Party Time in Mussoorie Read online

  PARTY TIME IN MUSSOORIE

  Ruskin Bond has been writing for over sixty years, and now has over 120 titles in print—novels, collections of short stories, poetry, essays, anthologies and books for children. His first novel, The Room on the Roof, received the prestigious John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 1957. He has also received the Padma Shri (1999), the Padma Bhushan (2014) and two awards from Sahitya Akademi—one for his short stories and another for his writings for children. In 2012, the Delhi government gave him its Lifetime Achievement Award.

  Born in 1934, Ruskin Bond grew up in Jamnagar, Shimla, New Delhi and Dehra Dun. Apart from three years in the UK, he has spent all his life in India, and now lives in Mussoorie with his adopted family.

  Published by

  Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd 2016

  7/16, Ansari Road, Daryaganj

  New Delhi 110002

  Copyright © Ruskin Bond 2016

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  ISBN: 978-81-291-×××-××

  First impression 2016

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated, without the publisher’s prior consent, in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.

  Contents

  Introduction

  Belting Around Mumbai

  Monkeys in the Loo

  Grandpa Fights an Ostrich

  At the End of the Road

  Running for Cover

  Cricket for the Crocodile

  Party Time in Mussoorie

  On the Road to Delhi

  Mukesh Starts a Zoo

  The Boy Who Broke the Bank

  The Trouble with Jinns

  Breakfast Time

  Be Prepared

  Simply Living

  Adventures in Reading

  The Postman Knocks

  George and Ranji

  My Failed Omelettes—and Other Disasters

  Introduction

  My grandmother had a handy collection of aphorisms and proverbs—many of them of her own making—that came in useful in almost every situation. If for instance, my Uncle Ken had once again eaten up all the food put on the table and then some more from the kitchen and larder, she would say, ‘Light suppers make long lives’, with just a hint of disapproval. Or if my Aunt Mabel was in one of her grumpy moods, she said, ‘God gave us our faces, we give ourselves our expressions.’ And to me she often said, ‘Life may be short, but a smile is only a second’s effort.’ A smile can immediately make you feel better. It may not be the medicine for much of life’s ills, but it surely lessens the pain.

  I have tried to follow this suggestion. The time Uncle Ken and I went for a walk and he insisted on going the zigzag way, I did the same. It was fun. But like all things to do with Uncle Ken, it landed us in a situation where we had to make a hasty exit. While we were being chased away by an irate man from his fields and were dashing away, Uncle Ken’s hat flew off. Later, when we had stopped panting, I remembered what Granny had said about looking at the funny side of situations and had a good laugh. Unfortunately, I don’t think Uncle Ken saw the lighter side at that moment.

  It helps to have such an outlook on finding oneself in the oddest of circumstances. Like the time I was in Mumbai and my belt decided to have some fun by first getting entangled with a fellow passenger’s luggage and later with the harness of the horse-drawn buggy I was sitting in. After that, I sat quietly at the book festival I had been taken to attend, to keep my belt out of trouble. And it’s not just belts that get me into trouble. There was the time I was sharing a taxi to Delhi with a gentleman with a fierce moustache. He was carrying a book written by me with him. When I told him it was my book, he looked offended that I was trying to lay claim on his property. I gave up on the conversation quickly and filed it away for future use in a story. Similarly, finding animals in the house in unexpected places can be funny. But when I found a monkey sitting on the potty in the bathroom at home, I quickly left it alone. What may seem funny to me, may not be so for the monkey if he is interrupted while looking at the newspaper, sitting on the potty.

  I have even been accused by some of my younger audience for being too funny. Once a girl asked me disapprovingly why my ghost stories are not scary enough. ‘Your ghosts are too funny,’ she grumbled. So I tried to write a few scary ghost stories. But I find benign friendly ghosts just as delightful. So I also wrote about my friend Jimmy, who discovered he was a jinn. That meant he could elongate his arms at will. This ensured that he had a starring role to play in the school basketball team. Later, I tried to warn him about using his elongated arms recklessly, but he wouldn’t listen to me and ended up in some pain.

  Now it’s not always I who sees the funny side to everything. Sometimes, given my presence, the people I am visiting or who are hosting me need this sorely. Take, for example, when it’s party time in Mussoorie. There are some who would rather that I stayed home, when I offer to sing them a song or two. There was also the time when on the way home from a party where some interestingly magical pakodas had been served, I mistook the circuit judge for an old woman. I politely raised my cap to him but he sailed past with a dignified look. Later I wondered what he would say if I was ever brought up in front of him. Luckily for me, that has not happened yet.

  Mostly, I feel I have been able to live this life enjoying its small moments of happiness and been able to laugh when needed. Now if only I was allowed to sing loudly and happily when walking down the Landour Road to Char Dukan. But Gautam thinks I have fallen sick, and dishes are dropped in alarm and the children stop in their tracks. Nothing to do but to grin and bear it, I say!

