by Ruskin Bond
I remained alone for two months and then I had to see you again, Sushila. I could not bear the long-drawn-out uncertainty of the situation. I wanted to do something that would bring everything nearer to a conclusion. Merely to stand by and wait was intolerable. Nor could I bear the secrecy to which Dinesh had sworn me. Someone else would have to know about my intentions—someone would have to help. I needed another ally to sustain my hopes; only then would I find the waiting easier.
You had not been keeping well and looked thin, but you were as cheerful, as serene as ever.
When I took you to the pictures with Sunil, you wore a sleeveless kameez made of purple silk. It set off your dark beauty very well. Your face was soft and shy and your smile hadn’t changed. I could not keep my eyes off you.
Returning home in the taxi, I held your hand all the way.
Sunil (in Punjabi): ‘Will you give your children English or Hindi names?’
Me: ‘Hindustani names.’
Sunil (in Punjabi): ‘Ah, that is the right answer, Uncle!’
And first I went to your mother.
She was a tiny woman and looked very delicate. But she’d had six children—a seventh was on the way—and they had all come into the world without much difficulty and were the healthiest in the entire joint family.
She was on her way to see relatives in another part of the city and I accompanied her part of the way. As she was pregnant, she was offered a seat in the crowded bus. I managed to squeeze in beside her. She had always shown a liking for me and I did not find it difficult to come to the point.
‘At what age would you like Sushila to get married?’ I asked casually, with almost paternal interest.
‘We’ll worry about that when the time comes. She has still to finish school. And if she keeps failing her exams, she will never finish school.’
I took a deep breath and made the plunge.
‘When the time comes,’ I said, ‘when the time comes, I would like to marry her.’ And without waiting to see what her reaction would be, I continued: ‘I know I must wait, a year or two, even longer. But I am telling you this, so that it will be in your mind. You are her mother and so I want you to be the first to know.’ (Liar that I was! She was about the fifth to know. But what I really wanted to say was, ‘Please don’t be looking for any other husband for her just yet.’)
She didn’t show much surprise. She was a placid woman. But she said, rather sadly, ‘It’s all right but I don’t have much say in the family. I do not have any money, you see. It depends on the others, especially her grandmother.’
‘I’ll speak to them when the time comes. Don’t worry about that. And you don’t have to worry about money or anything—what I mean is, I don’t believe in dowries—I mean, you don’t have to give me a Godrej cupboard and a sofa set and that sort of thing. All I want is Sushila …’
‘She is still very young.’
But she was pleased—pleased that her flesh and blood, her own daughter, could mean so much to a man.
‘Don’t tell anyone else just now,’ I said.
‘I won’t tell anyone,’ she said with a smile.
So now the secret—if it could be called that—was shared by at least five people.
The bus crawled on through the busy streets and we sat in silence, surrounded by a press of people but isolated in the intimacy of our conversation.
I warmed towards her—towards that simple, straightforward, uneducated woman (she had never been to school, could not read or write), who might still have been young and pretty had her circumstances been different. I asked her when the baby was due.
‘In two months,’ she said. She laughed. Evidently she found it unusual and rather amusing for a young man to ask her such a question.
‘I’m sure it will be a fine baby,’ I said. And I thought: That makes six brothers-in-law!
I did not think I would get a chance to speak to your Uncle Ravi (Dinesh’s elder brother) before I left. But on my last evening in Delhi, I found myself alone with him on the Karol Bagh road. At first we spoke of his own plans for marriage, and, to please him, I said the girl he’d chosen was both beautiful and intelligent.
He warmed towards me.
Clearing my throat, I went on. ‘Ravi, you are five years younger than me and you are about to get married.’
‘Yes, and it’s time you thought of doing the same thing.’
‘Well, I’ve never thought seriously about it before—I’d always scorned the institution of marriage—but now I’ve changed my mind. Do you know whom I’d like to marry?’
