Ruskin Bond Children's Omnibus Volume 2 Read online

  Published by

  Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd 2013

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  New Delhi 110002

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  Copyright © Ruskin Bond 2013

  eISBN: 9788129131904

  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.

  First impression 2013

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Printed at [PRINTER’S NAME, CITY]

  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.

  Introduction

  The Writer on the Hill

  Growing up with Trees

  Birdsong in the Hills

  A Special Tree

  The School among the Pines

  The Wind on Haunted Hill

  A Face in the Dark

  If Mice Could Roar

  Monkey Trouble

  Snake Trouble

  The Trouble with Jinns

  The Thief’s Story

  When the Trees Walked

  The Tunnel

  The Coral Tree

  The Night the Roof Blew Off

  Mussoorie’s Landour Bazaar

  Visitors from the Forest

  Gently Flows the Ganga

  Falling for Mandakini

  Breakfast Time

  Trees by My Window

  Some Hill Station Ghosts

  The Bat

  Our Great Escape

  The Eyes of the Eagle

  Grandpa Fights an Ostrich

  At Sea with Uncle Ken

  My Failed Omelettes and Other Disasters

  The Earthquake

  Escape from Java

  King Bharata

  Nala and Damayanti

  The Ugly Prince and the Heartless Princess

  A Demon for Work

  The Lost Ruby

  The Tiger King’s Gift

  Seven Brides for Seven Princes

  A Battle of Wits

  The Song of the Whistling Thrush

  Children of India

  And Now We Are Twelve

  Adventures in Reading

  Be Prepared

  The Four Feathers

  My Best Friend

  The Parrot Who Wouldn’t Talk

  Miss Ramola and Others

  ‘The writer on the hill…’

  That line probably sums me up perfectly. I have never had pretensions to being anything but a writer, having grown up in an era when writers—even successful ones—did not become TV celebrities or Booker Prize winners or media personalities. It wasn’t fashionable to be a writer. Only a few became famous; even fewer made money out of writing.

  When I came home after finishing my last year at school, my mother asked me what I wanted to do with myself.

  ‘I’m going to be a writer,’ I said

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘Go and join the army!’

  Well, if I’d joined the army, there would have been one more Beetle Bailey in the ranks.

  Not that the army would have taken me. Certainly not the Indian army. I couldn’t do the rope-trick—that is, climb a rope or disappear up a cliff-face!

  And so, a writer I became…

  For over sixty years I have made a living with my pen, bringing out stories, essays, poems, memoirs and novels, so that I now have well over a hundred books in print.

  About fifteen years ago, my publishers at Rupa put some of my best children’s stories into an omnibus volume. Children’s Omnibus has probably been my most popular book, now about to go into its 40th impression.

  Since then, I have written at least one hundred new stories and personal essays, and the best of these appear in this new collection.

  The selection was made with the help of Sudeshna Shome Ghosh and her team of editors at Rupa and I hope this second omnibus will find favour with young readers and have as long a life as the first.

  We are planning a Jungle Omnibus and a Spooky Omnibus as well. And if you have any other suggestions, please write to me, care of Rupa Publications.

  Ruskin Bond

  October, 2013

  T’S HARD to realize that I’ve been here all these years—forty summers and monsoons and winters and Himalayan springs—because, when I look back to the time of my first coming here, it really does seem like yesterday.

  That probably sums it all up. Time passes, and yet it doesn’t pass (it is only you and I who are passing). People come and go, the mountains remain. Mountains are permanent things. They are stubborn, they refuse to move. You can blast holes out of them for their mineral wealth; or strip them of their trees and foliage; or dam their streams and divert their torrents; or make tunnels and roads and bridges; but no matter how hard they try, humans cannot actually get rid of these mountains. That’s what I like about them—they are here to stay.

  I like to think that I have become a part of this mountain, this particular range, and that by living here for so long, I am able to claim a relationship with the trees, wild flowers, even the rocks that are an integral part of it. Yesterday, at twilight, when I passed beneath the canopy of oak leaves, I felt that I was a part of the forest. I put out my hand and touched the bark of an old tree and as I turned away, its leaves brushed against my face as if to acknowledge me.

  One day I thought, if we trouble these great creatures too much, and hack away at them and destroy their young, they will simply uproot themselves and march away—whole forests on the move—over the next range and the next, far from the haunts of man. Over the years, I have seen many forests and green places dwindle and disappear.

  Now there is an outcry. It is suddenly fashionable to be an environmentalist. That’s all right. Perhaps it isn’t too late to save the little that’s left. They could start by curbing the property developers, who have been spreading their tentacles far and wide.

  The sea has been celebrated by many great writers—Conrad, Melville, Stevenson, Masefield—but I cannot think of anyone comparable for whom the mountains have been a recurring theme. I must turn to the Taoist poets from old China to find a true feeling for mountains. Kipling does occasionally look to the hills, but the Himalayas do not appear to have given rise to any memorable Indian literature, at least not in modern times.

