by Ruskin Bond
The station, I remember, had only one platform, an office for the stationmaster, and a waiting room. The platform boasted a tea stall, a fruit vendor, and a few stray dogs. Not much else was required because the train stopped at Shamli for only five minutes before rushing on into the forests.
Why it stopped at Shamli, I never could tell. Nobody got off the train and nobody got on. There were never any coolies on the platform. But the train would stand there a full five minutes and the guard would blow his whistle and presently Shamli would be left behind and forgotten … until I passed that way again.
I was paying my relations in Saharanpur an annual visit when the night train stopped at Shamli. I was thirty-six at the time and still single.
On this particular journey, the train came into Shamli just as I awoke from a restless sleep. The third-class compartment was crowded beyond capacity and I had been sleeping in an upright position with my back to the lavatory door. Now someone was trying to get into the lavatory. He was obviously hard pressed for time.
‘I’m sorry, brother,’ I said, moving as much as I could to one side.
He stumbled into the closet without bothering to close the door.
‘Where are we now?’ I asked the man sitting beside me. He was smoking a strong aromatic beedi.
‘Shamli station,’ he said, rubbing the palm of a large calloused hand over the frosted glass of the window.
I let the window down and stuck my head out. There was a cool breeze blowing down the platform, a breeze that whispered of autumn in the hills. As usual there was no activity except for the fruit vendor walking up and down the length of the train with his basket of mangoes balanced on his head. At the tea stall, a kettle was steaming, but there was no one to mind it. I rested my forehead on the window ledge and let the breeze play on my temples. I had been feeling sick and giddy but there was a wild sweetness in the wind that I found soothing.
‘Yes,’ I said to myself, ‘I wonder what happens in Shamli behind the station walls.’
My fellow passenger offered me a beedi. He was a farmer, I think, on his way to Dehra. He had a long, untidy, sad moustache.
We had been more than five minutes at the station. I looked up and down the platform, but nobody was getting on or off the train. Presently the guard came walking past our compartment.
‘What’s the delay?’ I asked him.
‘Some obstruction further down the line,’ he said.
‘Will we be here long?’
‘I don’t know what the trouble is. About half an hour at the least.’
My neighbour shrugged and throwing the remains of his beedi out of the window, closed his eyes and immediately fell asleep. I moved restlessly in my seat and then the man came out of the lavatory, not so urgently now, and with obvious peace of mind. I closed the door for him.
I stood up and stretched and this stretching of my limbs seemed to set in motion a stretching of the mind and I found myself thinking: ‘I am in no hurry to get to Saharanpur and I have always wanted to see Shamli behind the station walls. If I get down now, I can spend the day here. It will be better than sitting in this train for another hour. Then in the evening I can catch the next train home.’
In those days I never had the patience to wait for second thoughts and so I began pulling my small suitcase out from under the seat.
The farmer woke up and asked, ‘What are you doing, brother?’
‘I’m getting out,’ I said.
He went to sleep again.
It would have taken at least fifteen minutes to reach the door as people and their belongings cluttered up the passage. So I let my suitcase down from the window and followed it on to the platform.
There was no one to collect my ticket at the barrier because there was obviously no point in keeping a man there to collect tickets from passengers who never came. And anyway, I had a through-ticket to my destination which I would need in the evening.
I went out of the station and came to Shamli.
Outside the station there was a neem tree and under it stood a tonga. The pony was nibbling at the grass at the foot of the tree. The youth in the front seat was the only human in sight. There were no signs of inhabitants or habitation. I approached the tonga and the youth stared at me as though he couldn’t believe his eyes.
‘Where is Shamli?’ I asked.
‘Why, friend, this is Shamli,’ he said.
I looked around again but couldn’t see any sign of life. A dusty road led past the station and disappeared into the forest.
‘Does anyone live here?’ I asked.
‘I live here,’ he said with an engaging smile. He looked an amiable, happy-go-lucky fellow. He wore a cotton tunic and dirty white pyjamas.
‘Where?’ I asked.
