradun …
Granny was glad to have me because she lived alone most of the time. Not entirely alone, though … There was a gardener, who lived in an outhouse. And he had a son called Mohan, who was about my age. And there was Ayah, an elderly maidservant, who helped with the household work. And there was a Siamese cat with bright blue eyes, and a mongrel dog called Crazy because he ran circles round the house.
And, of course, there was Uncle Ken, Granny’s nephew, who came to stay whenever he was out of a job (which was quite often) or when he felt like enjoying some of Granny’s cooking.
Roast Duck. This was one of Granny’s specials. The first time I had roast duck at Granny’s place, Uncle Ken was there too.
He’d just lost a job as a railway guard, and had come to stay with Granny until he could find another job. He always stayed as long as he could, only moving on when Granny offered to get him a job as an assistant master in Padre Lal’s Academy for Small Boys. Uncle Ken couldn’t stand small boys. They made him nervous, he said. I made him nervous too, but there was only one of me, and there was always Granny to protect him. At Padre Lal’s, there were over a hundred small boys.
Although Uncle Ken had a tremendous appetite, and ate just as much as I did, he never praised Granny’s dishes. I think this is why I was annoyed with him at times, and why sometimes I enjoyed making him feel nervous.
Uncle Ken looked down at the roast duck, his glasses slipping down to the edge of his nose.
‘Hm … Duck again, Aunt Ellen?’
‘What do you mean, duck again? You haven’t had duck since you were here last month.’
‘That’s what I mean,’ said Uncle Ken. ‘Somehow, one expects more variety from you, Aunt.’
All the same, he took two large helpings and ate most of the stuffing before I could get at it. I took my revenge by emptying all the apple sauce onto my plate. Uncle Ken knew I loved the stuffing; and I knew he was crazy about Granny’s apple sauce. So we were even.
‘When are you joining your parents?’ he asked hopefully, over the jam tart.
‘I may not go to them this year,’ I said. ‘When are you getting another job, Uncle?’
‘Oh, I’m thinking of taking a rest for a couple of months.’
I enjoyed helping Granny and Ayah with the washing up. While we were at work, Uncle Ken would take a siesta on the veranda or switch on the radio to listen to dance music. Glenn Miller and his Swing Band was all the rage then.
‘And how do you like your Uncle Ken?’ asked Granny one day, as she emptied the bones from his plate into the dog’s bowl.
‘I wish he was someone else’s Uncle,’ I said.
‘He’s not so bad, really. Just eccentric.’
‘What’s eccentric?’
‘Oh, just a little crazy.’
‘At least Crazy runs round the house,’ I said. ‘I’ve never seen Uncle Ken running.’
But I did one day.
Mohan and I were playing marbles in the shade of the mango grove when we were taken aback by the sight of Uncle Ken charging across the compound, pursued by a swarm of bees. He’d been smoking a cigar under a silk-cotton tree, and the fumes had disturbed the wild bees in their hive, directly above him. Uncle Ken fled indoors and leapt into a tub of cold water. He had received a few stings and decided to remain in bed for three days. Ayah took his meals to him on a tray.
‘I didn’t know Uncle Ken could run so fast,’ I said, later that day.
‘It’s nature’s way of compensating,’ said Granny.
‘What’s compensating?’
‘Making up for things … Now at least Uncle Ken knows that he can run. Isn’t that wonderful?’ …
‘It’s high time you found a job,’ said Granny to Uncle Ken one day.
‘There are no jobs in Dehra,’ complained Uncle Ken.
‘How can you tell? You’ve never looked for one. And anyway, you don’t have to stay here for ever. Your sister Emily is headmistress of a school in Lucknow. You could go to her. She said before that she was ready to put you in charge of a dormitory.’
‘Bah!’ said Uncle Ken. ‘Honestly, Aunt, you don’t expect me to look after a dormitory seething with forty or fifty demented small boys?’
‘What’s demented?’ I asked.
‘Shut up,’ said Uncle Ken.
‘It means crazy,’ said Granny.
‘So many words mean crazy,’ I complained. ‘Why don’t we just say crazy. We have a crazy dog, and now Uncle Ken is crazy too.’