  Ruskin Bond

  Belting Around Mumbai

  I have lived to see Bombay become Mumbai, Calcutta become Kolkata, and Madras become Chennai. Times change, names change, and if Bond becomes Bonda I won’t object. Place-names may alter but people don’t, and in Mumbai I found that people were as friendly and good-natured as ever; perhaps even more than when I was last there twenty-five years ago.

  On that occasion I had travelled the Doon Express, a slow passenger train that stopped at every small station in at least five states, taking two days and two nights from Dehra Dun to Bombay. It had been a fairly uneventful journey, except for an incident in the small hours when we stopped at Baroda and a hand slipped through my open window, crept under my pillow, found nothing of value except my spectacles, and decided to take them anyway, leaving me to grope half-blind around Bombay until another pair could be made.

  Now I carry three pairs of spectacles: one for reading, one for looking at people, and one for looking far out to sea.

  On the Kingfisher flight to Mumbai, I used the second pair, as I like looking at people, especially attractive air hostesses. I found they were looking at me too, but that was because I’d caught my belt (my trouser belt, not my seat-belt) in a fellow-passenger’s luggage strap and was proceeding to drag both him and his travel-bag down the aisle. We were diplomatically separated by the aforesaid air hostesses who then guided me to my seat without further mishap.

  This reminded me of the occasion many years ago when I auditioned for a role in a Tarzan film.
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br />   ‘Who do you wish to play?’ asked the casting director. ‘Tarzan, of course,’ I said.

  He gave me a long hard look. ‘Can you swing from one tree to another?’ he asked.

  ‘Easily,’ I said. ‘I can even swing from a chandelier.’ And I proceeded to do so, wrecking the hall they sat in, in the process. They begged me to stop.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Bond, you have made your point. But we don’t think you have the figure for the part of Tarzan. Would you like to take the part of the missionary who is being cooked to a crisp by a bunch of cannibals? Tarzan will come to your rescue.’

  I declined the role with dignity.

  And now I was in Mumbai, not to audition for a film, but to inaugurate the Rupa Book Festival. For old time’s sake, I arrived at the venue in a horse-drawn carriage. Alighting, my recalcitrant belt-buckle got entangled with the horse’s harness and I almost dragged the entire contraption into the Bajaj exhibition hall.

  However, the evening’s entertainment went off without a hitch. Gulzar read from Ghalib, Tom Alter read from Gulzar, Mandira Bedi read from Nandita Puri, and everyone read madly from each other, and I sat quietly in a corner to keep my belt out of further entanglements.

  The next day I was taken on a tour of the city by a Hindustan Times journalist and a photographer. They asked me to pose on the steps of the Asiatic Society’s Library, an imposing colonial edifice. While I stood there being photographed, a group of teenagers walked past and I overheard one of them remark: ‘Yeh naya model hain.’

  I took it as a compliment. At least they didn’t call me a purana model. Perhaps there’s still a chance to get that Tarzan role. If not Tarzan, then his grandfather.

  The same journalist and photographer took me to a market where you could buy anything from books to bras. They thrust a thousand-rupee note into my willing hands and told me I could buy anything I liked, while they took pictures.

  ‘Can I keep the money?’ I asked.

  ‘No, you have to spend it.’

  So I bought two ladies handbags and two pairs of ladies slippers.

  ‘For your girlfriends?’ asked the journalist.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘for their mothers.’

  Back at the festival hall, I was presented with a beautiful sky-blue T-shirt by a charming lady who wishes to remain anonymous. I wore it the next morning when I was leaving Mumbai.

  At the airport, one of the Kingfisher staff complimented me on my dress sense; the first time anyone has done so.

  ‘Your blue shirt matches your eyes,’ she said.

  After that, I shall definitely fly Kingfisher again.

  Monkeys in the Loo

  I am fairly tolerant about these monkeys doing the bhangra on my roof, but I do resent it when they start invading my rooms. Not so long ago, I opened the bathroom door to find a very large Rhesus monkey sitting on the potty. He wasn’t actually using the potty—monkeys prefer parapet walls—but he had obviously found it a comfortable place to sit, and he showed no signs of vacating the throne when politely requested to do so. Bullies seldom do. So I had to give him a fright by slamming the door as loudly as I could, and he took off through the open window and found his cousins on the hillside.

  On another occasion, a female of the species sat on my desk, lifted the telephone receiver and appeared to be making an STD call to some distant relative. Some ladies are apt to linger long over their calls, and I hated to interrupt, but I was anxious to get in touch with my publisher, who took priority; so I pushed her off my desk with a feather-duster. She was so resentful of this intrusion that she made off with my telephone directory and tore it to shreds, scattering pages along the road. As this was something that I had wanted to do for a long time, I could not help admiring her audacity.

  The kitchen area of our flat is closely guarded, as I resent sharing my breakfast with creatures great and small. But the other day a wily crow flew in and made off with my boiled egg. I know crows are fond of eggs—other birds’ eggs that is—but I did not know that they like them boiled. Anyway, this egg was still piping hot, and the crow had to drop it on the road, where it was seized upon by one of the stray dogs who police this end of the road.