To my surprise Ravi unhesitatingly took the name of Asha, a distant cousin I’d met only once. She came from Ferozepur, and her hips were so large that from a distance she looked like an oversized pear.
‘No, no,’ I said. ‘Asha is a lovely girl but I wasn’t thinking of her. I would like to marry a girl like Sushila. To be frank, Ravi, I would like to marry Sushila.’
There was a long silence and I feared the worst. The noise of cars, scooters and buses seemed to recede into the distance and Ravi and I were alone together in a vacuum of silence.
So that the awkwardness would not last too long, I stumbled on with what I had to say. ‘I know she’s young and that I will have to wait for some time.’ (Familiar words!) ‘But if you approve, and the family approves, and Sushila approves, well then, there’s nothing I’d like better than to marry her.’
Ravi pondered, scratched himself, and then, to my delight, said: ‘Why not? It’s a fine idea.’
The traffic sounds returned to the street, and I felt as though I could set fire to a bus or do something equally in keeping with my high spirits.
‘It would bring you even closer to us,’ said Ravi. ‘We would like to have you in our family. At least I would like it.’
‘That makes all the difference,’ I said. ‘I will do my best for her, Ravi. I’ll do everything to make her happy.’
‘She is very simple and unspoilt.’
‘I know. That’s why I care so much for her.’
‘I will do what I can to help you. She should finish school by the time she is seventeen. It does not matter if you are older. Twelve years difference in age is not uncommon. So don’t worry. Be patient and all will be arranged.’
And so I had three strong allies—Dinesh, Ravi and your mother. Only your grandmother remained, and I dared not approach her on my own. She was the most difficult hurdle because she was the head of the family and she was autocratic and often unpredictable. She was not on good terms with your mother and for that very reason I feared that she might oppose my proposal. I had no idea how much she valued Ravi’s and Dinesh’s judgement. All I knew was that they bowed to all her decisions.
How impossible it was for you to shed the burden of your relatives! Individually, you got on quite well with all of them; but because they could not live without bickering among themselves, you were just a pawn in the great Joint Family Game.
You put my hand to your cheek and to your breast. I kissed your closed eyes and took your face in my hands, and touched your lips with mine; a phantom kiss in the darkness of a veranda. And then, intoxicated, I stumbled into the road and walked the streets all night.
I was sitting on the rocks above the oak forest when I saw a young man walking towards me down the steep path. From his careful manner of walking, and light clothing, I could tell that he was a stranger, one who was not used to the hills. He was about my height, slim, rather long in the face; good looking in a delicate sort of way. When he came nearer, I recognized him as the young man in the photograph, the youth of my dream—your late admirer! I wasn’t too surprised to see him. Somehow, I had always felt that we would meet one day.
I remembered his name and said, ‘How are you, Pramod?’
He became rather confused. His eyes were already clouded with doubt and unhappiness; but he did not appear to be an aggressive person.
‘How did you know my name?’ he asked.
‘How did you know where to find me?
’ I countered.
‘Your neighbours, the Kapoors, told me. I could not wait for you to return to the house. I have to go down again tonight.’
‘Well then, would you like to walk home with me, or would you prefer to sit here and talk? I know who you are but I’ve no idea why you’ve come to see me.’
‘It’s all right here,’ he said, spreading his handkerchief on the grass before sitting down on it. ‘How did you know my name?’
I stared at him for a few moments and got the impression that he was a vulnerable person—perhaps more vulnerable than myself. My only advantage was that I was older and therefore better able to conceal my real feelings.
‘Sushila told me,’ I said.
‘Oh. I did not think you would know.’
I was a little puzzled but said, ‘I knew about you, of course. And you must have known that or you would hardly have come here to see me.’
‘You knew about Sushila and me?’ he asked, looking even more confused.
‘Well, I know that you are supposed to be in love with her.’
He smote himself on the forehead. ‘My God! Do the others know, too?’
