Tales of the Open Road Read online

  RUSKIN BOND

  Tales of the Open Road

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Contents

  About the Author

  Introduction

  The Open Road

  Plain Tales

  At Home in the Hills

  Into the Mountains

  Copyright Page

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  TALES OF THE OPEN ROAD

  Ruskin Bond was born in Kasauli in 1934, and grew up in Jamnagar, Dehradun, New Delhi and Simla. 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. His first novel, The Room on the Roof, received the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, awarded to a Commonwealth writer under thirty, for ‘a work of outstanding literary merit’. He has, since, published over thirty-five books, including the novellas A Flight of Pigeons and Delhi Is Not Far, and several collections of short stories. He received a Sahitya Akademi Award in 1993, and the Padma Shri in 1999.

  He lives in Landour, Mussoorie, with his extended 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

  Book of Nature

  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.)

  The Open Road

  Out of the city and over the hill,

  Into the spaces where Time stands still,

  Under the tall trees, touching old wood,

  Taking the way where warriors once stood;

  Crossing the little bridge, losing my way,

  Finding a friendly place where I could stay.

  Those were the days, friend, when we were strong

  And strode down the road to an old marching song,

  When the dew on the grass was fresh every morn,

  And we woke to the call of the ring-dove at dawn.

  The years have gone by, and sometimes I falter,

  But still I set out for a stroll or a saunter,

  For the wind is as fresh as it was in our youth,

  And the peach and the pear still the sweetest of fruit.

  So cast away care and come roaming with me,

  And know what it is to be perfectly free.

  —Ruskin Bond

  Introduction

  So far as I know, the only member of my family who did a lot of walking was my grandfather, Henry William Bond, and he did so because he was a foot-soldier, and did not have much choice in the matter.

  Nevertheless, I might have inherited his ability to cover long distances, at a steady, unhurried pace, covering some fifteen miles a day—as he must have done before setting up camp off the Grand Trunk Road or, later, in one of the many cantonments that came up in the nineteenth century.

  My grandfather always knew what place he needed to reach, and would usually have taken the shortest route to get there. But I have come to believe that the best kind of walk, or journey, is the one in which you have no particular destination when you set out.

  This is particularly useful in a city or town that you are new to. The ideal way to get to know it is to walk its streets, and this is what I did during my sojourns in London, Delhi, Dehra Dun, Saharanpur and elsewhere.

  When I was twenty, and living in London, I would spend my weekends walking the East End, the Nile End Road, Dockland—Dicken’s London—or the many parks that dotted that ‘green city’—Hampstead Heath, Primrose Hill, Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, which of course I associated with Peter Pan, the first literary figure of my childhood reading. I lived in the Hampstead area, and worked in an office on the Tottenham Court Road, and sometimes I would walk to work (much nicer than the tube train), over Primrose Hill and down to Baker Street. It took me a little over an hour, if I remember correctly. Grandfather would have been proud of me.

  Back in Dehra Dun in 1955, I walked all over the place. My landlady, who was also my stepfather’s first wife, called me the ‘road inspector’. But it was a small town then, and a half-hour walk would take me across the dry river-bed and into the tea gardens or sal forest. I was a lonely walker. Not many people cared to walk all day, then or now. I seem to have had much more time on my hands when I was a young man. How come I’m having to work harder at age seventy? Now, if I want a walk, I have to get up at five a.m., so that I’m back at my desk at seven. And then breakfast beckons … There’s nothing like a good breakfast after an early morning walk. A scrambled egg, some marmalade on toast, and just a little bacon please.

  When I was based in Delhi for some years in the fifties and sixties, I continued with my habit of long walks. Winter evenings I would occasionally walk from Connaught Place to Patel Nagar or even all the way to Rajouri Garden (through the Pusa Institute grounds); this took a couple of hours or more. On the way I would pass street vendors selling boiled eggs. I ate a lot of eggs. We hadn’t heard about cholesterol in those days.

  Of course the best walks are to be enjoyed in the hills, preferably in the company of a quiet friend. Sometimes I would escape from Delhi and trek to the Pindari Glacier in Kumaon, or the hills beyond Landsdowne, or Deoban above Chakrata. I wasn’t interested in climbing mountains—I preferred going around them: you saw more that way. At every bend of the road in the mountains there is a fresh vista, a different landscape, interesting people, new birds, trees, flowers.

  Some of these excursions could be quite comical. On one occasion, many years ago, a Bengali friend and I decided to walk from Mussoorie to Chamba (near Tehri), some thirty miles distant. This was before the road became motorable.

  I knew we wouldn’t find anything to eat along the way, so I slipped two tins of sardines into my haversack and we set off on our day-long walk. By noon we were both quite hungry, so we sat down in the shade of a whispering pine, and quenched our thirst from our water bottles. Then, with a flourish, I produced the sardine tins.

  To my horror I discovered I’d left the tin-opener behind. We did our best to open the tins with stones and even a horseshoe nail, but to no avail.