  Barking furiously, the dogs run after the monkeys, who simply leap onto the nearest tree or rooftop and proceed to throw insults at the frustrated pack. The dogs never succeed in catching anything except their own kind. Canine intruders from another area are readily attacked and driven away.

  Having dressed, breakfasted and written the morning’s two or three pages (early morning is the best time to do this), I am free to walk up the road to the bank or post office or tea shop at the top of the hill. If it’s springtime, I shall look out for wild flowers. If it’s monsoon time; I shall look out for leeches.

  Well, it’s monsoon time, and we haven’t seen the sun for a couple of weeks. Clouds envelop the hills, and a light shower is falling. I have unfurled my bright yellow umbrella, as a gesture of defiance. At least it provides some contrast to the grey sky and the dark green of the hillside. You cannot see the snows or even the next mountain.

  There’s no one else on the road today, only a few intrepid tourists from Amritsar. I overhead one robust Punjabi complain to his guide: ‘You’ve brought us all the way to the top of this forsaken mountain, and what have you shown us? The kabristan!’

  True, the old British graves are all that one can see through the fog. Some of the tombstones have been standing there for close on two centuries. The old abandoned parsonage next door to the cemetery is now the home of Victor Banerjee, the celebrated actor. He enjoys living next door to the graveyard, and one night he defied me to walk home alone past the graves. I am not a superstitious person but I did feel rather uneasy as those old graves loomed up through the mist. I was startled by the cry of a night-bird emanating from behind one of the tombstones. Then a weird, blood-chilling cry rose from a clump of bushes. It was Victor, trying to frighten me—or possibly practising for his next role as Dracula. I was about to break into a run when a large dog—one of our strays—appeared beside me and accompanied me home. On a dark and scary night, even a half-starved mongrel is welcome company. By day, the road holds no terrors. But there are other hazards. On the road near Char Dukan, several small boys are kicking a football around. The ball rolls temptingly towards me. Remembering my football skills of fifty or more years ago, I cannot resist the temptation to put boot to ball. I give it a mighty kick. The ball sails away, the children applaud, I am left hopping about on the road in agony, I had quite forgotten my gout! I’m glad I stuck to writing instead of taking up professional football. At seventy I can still write without inflicting damage on myself.

  When I am feeling good, and have the road to myself, I do occasionally break into song. This is the only opportunity I have to sing. Otherwise my musical abilities turn friends into foes.

  I am not permitted to sing in the homes of my friends. If I am being driven about in their cars, I am told to remain silent unless we veer off the road or hit an oncoming vehicle. Even at home, the sound of my music causes the girls to drop dishes and the children to find an excuse to stop doing their homework.

  ‘Dada is ill again,’ says Gautam, when all I am trying to do is emulate Caruso singing ‘Che Gelida Nlanina’ (Your Tiny Hand is Frozen) from La Boheme. Our tiny hands do freeze up here in the winter, and there’s nothing like an operatic aria to get the blood circulating freely. Of course Caruso was a tenor, but I can also sing baritone like Domingo or Nelson Eddy and bass like Chaliapin the great Russian singer. Sometimes I combine all three voices—tenor, baritone, bassand—that’s when the window glass shatters and cars come to a screeching halt.

  It was a boyhood ambition to be an opera star, but I’m afraid I never made it beyond the school choir. Our music teacher did not appreciate the wide range of my voice. ‘Too loud!’ she would screech. ‘Too flat!’

  ‘Caruso sings in A-flat,’ I replied.

  ‘You sound like a warbling frog,’ she snapped. ‘And
you look like one,’ I responded.

  And that was the end of my brief appearance in cassock and surplice.

  But when I’m on the open road—especially when it’s raining and I have the road to myself—I am free to sing as loud and as flat as I like, and if flat tyres on passing cars are the result, it’s the fault of the tyres and not my singing.

  So here we go:

  When you are down and out,

  Lift up your head and shout—

  It’s going to be a great day!

  There’s nothing like a spirited song to raise the flagging spirit. Whenever I feel down and out-and that’s often enough—I recall some old favourite and share it with the trees, the birds, and even those pesky monkeys.

  Just like a sunflower

  After a summer shower

  My inspiration is you!

  Sloppy, sentimental stuff, but it works.

  And there’s always the likelihood of a little romance around the corner.

  Some enchanted evening

  You will see a stranger

  Across a crowded room…

  Actually, I prefer the winding road to a crowded room. Romantic encounters are more likely when there are not too many people around. Such as the other day, when I had unfurled my new umbrella and was sauntering up the road, singing my favourite rain song, Sinking in the Rain.

  I had gone some distance when I noticed a young lady struggling up the road a little way ahead of me. My glasses were wet and misty, but I was determined to share my umbrella with any damsel in distress. So, huffing and puffing, I caught up with her.

  ‘Do share my umbrella,’ I offered.

  No, she wasn’t sweet twenty-one, as I’d hoped. She was nearer eighty. But she was munching on a bhutta, so her teeth were in good order. She took the umbrella from me and munched on ahead, leaving me to get drenched. A retired headmistress, as I discovered later!