‘I don’t think so.’ I deliberately avoided mention of Sunil.
In his distraction he started plucking at tufts of grass. ‘Did she tell you?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Girls can’t keep secrets. But in a way I’m glad she told you. Now I don’t have to explain everything. You see, I came here for your help. I know you are not her real uncle but you are very close to her family. Last year in Delhi she often spoke about you. She said you were very kind.’
It then occurred to me that Pramod knew nothing about my relationship with you, other than that I was supposed to be the most benevolent of ‘uncles’. He knew that you had spent your summer holidays with me—but so had Dinesh and Sunil. And now, aware that I was a close friend of the family, he had come to make an ally of me—in much the same way that I had gone about making allies!
‘Have you seen Sushila recently?’ I asked.
‘Yes. Two days ago, in Delhi. But I had only a few minutes alone with her. We could not talk much. You see, Uncle—you will not mind if I also call you uncle? I want to marry her but there is no one who can speak to her people on my behalf. My own parents are not alive. If I go straight to her family, most probably I will be thrown out of the house. So I want you to help me. I am not well off but I will soon have a job and then I can support her.’
‘Did you tell her all this?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what did she say?’
‘She told me to speak to you about it.’
Clever Sushila! Diabolical Sushila!
‘To me?’ I repeated.
‘Yes, she said it would be better than talking to her parents.’
I couldn’t help laughing. And a long-tailed blue magpie, disturbed by my laughter, set up a shrill creaking and chattering of its own.
‘Don’t laugh, I’m serious, Uncle,’ said Pramod. He took me by the hand and looked at me appealingly.
‘Well, it ought to be serious,’ I said. ‘How old are you, Pramod?’
‘Twenty-three.’
‘Only seven years younger than me. So please don’t call me uncle. It makes me feel prehistoric. Use my first name, if you like. And when do you hope to marry Sushila?’
‘As soon as possible. I know she is still very young for me.’
‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘Young girls are marrying middle-aged men every day! And you’re still quite young yourself. But she can’t get married as yet, Pramod, I know that for a certainty.’
‘That’s what I feared. She will have to finish school, I suppose.’
‘That’s right. But tell me something. It’s obvious that you are in love with her and I don’t blame you for it. Sushila is the kind of girl we all fall in love with! But do you know if she loves you? Did she say she would like to marry you?’
‘She did not say—I do not know …’ There was a haunted, hurt look in his eyes and my heart went out to him. ‘But I love her—isn’t that enough?’
‘It could be enough—provided she doesn’t love someone else.’
‘Does she, Uncle?’
‘To be frank, I don’t know.’
He brightened up at that. ‘She likes me,’ he said. ‘I know that much.’
‘Well, I like you too, but that doesn’t mean I’d marry you.’
He was despondent again. ‘I see what you mean … But what is love, how can I recognize it?’
And that was one question I couldn’t answer. How do we recognize it?
I persuaded Pramod to stay the night. The sun had gone down and he was shivering. I made a fire, the first of the winter, using oak and thorn branches. Then I shared my brandy with him.
I did not feel any resentment against Pramod. Prior to meeting him, I had been jealous. And when I first saw him coming along the path, I remembered my dream, and thought, ‘Perhaps I am going to kill him, after all. Or perhaps he’s going to kill me.’ But it had turned out differently. If dreams have any meaning at all, the meaning doesn’t come within our limited comprehension.
I had visualized Pramod as being rather crude, selfish and irresponsible, an unattractive college student, the type who has never known or understood girls very well and looks on them as strange exotic creatures who are to be seized and plundered at the first opportunity. Such men do exist but Pramod was never one of them. He did not know much about women; neither did I. He was gentle, polite, unsure of himself. I wondered if I should tell him about my own feelings for you.