‘In my tonga, of course,’ he said. ‘I have had this pony five years now. I carry supplies to the hotel. But today the manager has not come to collect them. You are going to the hotel? I will take you.’
‘Oh, so there’s a hotel?’
‘Well, friend, it is called that. And there are a few houses too and some shops, but they are all about a mile from the station. If they were not a mile from here, I would be out of business.’
I felt relieved but I still had the feeling of having walked into a town consisting of one station, one pony and one man.
‘You can take me,’ I said. ‘I’m staying till this evening.’
He heaved my suitcase into the seat beside him and I climbed in at the back. He flicked the reins and slapped his pony on the buttocks and, with a roll and a lurch, the buggy moved off down the dusty forest road.
‘What brings you here?’ asked the youth.
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘The train was delayed. I was feeling bored. And so I got off.’
He did not believe that but he didn’t question me further. The sun was reaching up over the forest but the road lay in the shadow of tall trees—eucalyptus, mango and neem.
‘Not many people stay in the hotel,’ he said. ‘So it is cheap. You will get a room for five rupees.’
‘Who is the manager?’
‘Mr Satish Dayal. It is his father’s property. Satish Dayal could not pass his exams or get a job so his father sent him here to look after the hotel.’
The jungle thinned out and we passed a temple, a mosque, a few small shops. There was a strong smell of burnt sugar in the air and in the distance I saw a factory chimney. That, then, was the reason for Shamli’s existence. We passed a bullock cart laden with sugarcane. The road went through fields of cane and maize, and then, just as we were about to re-enter the jungle, the youth pulled his horse to a side road and the hotel came in sight.
It was a small white bungalow with a garden in the front, banana trees at the sides and an orchard of guava trees at the back. We came jingling up to the front veranda. Nobody appeared, nor was there any sign of life on the premises.
‘They are all asleep,’ said the youth.
I said, ‘I’ll sit in the veranda and wait.’ I got down from the tonga and the youth dropped my case on the veranda steps. Then he stooped in front of me, smiling amiably, waiting to be paid.
‘Well, how much?’ I asked.
‘As a friend, only one rupee.’
‘That’s too much,’ I complained. ‘This is not Delhi.’
‘This is Shamli,’ he said. ‘I am the only tonga in Shamli. You may not pay me anything, if that is your wish. But then, I will not take you back to the station this evening. You will have to walk.’
I gave him the rupee. He had both charm and cunning, an effective combination.
‘Come in the evening at about six,’ I said.
‘I will come,’ he said with an infectious smile. ‘Don’t worry.’ I waited till the tonga had gone round the bend in the road before walking up the veranda steps.
The doors of the house were closed and there were no bells to ring. I didn’t have a watch but I judged the time to be a little past six o’clock. The hotel didn’t look very impressive
. The whitewash was coming off the walls and the cane chairs on the veranda were old and crooked. A stag’s head was mounted over the front door but one of its glass eyes had fallen out. I had often heard hunters speak of how beautiful an animal looked before it died, but how could anyone with true love of the beautiful care for the stuffed head of an animal, grotesquely mounted, with no resemblance to its living aspect?
I felt too restless to take any of the chairs. I began pacing up and down the veranda, wondering if I should start banging on the doors. Perhaps the hotel was deserted. Perhaps the tonga driver had played a trick on me. I began to regret my impulsiveness in leaving the train. When I saw the manager I would have to invent a reason for coming to his hotel. I was good at inventing reasons. I would tell him that a friend of mine had stayed here some years ago and that I was trying to trace him. I decided that my friend would have to be a little eccentric (having chosen Shamli to live in), that he had become a recluse, shutting himself off from the world. His parents—no, his sister—for his parents would be dead—had asked me to find him if I could and, as he had last been heard of in Shamli, I had taken the opportunity to inquire after him. His name would be Major Roberts, retired.
I heard a tap running at the side of the building and walking around found a young man bathing at the tap. He was strong and well-built and slapped himself on the body with great enthusiasm. He had not seen me approaching so I waited until he had finished bathing and had begun to dry himself.