  ‘Why couldn’t you remind me to bring a tin-opener along?’ I snapped at my companion. ‘You’re a Bengali, you’re supposed to like fish.’

  ‘Only fresh-water Hilsa,’ he replied disdainfully. ‘We don’t go in for tinned stuff.’

  In my frustration I flung both tins into a deep ravine, and for all I know they are still there, unless aliens from outer space have succeeded in opening them.

  At Chamba we found a tea shop that sold some ancient, rock-hard buns, probably left behind by the roving Pandavas. We softened them up by soaking them in mugs of hot tea, and so satisfied our hunger to some extent.

  Two days later, on our return to Dehra, the first thing I saw was the tin-opener on my desk.

  These are journeys I still remember for the grace and beauty of the landscape, the clean, sharp air and clear waters. But there were others, to places far less inspiring, that I will never forge
t. Human beings and the worlds they make for themselves are as fascinating as the wonders of Nature. You will find something to surprise or amuse you even in the dullest of places, as I did in several small towns around Delhi and Dehra.

  Shahjahanpur, Chhutmulpur, Shamli, Kotdwar … There was little to distinguish many of them. All their bazaars were chaotic, most of the roads narrow and dusty and the majority of their inhabitatnts poor and weary. But some scene on a deserted road, a chance encounter, a memorable meal or a neglected monument would give each one a special character.

  It is close to three decades now since I undertook a long journey into the hills or on the highway with no fixed destination in mind. I travel only when I have to, and when I do, I notice how much things have changed.

  That old mule-track to Tehri is now a busy thoroughfare and you won’t go hungry along the way. There’s fast food everywhere.

  Some places change quite dramatically over the years. Forty years ago, when I first visited Bangalore, I walked out to the Sampingi Tank, where boys swam around a little island and washed down their buffaloes. On a recent visit I tried to find the Tank, struggling down roads filled with snarling traffic, but it appeared to have vanished. High-rise buildings had come up where once old bungalows and gardens characterized the city.

  Delhi, too, has spread out in all directions and the wilderness that was Tughlaqabad or Suraj Kund is now part of Greater Delhi.

  But some places have resisted change. I walked down Atul Grove Road in the heart of New Delhi, and was pleasantly surprised to find that it looked no different from the way it had been back in 1943, when I had stayed there with my father. One of those quiet corners which had escaped the frenzy of the growing city.

  The world keeps changing, but there is always something, somewhere, that remains the same.

  November 2005

  The Open Road

  The Open Road

  ON THE HIGHWAY

  For forty years I have been content living a life of modest excitements in Mussoorie. The world drives up here in season, for holidays and honeymoons, so I rarely feel the need to go down to the busy plains. But once or twice a year, in self-indulgent mood, or when my publishers prevail upon me, I give myself a ‘treat’, if you can call it that: a seven-hour drive to Delhi in a sturdy Ambassador taxi. Winter is the best time for such a visit. The hot winds of summer are best avoided, for once you have descended from the hills, the road becomes dusty, and in places something of an obstacle race.

  I have known this highway over the years and I have seen it change imperceptibly. There wasn’t much traffic on it in the 1940s, apart from the familiar bullock carts stacked high with sugarcane. The carts are still used, although the wooden wheels have given way to heavy tyres, and the bullocks to buffaloes. However, much of the sugarcane is now carried in trucks, and these ‘kings of the road’ have made it difficult for others to drive smoothly by day or safely by night. But I am told the trucks and the sugarcane keep the economy of the region going, so we shouldn’t grumble too much.

  I am told the same about all the cars and tourist buses that I complain about: what would happen to Uttaranchal’s economy if they stopped coming! I quieten down then, but I wonder at the great speed at which they move. People come seeking Nature and new experiences but have no interest in the world outside.

  To me, the outside world is the reward of a highway journey. I like looking at the countryside, the passing scene, the people along the road (so it is just as well that I cannot drive). And even in the twenty-first century, when television channels claim to show us everything there is to see, it can be a revelation. Recently, on a trip to Delhi, we had to leave the main highway because of a disturbance near Meerut. Instead we had to drive through about a dozen villages in the sugarcane belt that dominates this area. It was a wonderful contrast, leaving the main road with its cafes, petrol pumps, factories and management institutes and entering the rural hinterland where very little had changed in a hundred years. Women with their faces veiled worked in the fields, old men smoked hookahs in their courtyards, and a few children were playing guli-danda instead of cricket! It brought home to me the reality of India—urban life and rural life are still poles apart.

  As I do not drive myself, I am the ideal person to have in the front seat; I repose complete confidence in the man behind the wheel. Sitting up front, I also see more of the road and the passing scene. Sardar Manmohan Singh shares this interest, but he has a far sharper eye. Manmohan is one of Mussoorie’s better taxi drivers. He is also a keen wildlife enthusiast. It always amazes me how he is able to drive through the Siwaliks, on a winding hill road, and still be able to keep his eye open for denizens of the surrounding forest.