Uncle Ken clipped me over my ear, and Granny said, ‘Your Uncle isn’t crazy, so don’t be disrespectful. He’s just lazy.’
‘And eccentric,’ I said. ‘I heard he was eccentric.’
‘Who said I was eccentric?’ demanded Uncle Ken.
‘Miss Leslie,’ I lied. I knew Uncle Ken was fond of Miss Leslie, who ran a beauty parlour in Dehra’s smart shopping centre, Astley Hall.
‘I don’t believe you,’ said Uncle Ken. ‘Anyway, when did you see Miss Leslie?’
‘We sold her a bottle of mint chutney last week. I told her you liked mint chutney. But she said she’d bought it for Mr Brown who’s taking her to the pictures tomorrow.’
Uncle Ken does nothing
To our surprise, Uncle Ken got a part-time job as a guide, showing tourists the ‘sights’ around Dehra.
There was an old fort near the river bed; and a seventeenth-century temple; and a jail where Pandit Nehru had spent some time as a political prisoner; and, about ten miles into the foothills, the hot sulphur springs.
Uncle Ken told us he was taking a party of six American tourists, husbands and wives, to the sulphur springs. Granny was pleased. Uncle Ken was busy at last! She gave him a hamper filled with ham sandwiches, home-made biscuits and a dozen oranges—ample provision for a day’s outing.
The sulphur springs were only ten miles from Dehra, but we didn’t see Uncle Ken for three days.
He was a sight when he got back. His clothes were dusty and torn; his cheeks were sunken; and the little bald patch on top of his head had been burnt a bright red.
‘What have you been doing to yourself?’ asked Granny.
Uncle Ken sank into the armchair on the veranda.
‘I’m starving, Aunt Ellen. Give me something to eat.’
‘What happened to the food you took with you?’
‘There were seven of us, and it was all finished on the first day.’
‘Well, it was only supposed to last a day. You said you were going to the sulphur springs.’
‘Yes, that’s where we were going,’ said Uncle Ken. ‘But we never reached them. We got lost in the hills.’
‘How could you possibly have got lost in the hills? You had only to walk straight along the river bed and up the valley … You ought to know, you were the guide and you’d been there before, when my husband was alive.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Uncle Ken, looking crestfallen. ‘But I forgot the way. That is, I forgot the va
lley. I mean, I took them up the wrong valley. And I kept thinking the springs would be at the same river, but it wasn’t the same river … So we kept walking, until we were in the hills, and then I looked down and saw we’d come up the wrong valley. We had to spend the night under the stars. It was very, very cold. And next day I thought we’d come back a quicker way, through Mussoorie, but we took the wrong path and reached Kempti instead … And then we walked down to the motor road and caught a bus.’
I helped Granny put Uncle Ken to bed, and then I helped her make him a strengthening onion soup. I took him the soup on a tray, and he made a face while drinking it and then asked for more. He was in bed for two days, while Ayah and I took turns taking him his meals. He wasn’t a bit graceful.
When Uncle Ken complained he was losing his hair and that his bald patch was increasing in size, Granny looked up her book of old recipes and said there was one for baldness which Grandfather had used with great success. It consisted of a lotion made with gherkins soaked in brandy. Uncle Ken said he’d try it.
Granny soaked some gherkins in brandy for a week, then gave the bottle to Uncle Ken with instructions to rub a little into his scalp mornings and evenings.
Next day, when she looked into his room, she found only gherkins in the bottle. Uncle Ken had drunk all the brandy.
Uncle ken liked to whistle.
Hands in his pockets, nothing to do, he would stroll about the house, around the garden, up and down the road, whistling feebly to himself.
It was always the same whistle, tuneless to everyone except my uncle.
‘What are you whistling today, Uncle Ken?’ I’d ask.
‘“Ol’ Man River”. Don’t you recognize it?’
And the next time around he’d be whistling the same notes, and I’d say, ‘Still whistling “Ol’ Man River”, Uncle?’
‘No, I’m not. This is “Danny Boy”. Can’t you tell the difference?’