‘Hallo,’ I said.
He turned at the sound of my voice and looked at me for a few moments with a puzzled expression. He had a round cheerful face and crisp black hair. He smiled slowly. But it was a more genuine smile than the tonga driver’s. So far I had met two people in Shamli and they were both smilers. That should have cheered me, but it didn’t. ‘You have come to stay?’ he asked in a slow, easygoing voice.
‘Just for the day,’ I said. ‘You work here?’
‘Yes, my name is Daya Ram. The manager is asleep just now but I will find a room for you.’
He pulled on his vest and pyjamas and accompanied me back to the veranda. Here he picked up my suitcase and, unlocking a side door, led me into the house. We went down a passageway. Then Daya Ram stopped at the door on the right, pushed it open and took me into a small, sunny room that had a window looking out on to the orchard. There was a bed, a desk, a couple of cane chairs, and a frayed and faded red carpet.
‘Is it all right?’ said Daya Ram.
‘Perfectly all right.’
‘They have breakfast at eight o’clock. But if you are hungry, I will make something for you now.’
‘No, it’s all right. Are you the cook too?’
‘I do everything here.’
‘Do you like it?’
‘No,’ he said. And then added, in a sudden burst of confidence, ‘There are no women for a man like me.’
‘Why don’t you leave, then?’
‘I will,’ he said with a doubtful look on his face. ‘I will leave …’
After he had gone I shut the door and went into the bathroom to bathe. The cold water refreshed me and made me feel one with the world. After I had dried myself, I sat on the bed, in front of the open window. A cool breeze, smelling of rain, came through the window and played over my body. I thought I saw a movement among the trees.
And getting closer to the window, I saw a girl on a swing. She was a small girl, all by herself, and she was swinging to and fro and singing, and her song carried faintly on the breeze.
I dressed quickly and left my room. The girl’s dress was billowing in the breeze, her pigtails flying about. When she saw me approaching, she stopped swinging and stared at me. I stopped a little distance away.
‘Who are you?’ she asked.
‘A ghost,’ I replied.
‘You look like one,’ she said.
I decided to take this as a compliment, as I was determined to make friends. I did not smile at her because some children dislike adults who smile at them all the time.
‘What’s your name?’ I asked.
‘Kiran,’ she said. ‘I’m ten.’
‘You are getting old.’
‘Well, we all have to grow old one day. Aren’t you coming any closer?’
‘May I?’ I asked.
‘You may. You can push the swing.’
One pigtail lay across the girl’s chest, the other behind her shoulder. She had a serious face and obviously felt she had responsibilities. She seemed to be in a hurry to grow up, and I suppose she had no time for anyone who treated her as a child. I pushed the swing until it went higher and higher and then I stopped pushing so that she came lower each time and we could talk.
‘Tell me about the people who live here,’ I said.
‘There is Heera,’ she said. ‘He’s the gardener. He’s nearly a hundred. You can see him behind the hedges in the garden. You can’t see him unless you look hard. He tells me stories, a new story every day. He’s much better than the people in the hotel and so is Daya Ram.’
‘Yes, I met Daya Ram.’
‘He’s my bodyguard. He brings me nice things from the kitchen when no one is looking.’
‘You don’t stay here?’
‘No, I live in another house. You can’t see it from here. My father is the manager of the factory.’
‘Aren’t there any other children to play with?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know any,’ she said.
‘And the people staying here?’
‘Oh, they.’ Apparently Kiran didn’t think much of the hotel guests. ‘Miss Deeds is funny when she’s drunk. And Mr Lin is the strangest.’
‘And what about the manager, Mr Dayal?’
‘He’s mean. And he gets frightened of the slightest things. But Mrs Dayal is nice. She lets me take flowers home. But she doesn’t talk much.’
I was fascinated by Kiran’s ruthless summing up of the guests. I brought the swing to a standstill and asked, ‘And what do you think of me?’
