Susanna's Seven Husbands Read online

  RUSKIN BOND

  Susanna’s Seven Husbands

  With a screenplay by

  VISHAL BHARDWAJ and MATTHEW ROBBINS

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Contents

  About the Author

  Preface

  Introduction

  SUSANNA’S SEVEN HUSBANDS

  A novella by Ruskin Bond

  7 KHOON MAAF

  A screenplay by Vishal Bhardwaj and Matthew Robbins

  Appendix

  Susanna’s Seven Husbands

  The original short story by Ruskin Bond

  Copyright Page

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  SUSANNA’S SEVEN HUSBANDS

  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

  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

  The Sensualist

  A Handful of Nuts

  Non-fiction

  Rain in the Mountains

  Scenes from a Writer’s Life

  The Lamp Is Lit

  The Little Book of Comfort

  Landour Days

  Notes from a Small Room

  Anthologies

  Dust on the Mountain: Collected Stories

  The Best of Ruskin Bond

  Friends in Small Places

  Indian Ghost Stories (ed.)

  Indian Railway Stories (ed.)

  Classical Indian Love Stories and Lyrics (ed.)

  Tales of the Open Road

  Ruskin Bond’s Book of Nature

  Ruskin Bond’s Book of Humour

  A Town Called Dehra

  Classic Ruskin Bond

  Poetry

  Ruskin Bond’s Book of Verse

  Preface

  I first met Vishal Bhardwaj when he bought the film rights to my story, ‘The Blue Umbrella’, which he made into a delightful film for picture-goers of all ages.

  After that I did some writing for him, and at his suggestion developed my short story ‘Susanna’s Seven Husbands’ into a novella, creating new characters and incidents. Vishal and Matthew Robbins based their screenplay on this version, and I thought it would be a good idea if we published the novella, short story and screenplay together, thus giving the reader an insight into the way a short story becomes a film story and then a screenplay! Ravi Singh of Penguin India encouraged the idea, and here’s the result.

  This was not the end of my involvement with 7 Khoon Maaf. Vishal suggested that I play a small role in the film, and I readily agreed, thus making my film debut at the age of seventy-six! I had two brief scenes with the beautiful and talented Priyanka Chopra, and I enjoyed the experience of working with her and the entire unit, on location in Pondicherry, and in Mumbai at a beautiful old church in Byculla.

  7 Khoon Maaf is a very different film from The Blue Umbrella. All of Vishal’s films are unique in their own way. I see him as the Hitchcock of Indian cinema, a master of the macabre. And with some sauce and spice added to the suspense!

  RUSKIN BOND

  Introduction

  I remember feeling amused and intrigued when I first came across the title ‘Susanna’s Seven Husbands’ in a collection of Ruskin Bond’s short stories that he had sent me. How and why would somebody get married seven times? Curious, I immediately began reading the story. The wacky side of Ruskin Bond unfolded slowly in front of my eyes. The character of Susanna captivated me, and I was amazed with Ruskin Saab’s ability as a writer to sketch a character who was so interesting, wicked, but at the same time endearing.

  The story stayed with me for a long time. I saw the possibility of a very unusual film in it but I didn’t make any move to acquire the rights. A few months later a film-maker friend of mine called me to say that he was desperately looking for a story and asked whether I could help him find one. I sent him the tale of the seven murders committed by the beautiful Susanna, written in Ruskin Bond’s witty black humour. But my friend couldn’t find a film in it. I read the story once again, and felt an even stronger connection with the material than the previous time.

  I knew Ruskin Saab since my Blue Umbrella days, so I called him to convey my desire to make a film on his short story, but only if he agreed to elaborate it into a novella. Each husband’s character and the manner in which they were killed were very interesting and funny, but they needed to be fleshed out further. Ruskin Saab agreed to write the novella and I went away to shoot Kaminey, which I had been filming at that time.

  While on the sets of Kaminey I started getting chapters from him, written in long hand and sealed in yellow envelopes with his address marked on the left bottom corner: Landour, Mussoorie. I felt so privileged to be the first and only reader of the legendary writer’s new novella. Every time I got the yellow envelope, it turned me into a kid, and I eagerly waited for weeks to get the mail—smelling fresh, and containing a work of such suspense and humour—especially in this age of the Internet and emails. By the time I finished shooting Kaminey, I was sure Susanna’s Seven Husbands would be my next film.

  The second phase started when I sat with my co-writer from San Francisco, Matthew Robbins—my friend, philosopher and guide. Matthew started his career with Steven Spielberg’s first feature film, The Sugarland Express (Duel was the film made for television, hence The Sugarland Express remains his first theatrical motion picture), and his latest is Guillermo Del Toro’s Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. This is the right place for me to thank Matthew for whatever I have learned of screenwriting from him.