  ‘See that cheetal!’ he will exclaim, or ‘What a fine sambhar!’ or ‘Just look at that elephant!’

  All this at high speed. And before I’ve had time to get more than a fleeting glimpse of one of these creatures, we are well past them.

  Manmohan swears that he has seen a tiger crossing the road near the Mohand Pass, and as he is a person of some integrity, I have to believe him. I think the tiger appears especially for Manmohan.

  Another wildlife enthusiast is my bank manager and old friend Vishal Ohri, with whom I have been on some memorable drives. Unlike our car drivers, he is in no hurry to reach our destination and will stop every now and then, in order to examine the footprints of an elephant or a leopard. He also takes great pleasure in pointing out large dollops of fresh elephant dung, proof that wild elephants are in the vicinity. The prospect of being charged by an angry elephant has never worried him, and he holds forth at great length on the benefits of elephant dung—how it can be used to reinforce mud walls, for instance—till I urge him to get a move on before nightfall.

  On one occasion, Vishal decided to give me a treat by taking a short cut from Hardwar through the Rajaji Sanctuary and out at the Mohand Pass. Vishal enjoys his driving, especially in rough conditions; unfortunately, his ancient Fiat was in poor condition, and halfway through the sanctuary, while we were crossing a boulder-strewn rao (a semi-dry riverbed) the door on my side fell off and I very nearly went with it. For the rest of the journey, I had an uninterrupted view of the wildlife in the sanctuary—two peahens, a startled porcupine, and a herd of tame buffaloes.

  Driving by night is not always so risible. Most accidents on the main highway road occur in the early hours when drivers fall asleep at the wheel: their vehicles overturn, or run into trees and ditches, or collide with other vehicles. Before dawn breaks, the road has taken its toll of several lives.

  It was late Christmas Eve in the 1970s, when my thirty-year-old half-brother Harold set out from Dehra in his father’s car, to try and get to Delhi in time for a party at the Anglo-Indian Club. Although he was a good driver, having taken part in car rallies and other tests of speed and endurance, he had become a heavy drinker and he was in no condition to undertake a long and arduous drive late at night. He was alone, and as he was killed instantly (or so we were told), we never knew all the circumstances of his death. Apparently his car had been caught and crushed between two trucks, which had speedily disappeared into the night.

  Harold was always a bit of a tearaway. He was attractive to women, but they had a hard time looking after him. And he wrecked their lives in addition to his own. There were lessons about life and highways that he never learnt.

  But perhaps there aren’t any lessons to be learnt. A few months after Harold, my second half-brother was killed in a motorcycle accident. He was the careful one, who seldom took risks. He was sober that night, as on all others, and mindful of rules, but someone else on the road was not.

  The Grand Trunk Road

  There is a fantasy journey that I have always wanted to make, but one that I know I never will: the long, long journey along the Grand Trunk Road from Calcutta to Peshawar.

  For the Grand Trunk Road is a river. It may not be as sacred as the Ganga, which it greets at Kanpur and Varanasi, but it is just as per
manent. It’s a river of life, an unending stream of humanity intent on reaching their destination and getting there most of the time.

  A long day’s journey into night, that’s how I would describe the saga of the truck driver, that knight errant, or rather errant knight, of India’s Via Appia. Undervalued, underpaid and often disparaged, he drives all day and sometimes all night, carrying the country’s goods and produce for hundreds of miles on the GT Road, across state borders, through lawless tracts, at all seasons and in all weathers. We blame him for hogging the middle of the road, but he is usually overloaded and if he veers too much to the left or right he is quite likely to topple over, burying himself and crew under bricks or gas cylinders, sugarcane or TV sets. More than the railwayman, the truck driver is modern India’s lifeline, and yet his life is held cheap. He drinks, he swears, occasionally he picks up HIV, and frequently he is killed or badly injured. But we cannot do without him.

  In the old, old days, when Muhammad Tughlaq, Sultan of Delhi, streamlined the country’s roads, bullock carts and camel caravans were the chief transporters. In 1333, when the Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta visited India, he was deeply impressed by the Sultan’s road network. Sher Shah Suri, who ruled from 1540 till 1545, made further improvements, especially to the GT Road. He built caravanserais and inns for travellers, and planted fine trees along the GT Road and other important highways. Horsemen, carts and palanquin bearers jostled for pride of position, much as our motorists do today. Traffic was slow-moving, and the best way to get ahead was to mount a horse and canter from stage to stage, that is, between twelve and fifteen miles a day.

  Invading armies had, of course, made use of the Road long before the British gained control of northern India. On this same stretch of the highway, the Persian invader Nadir Shah defeated the Mughal Emperor in 1739. In a battle lasting two hours, over 20,000 of the Emperor’s soldiers were killed. The next day Nadir Shah marched to Delhi, to sack the city and massacre its inhabitants. The treasure harvest of Delhi was fair game for acquisitive kings and warlords.