‘I don’t know as yet,’ said Kiran quite seriously. ‘I’ll think about you.’
As I came back to the hotel, I heard the sound of a piano in one of the front rooms. I didn’t know enough about music to be able to recognize the piece but it had sweetness and melody though it was played with some hesitancy. As I came nearer, the sweetness deserted the music, probably because the piano was out of tune.
The person at the piano had distinctive Mongolian features and so I presumed he was Mr Lin. He hadn’t seen me enter the room and I stood beside the curtains of the door, watching him play. He had full round lips and high, slanting cheekbones. His eyes were large and round and full of melancholy. His long, slender fingers hardly touched the keys.
I came nearer and then he looked up at me, without any show of surprise or displeasure, and kept on playing.
‘What are you playing?’ I asked.
‘Chopin,’ he said.
‘Oh, yes. It’s nice but the piano is fighting it.’
‘I know. This piano belonged to one of Kipling’s aunts. It hasn’t been tuned since the last century.’
‘Do you live here?’
‘No, I come from Calcutta,’ he answered readily. ‘I have some business here with the sugarcane people, actually, though I am not a businessman.’ He was playing softly all the time so that our conversation was not lost in the music. ‘I don’t know anything about business. But I have to do something.’
‘Where did you learn to play the piano?’
‘In Singapore. A French lady taught me. She had great hopes of my becoming a concert pianist when I grew up. I would have toured Europe and America.’
‘Why didn’t you?’
‘We left during the War and I had to give up my lessons.’
‘And why did you go to Calcutta?’
‘My father is a Calcutta businessman. What do you do and why do you come here?’ he asked. ‘If I am not being too inquisitive.’
Before I could answer, a bell rang
, loud and continuously, drowning the music and conversation.
‘Breakfast,’ said Mr Lin.
A thin dark man, wearing glasses, stepped nervously into the room and peered at me in an anxious manner.
‘You arrived last night?’
‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘I just want to stay the day. I think you’re the manager?’
‘Yes. Would you like to sign the register?’
I went with him past the bar and into the office. I wrote my name and Mussoorie address in the register and the duration of my stay. I paused at the column marked ‘Profession’, thought it would be best to fill it with something and wrote ‘Author’.
‘You are here on business?’ asked Mr Dayal.
‘No, not exactly. You see, I’m looking for a friend of mine who was last heard of in Shamli, about three years ago. I thought I’d make a few inquiries in case he’s still here.’
‘What was his name? Perhaps he stayed here.’
‘Major Roberts,’ I said. ‘An Anglo-Indian.’
‘Well, you can look through the old registers after breakfast.’
He accompanied me into the dining room. The establishment was really more of a boarding house than a hotel because Mr Dayal ate with his guests. There was a round mahogany dining table in the centre of the room and Mr Lin was the only one seated at it. Daya Ram hovered about with plates and trays. I took my seat next to Lin and, as I did so, a door opened from the passage and a woman of about thirty-five came in.
She had on a skirt and blouse which accentuated a firm, well-rounded figure, and she walked on high heels, with a rhythmical swaying of the hips. She had an uninteresting face, camouflaged with lipstick, rouge and powder—the powder so thick that it had become embedded in the natural lines of her face—but her figure compelled admiration.
‘Miss Deeds,’ whispered Lin.
There was a false note to her greeting.
‘Hallo, everyone,’ she said heartily, straining for effect. ‘Why are you all so quiet? Has Mr Lin been playing the Funeral March again?’ She sat down and continued talking. ‘Really, we must have a dance or something to liven things up. You must know some good numbers, Lin, after your experience of Singapore nightclubs. What’s for breakfast? Boiled eggs. Daya Ram, can’t you make an omelette for a change? I know you’re not a professional cook but you don’t have to give us the same thing every day, and there’s absolutely no reason why you should burn the toast. You’ll have to do something about a cook, Mr Dayal.’ Then she noticed me sitting opposite her. ‘Oh, hallo,’ she said, genuinely surprised. She gave me a long appraising look.