  We went to Ooty to hunt for locations and crack the structure of the screenplay. And to our surprise we achieved it in nine days straight. Matthew then went back and wrote the first draft of the script, after which I wrote the second. Thereafter, it becomes difficult to pinpoint who wrote what. But the screenplay in this book is the draft we wrote together, from which I made the film 7 Khoon Maaf.

  The last phase came in filming the screenplay—bringing the characters to life from page to reality; discovering Susanna, her three servants (whom we referred to as the clean-up crew) and her seven precious husbands, or rather, seven precious specimens.

  Film-making in general is a very strange process. Time after time you think that you have learned all there is to learn, and yet you are bound to find yourself struggling once more like a novice. Again I became a boy—ignorant, ambitious, less equipped, and yet confident of achieving the unachievable: inspiring the unit of 300-odd people, motivating them day and night to help me realize my dream. In every film I get this recurring thought during the shoot: ‘Who asked you to be in this situation?’

  One thing that can help push you through all this is the g
limpse of the first screening, when you are watching your film with the audience for the very first time and the light goes dim. When silence descends from within for a few seconds before the first frame appears. In that moment you forget all the pain you have gone through. So many people contribute to the making of a film—from the lead actors to your assistants, the cameramen, the production designers, the costume designers, the sound engineers, right down to the production runners, the spot boys and so on—but the director walks away with all the credit. I wish I could thank each and every one by printing their names here.

  As Gulzar Saab says, a film is made on two tables—initially on the writing table and later on the editing table. So you will find many elements in the script which are missing in the film. In fact, this book will offer readers a glimpse into a very unusual and unique process—of how a tale can be expanded from a short story into a novella and then transformed into a screenplay. Ruskin Saab gave me three alternate endings for the novella, but Matthew and I found a fourth one when we sat down to write the adaptation.

  The sad part is that after working so intensely on a film for over a year, one loses objectivity towards one’s own work. I try hard to remember the first impression I had of some of the incidents when I first read them in the book, but my memory fails me. The good part, however, is that each version of this incredible tale of Susanna and her seven husbands has its own individuality. So it will be difficult, I think, for the reader to choose or say which is better—the novella, the screenplay or the film.

  VISHAL BHARDWAJ

  SUSANNA’S SEVEN HUSBANDS

  A novella by Ruskin Bond

  Episode One

  The Major and the Man-Eater

  I watched in fascination as a gigantic Black Widow spider, her body streaked with green and yellow, crept down the veranda wall in the direction of her sleeping husband. Her body was almost two inches in length, her slender black legs at least six inches long.

  She was the boss-lady, the terror of the veranda walls. Like all spiders, she lived by murder, and her victims often included her own kind. Her husband, a paltry thing about half her size, lived almost entirely on her earnings. He was circumspect and kept out of her way, because he knew she would eat him when she was in the mood to do so.

  I am watching as she moves like the minute-hand of a watch, each step a matter of thought, while all her eight eyes are focused on her victim. He is drowsy today, happily digesting the remains of a beetle slaughtered by his mistress earlier that day. She is bored with him, ready to terminate his aimless existence.

  Suddenly she springs upon the hapless gentleman. There is a brief scuffle. Then she is tearing him to pieces and devouring him.

  When her husband’s life-blood has been sucked dry, his withered corpse falls to the ground. And the way is open for another.

  That Black Widow spider always reminds me of Susanna, my lifelong friend and neighbour. Did I say ‘friend’? Perhaps ‘someone I knew well’ would be a better description. The difference in our ages precluded us from being lovers, although I must say I found her beautiful even in her wicked old age. As I was never her husband, I have survived to tell this story.

  I first saw her when I was twelve years old, living in the bungalow next door to her spacious estate on the outskirts of Meerut. In those days she had a little pony-drawn buggy in which she used to ride up and down the spacious Mall Road in the cantonment.

  And when she went on shikar trips in the scrub forests along the Ganga Canal, she used a World War II jeep, driven by a dwarf of a man who also doubled as a jockey on one of her racehorses. In later years, she could be seen in a BMW or other swank automobile, always driven by her little jockey. But I mustn’t jump the gun. Let me begin at the beginning, and the day I first saw this remarkable woman …

  The guavas were ripe. They hung tantalizingly from the branches of the guava trees in the orchard behind the big house. No one seemed to be looking after them or gathering them for the market. What a waste! The temptation was too great for me. I scaled the wall that separated our bungalow from the big house, selected a tree that was easy to climb, and was soon in its branches devouring the luscious fruit. So intent was I on consuming as many guavas as my stomach could contain that I did not notice the approach of the rider on horseback until she was right before me, tapping her whip on her riding-boots and staring at me in obvious displeasure. She had raven-black hair, dark smouldering eyes, and the figure of an athlete. I guessed that she was about ten years older than me.