After a while he began to talk about himself and about you. He told me how he fell in love with you. At first he had been friendly with another girl, a class fellow of yours but a year or two older. You had carried messages to him on the girl’s behalf. Then the girl had rejected him. He was terribly depressed and one evening he drank a lot of cheap liquor. Instead of falling dead, as he had been hoping, he lost his way and met you near your home. He was in need of sympathy and you gave him that. You let him hold your hand. He told you how hopeless he felt and you comforted him. And when he said the world was a cruel place, you consented. You agreed with him. What more can a man expect from a woman? Only fourteen at the time, you had no difficulty in comforting a man of twenty-two. No wonder he fell in love with you!
Afterwards you met occasionally on the road and spoke to each other. He visited the house once or twice, on some pretext or other. And when you came to the hills, he wrote to you.
That was all he had to tell me. That was all there was to tell. You had touched his heart once and touching it, had no difficulty in capturing it.
Next morning I took Pramod down to the stream. I wanted to tell him everything and somehow I could not do it in the house.
He was charmed by the place. The water flowed gently, its music subdued, soft chamber music after the monsoon orchestration. Cowbells tinkled on the hillside and an eagle soared high above.
‘I did not think water could be so clear,’ said Pramod. ‘It is not muddy like the streams and rivers of the plains.’
‘In the summer you can bathe here,’ I said. ‘There is a pool further downstream.’
He nodded thoughtfully. ‘Did she come here too?’
‘Yes, Sushila and Sunil and I … We came here on two or three occasions.’ My voice trailed off and I glanced at Pramod standing at the edge of the water. He looked up at me and his eyes met mine.
‘There is something I want to tell you,’ I said.
He continued staring at me and a shadow seemed to pass across his face—a shadow of doubt, fear, death, eternity, was it one or all of these, or just a play of light and shade? But I remembered my dream and stepped back from him. For a moment both of us looked at each other with distrust and uncertainty. Then the fear passed. Whatever had happened between us, dream or reality, had happened in some other existence. Now he took my hand and held it, held it tight, as though seeking assurance, as thou
gh identifying himself with me.
‘Let us sit down,’ I said. ‘There is something I must tell you.’
We sat down on the grass and when I looked up through the branches of the banj oak, everything seemed to have been tilted and held at an angle, and the sky shocked me with its blueness, and the leaves were no longer green but purple in the shadows of the ravine. They were your colour, Sushila. I remembered you wearing purple—dark smiling Sushila, thinking your own thoughts and refusing to share them with anyone.
‘I love Sushila too,’ I said.
‘I know,’ he said naïvely. ‘That is why I came to you for help.’
‘No, you don’t know,’ I said. ‘When I say I love Sushila, I mean just that. I mean caring for her in the same way that you care for her. I mean I want to marry her.’
‘You, Uncle?’
‘Yes. Does it shock you very much?’
‘No, no.’ He turned his face away and stared at the worn face of an old grey rock and perhaps he drew some strength from its permanency. ‘Why should you not love her? Perhaps, in my heart, I really knew it, but did not want to know—did not want to believe. Perhaps that is why I really came here—to find out. Something that Sunil said … But why didn’t you tell me before?’
‘Because you were telling me!’
‘Yes, I was too full of my own love to think that any other was possible. What do we do now? Do we both wait and then let her make her choice?’
‘If you wish.’
‘You have the advantage, Uncle. You have more to offer.’
‘Do you mean more security or more love? Some women place more value on the former.’
‘Not Sushila.’
‘I mean you can offer her a more interesting life. You are a writer. Who knows, you may be famous one day.’
‘You have your youth to offer, Pramod. I have only a few years of youth left to me—and two or three of them will pass in waiting.’
‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘You will always be young. If you have Sushila, you will always be young.’
Once again I heard the whistling thrush. Its song was a crescendo of sweet notes and variations that rang clearly across the ravine. I could not see the bird but its call emerged from the forest like some dark sweet secret and again it was saying, ‘It isn’t time that’s passing by, my friend. It is you and I.’