  By and large, I suppose, writers have to stay in the plains to make a living. Hill people have their work cut out just trying to wrest a livelihood from their thin, calcinated soil.

  And as for mountaineers, they climb their peaks and move on, in search of other peaks; they do not take up residence in the mountains.

  But to me, as a writer, the mountains have been kind. They were kind from the beginning, when I threw up a job in Delhi and rented a small cottage on the outskirts of the hill station. Today, most hill stations are rich men’s playgrounds, but twenty-five years ago, they were places where people of modest means could live quite cheaply. There were very few cars and everyone walked about.

  The cottage was situated on the edge of an oak and maple forest and I spent eight or nine years in it, most of them happy years, writing stories, essays, poems, books for children. It was only after I came to live in the hills that I began writing for childre
n.

  I think this had something to do with Prem’s children. Prem Singh came to work for me as a boy, fresh from his village near Rudraprayag, in Pauri Garhwal. He was taller and darker than most of the young men from his area. Although in those days the village school did not go beyond the primary stage, he had an aptitude for reading and a good head for figures.

  After he had been with me for a couple of years, he went home to get married, and then he and his wife Chandra took on the job of looking after the house and all practical matters; I remain helpless with electric fuses, clogged cisterns, leaking gas cylinders, ruptured water pipes, tin roofs that blow away whenever there’s a storm, and the do-it-yourself world of hill station India. In other words, they made it possible for a writer to write.

  They also nursed me when I was ill, and gave me a feeling of belonging to a family, something which I hadn’t known since childhood.

  Their sons Rakesh and Mukesh, and daughter Savitri, grew up in Maplewood Cottage and then in other houses and cottages when we moved. I became, for them, an adopted grandfather. For Rakesh I wrote a story about a cherry tree that had difficulty in growing up (he was rather frail as a child). For Mukesh, who liked upheavals, I wrote a story about an earthquake and put him in it; and for Savitri I wrote a whole bunch of rhymes and poems.

  One seldom ran short of material. There was a stream at the bottom of the hill and this gave me many subjects in the way of small (occasionally large) animals, wild flowers, birds, trees, insects, ferns. The nearby villages were of absorbing interest. So were the old houses and old families of the Landour and Mussoorie hill stations.

  There were walks into the mountains and along the pilgrim trails, and sometimes I slept at a roadside tea shop or at a village school. Sadly, many of these villages are still without basic medical and educational facilities taken for granted elsewhere.

  ‘Who goes to the hills, goes to his mother.’ So wrote Kipling in Kim and he seldom wrote truer words, for living in the hills was like living in the bosom of a strong, sometimes proud, but always comforting, mother. And every time I went away, the homecoming would be more tender and precious. It became increasingly difficult for me to go away. Once the mountains are in your blood, there is no escape.

  It has not always been happiness and light. Two-year-old Suresh (who came between Rakesh and Mukesh) died of tetanus. I had bouts of ill health, and there were times when money ran out. Freelancing can be daunting at times, and I never could make enough to buy a house like almost everyone else I know.

  Editorial doors close; but when one door closes, another has, for me, almost immediately, miraculously opened. I could perhaps have done a little better living in London or Hong Kong, or even Bombay. But given the choice, I would not have done differently. When you have received love from people and the freedom that only the mountains can give, you have come very near the borders of heaven.

  And now, Rakesh and Beena have three lovely children, and Mukesh and Vinita have two little scamps.

  EHRADUN WAS a good place for trees, and Grandfather’s house was surrounded by several kinds—peepul, neem, mango, jackfruit and papaya. There was also an ancient banyan tree. I grew up amongst these trees, and some of them planted by Grandfather grew with me.

  There were two types of trees that were of special interest to a boy—trees that were good for climbing, and trees that provided fruit.

  The jackfruit tree was both these things. The fruit itself—the largest in the world—grew only on the trunk and main branches. I did not care much for the fruit, although cooked as a vegetable it made a good curry. But the tree was large and leafy and easy to climb. It was a very dark tree and if I hid in it, I could not be easily seen from below. In a hole in the tree trunk I kept various banned items—a catapult, some lurid comics, and a large stock of chewing-gum. Perhaps they are still there, because I forgot to collect them when we finally went away.

  The banyan tree grew behind the house. Its spreading branches, which hung to the ground and took root again, formed a number of twisting passageways and gave me endless pleasure. The tree was older than the house, older than my grandparents, as old as Dehra. I could hide myself in its branches, behind thick green leaves, and spy on the world below. I could read in it, too, propped up against the bole of the tree, with Treasure Island or the Jungle Books or comics like Wizard or Hotspur which, unlike the forbidden Superman and others like him, were full of clean-cut schoolboy heroes.