  ‘Er—good morning, miss,’ I stammered, a half-eaten guava falling from my hand.

  ‘Good morning to you, sir. And what may you be doing in my guava trees?’

  ‘Stealing guavas, miss.’

  ‘An honest thief! The truth always has a certain authority about it. And you live next door, I think. No school today?’

  ‘I skipped school, miss.’

  She laughed—an infectious, devil-may-care laugh. ‘I love your honesty, you little thief!’ And she tapped her horse with her whip and cantered away in the direction of the house.

  I hurried home, fearful that a report would be lodged with my parents. But next morning a little man wearing a jockey cap rode up in a buggy, ascended our veranda steps, and deposited a basket of guavas on the wicker table outside our front door. He said nothing—I discovered later that he was deaf and dumb—but gestured towards the big house and gave me to understand that they were a gift from his mistress, the mysterious woman who owned the orchard. Before I could say anything, he gave me a quick salute, and with a wicked grin returned to his buggy and rode away.

  ‘Who sent you all these guavas?’ asked my mother.

  ‘The lady next door,’ I said. ‘I met her yesterday.’

  ‘She must be a very kind person,’ said my mother.

  Yes, she was kind to children and animals, as I was to discover. And kind even to odd creatures and freaks like the dwarf who had brought me the guavas. Her cruelty was reserved for another species of human.

  Susanna Anna-Maria Johannes was her full name. She was of Dutch and East Indian descent. Her grandfather had made his fortune in indigo, and her father had trained and bred racehorses with some success. Her mother had died when she was an infant, and she had been brought up by her father, who had taught her to ride, look after the horses, and run the estate. Upon his death, a year before I met her, she inherited the property, the horses and considerable wealth in the form of ‘treasure’ which, the gossips said, was hidden away in some underground chamber on the estate.

  She had servants, and a pair of greyhounds who often followed her when she rode about the grounds, but no one in the neighbourhood had been inside the rambling old mansion. Her father had been an unsociable, grumpy old man whose life had revolved around the racecourse. He had discouraged visitors, and Susanna had grown up in the company of dogs, horses and domestic servants.

  Sometimes she would pass me on the road, and she would acknowledge my greeting with a fleeting smile or a wave of the hand. Every week she would visit the Wheeler Club to borrow a book from its lending library, and it was there that she met Major Mehta, an officer in one of the regiments posted in Meerut. He was a good ten years older than Susanna, but he had a charming manner, and his good looks were enhanced by a Jackie-Shroff-type moustache and the long legs of an Amitabh Bachchan. ‘You ought to be in the movies,’ said his fellow officers in jest. ‘Maybe I will, one day,’ he’d reply, for he was rather vain.

  Susanna, unaccustomed to male company, was soon bowled over by the handsome Major, who took her to parties and dances and shopping sprees to Delhi, where it was Susanna who did most of the spending.

  He was soon sharing her buggy, and one day when they stopped outside her front gate, I happened to come along on my bicycle. I got down and greeted Susanna in my polite schoolboy fashion. She turned to the Major and said, ‘You must meet my young friend and neighbour. He’s good at climbing trees.’

  ‘Hello, young man,’ said the
Major rather patronizingly. ‘And what’s your name?’

  ‘Arun,’ I said. ‘And what’s yours?’

  ‘Hari Mehta. And Susanna here will soon be Mrs Mehta.’

  This was news to me and it was also news to the little jockey-driver who had just come up to take charge of the buggy as its occupants got down. The ‘Goonga’, as he was known, looked from his mistress to the Major, and when his eyes settled on the Major they were filled with a hatred the intensity of which I had not seen before.

  ‘Congratulations, sir,’ I said.

  ‘And you will come to the wedding, I hope,’ said Susanna.

  ‘Of course, miss.’

  But I did not attend the wedding. They were married in the magistrate’s office, and this was followed by a reception in the regimental mess. The liquor flowed freely, and the couple’s health and happiness was the subject of a number of toasts. The couple spent their honeymoon in Mussoorie, occupying the best suite in the Savoy. Susanna paid for it, of course. And on their return to Meerut, the Major lost no time in urging upon Susanna the necessity of having a joint account. ‘Either, or Survivor’!

  The Major had every intention of being a survivor, and even managed to avoid a posting in a sensitive border area, where there was an occasional exchange of fire. Not that the Major disliked guns. He was something of a shikari, by his own account, and boasted of having disposed of more than one man-eating tiger, two leopards and a crocodile. Actually, Susanna knew more about wild animals and shikar than the Major, having often accompanied her father into the jungles around Dehra and Bijnor. Sometimes they had been accompanied by a friend of her father’s, a certain Jim Corbett, and Susanna had picked up a fair amount of jungle-craft from him.

  The Major did not invite any of his fellow officers over to their home. Soon after the marriage, a streak of jealousy had become apparent in his nature.