  The banyan tree was a world in itself, populated with small beasts and large insects. While the leaves were still pink and tender, they would be visited by the delicate map butterfly, who committed her eggs to their care. The ‘honey’ on the leaves—an edible smear—also attracted the little striped squirrels, who soon grew used to my presence and became quite bold. Red-headed parakeets swarmed about the tree early in the morning.

  But the banyan really came to life during the monsoon, when the branches were thick with scarlet figs. These berries were not fit for human consumption, but the many birds that gathered in the tree—gossipy rosy pastors, quarrelsome mynas, cheerful bulbuls and coppersmiths, and sometimes a raucous bullying crow—feasted on them. And when night fell, and the birds were resting, the dark flying foxes flapped heavily about the tree, chewing and munching as they clambered over the branches.

  Among nocturnal visitors to the jackfruit and banyan trees was the Brainfever bird, whose real name is the Hawk-Cuckoo. ‘Brainfever, brainfever!’ it seems to call, and this shrill, nagging cry will keep the soundest of sleepers awake on a hot summer night.

  The British called it the Brainfever bird, but there are other names for it. The Mahrattas called it ‘Paos-ala’ which means ‘Rain is coming!’ Perhaps Grandfather’s interpretation of its call was the best. According to him, when the bird was tuning up for its main concert, it seemed to say: ‘Oh dear, oh dear! How very hot it’s getting! we feel it...WE FEEL IT...WE FEEL IT!’

  Yes, the banyan tree was a noisy place during the rains. If the Brainfever bird made music by night, the crickets and cicadas orchestrated during the day. As musicians, the cicadas were in a class by themselves. All through the hot weather their chorus rang through the garden, while a shower of rain, far from damping their spirits, only roused them to a greater vocal effort.

  The tree crickets were a band of willing artistes who commenced their performance at almost any time of the day, but preferably in the evenings. Delicate pale green creatures with transparent green wings, they were hard to find amongst the lush monsoon foliage; but once located, a tap on the leaf or bush on which they sat would put an immediate end to the performance.

  At the height of the monsoon, the banyan tree was like an orchestra pit with the musicians constantly turning up. Birds, insects and squirrels expressed their joy at the end of the hot weather and the cool quenching relief of the rains.

  A flute in my hands, I would try adding my shrill piping to theirs. But they thought poorly of my musical ability, for whenever I played on the flute, the birds and insects would subside into a pained and puzzled silence.

  IRD-WATCHING IS more difficult in the hills than on the plains. Many birds are difficult to spot against the dark green of the trees or the varying shades of the hillsides. Large gardens and open fields make bird-watching much easier on the plains; but up here in the mountains one has to be quick of eye to spot a flycatcher flitting from tree to tree, or a mottled brown treecreeper ascending the trunk of oak or spruce. But few birds remain silent, and one learns of their presence from their calls or songs. Birdsong is with you wherever you go in the hills, from the foothills to the tree line; and it is often easier to recognize a bird from its voice than from its colourful but brief appearance.

  The barbet is one of those birds which are heard more than they are seen. Summer visitors to our hill stations must have heard their monotonous, far-reaching call, pee-oh, pee-oh, or un-nee-ow, un-nee-ow. They would probably not have seen the birds, as they keep to the tops of high trees where they are no
t easily distinguished from the foliage. Apart from that, the sound carries for about half a mile, and as the bird has the habit of turning its head from side to side while calling, it is very difficult to know in which direction to look for it.

  Barbets love listening to their own voices and often two or three birds answer each other from different trees, each trying to outdo the other in a shrill shouting match. Most birds are noisy during the mating season. Barbets are noisy all the year round!

  Some people like the barbet’s call and consider it both striking and pleasant. Some don’t like it and simply consider it striking!

  In parts of the Garhwal Himalayas, there is a legend that the bird is the reincarnation of a moneylender who died of grief at the unjust termination of a law suit. Eternally his plaint rises to heaven, un-nee-ow, un-nee-ow! which means, ‘injustice, injustice’.

  Barbets are found throughout the tropical world, but probably the finest of these birds is the Great Himalayan Barbet. Just over a foot in length, it has a massive yellow bill, almost as large as that of a toucan. The head and neck are a rich violet; the upper back is olive brown with pale green streaks. The wings are green, washed with blue, brown and yellow. In spite of all these brilliant colours, the barbet is not easily distinguished from its leafy surroundings. It goes for the highest treetops and seldom comes down to earth.

  Hodgson’s Grey-Headed Flycatcher-Warbler is the long name that ornithologists, in their infinite wisdom, have given to a very small bird. This tiny bird is heard, if not seen, more often than any other bird throughout the Western Himalayas. It is almost impossible to visit any hill station between Naini Tal and Dalhousie without noticing this warbler; its voice is heard in every second tree; and yet there are few who can say what it looks like.

  Its song (if you can call it that) is not very musical, and Douglas Dewar in writing about it was reminded of a notice that once appeared in a third-rate music hall: The audience is respectfully requested not to throw things at the pianist. He is doing his best.