Small Towns, Big Stories Read online

  SMALL TOWNS, BIG STORIES

  Books by Ruskin Bond

  Fiction

  Tales of Fosterganj

  A Gathering of Friends

  Upon An Old Wall Dreaming

  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

  Maharani

  Secrets

  Non-fiction

  Rain in the Mountains

  Scenes from a Writer’s Life

  A Book of Simple Living

  Love among the Bookshelves

  Landour Days

  Notes from a Small Room

  The India I Love

  Anthologies

  Classic Ruskin Bond: Complete and Unabridged

  Classic Ruskin Bond Volume 2: The Memoirs

  Dust on the Mountain: Collected Stories

  The Best of Ruskin Bond

  Friends in Small Places

  Indian Ghost Stories (ed.)

  Indian Railway Stories (ed.)

  Ghost Stories from the Raj

  Tales of the Open Road

  Ruskin Bond’s Book of Nature

  Ruskin Bond’s Book of Humour

  A Town Called Dehra

  The Writer on the Hill

  Poetry

  Ruskin Bond’s Book of Verse

  Hip-Hop Nature Boy & Other Poems

  SMALL TOWNS, BIG STORIES

  NEW & SELECTED FICTION

  RUSKIN BOND

  ALEPH BOOK COMPANY

  An independent publishing firm

  promoted by Rupa Publications India

  First published in India in 2017

  by Aleph Book Company

  7/16 Ansari Road, Daryaganj

  New Delhi 110 002

  Copyright © Ruskin Bond 2017

  The author has asserted his moral rights.

  All rights reserved.

  Acknowledgements on Page 190 constitute an extension of the copyright page.

  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 persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from Aleph Book Company.

  ISBN: 978-93-82277-54-5

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  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.

  To

  Beena and Rakesh in gratitude for looking after the most impractical man in the world while he wrote these and many other stories in their small flat on the heights of Landour

  CONTENTS

  Introduction: Small Towns, Big Stories

  1.The Big Race

  2.Up the Spiral Staircase

  3.A Long Walk for Bina

  4.When Guavas are Ripe

  5.The Night Train at Deoli

  6.The Visitor

  7.Of Rivers and Pilgrims

  8.A Good Place for Trees

  9.Time Stops at Shamli

  10.Bus Stop, Pipalnagar

  11.The Funeral

  12.Some Hill Station Ghosts

  13.A Hill Station’s Vintage Murders

  14.Kipling’s Simla

  15.Grandfather’s Earthquake

  16.Voting at Barlowganj

  17.A Magic Oil

  18.The Tail of the Lizard

  19.Strychnine in the Cognac

  20.When the Clock Strikes Thirteen

  21.The Horseshoe

  Acknowledgements

  INTRODUCTION

  Small Towns, Big Stories

  This collection of what I regard as my finest ‘small town’ stories, along with some brand new ones, was put together with the help of David Davidar, publisher, editor and friend, who has played an important part in my literary journey—at first with Penguin India and then with Aleph. I was especially happy to be able to include some of my early work—‘The Big Race’, ‘The Visitor’, ‘The Night Train at Deoli’, ‘Time Stops at Shamli’—written when I was in my early twenties, freelancing from Dehradun, then a small town of some fifty thousand souls. It is no longer a small town today, over fifty years later, rather it is a small city with a population exceeding ten lakhs! But that, as they say, is another story.

  The 1950s was my ‘romantic’ period, as far as stories went, and ‘The Night Train at Deoli’ is still one that appeals to the young and romantic. I am often asked if the girl and the station really existed. When I wrote the story I thought I was making up the name, which appealed to me. Later I discovered that there were at least five Deolis in India—one in Rajasthan, one in Maharashtra, one in Orissa, and two in Madhya Pradesh! They are all small towns, but as far as I know, only one has a railway station.

  However, my ‘Deoli’ is really just a place in my mind; it could be a wayside station almost anywhere. And the same with ‘Shamli’. The real Shamli is a prosperous little town in the middle of west UP’s sugarcane belt. And you can say the same of ‘Pipalnagar’. You can find mine almost anywhere in northern India, going by a different name. Jamnagar, a small town and port on our western seaboard, was very much a part of my childhood. Later, schooldays were spent in Simla and boyhood in the old ‘Dehra’. (‘Dehradun’, freely translated, means ‘Rest camp in the dhun, or valley.’)

  For many years I have lived in Landour and Mussoorie, and the hills and hill stations have given me much to write about, including the new offerings in this collection. ‘Fosterganj’ is part of the same scene; a relic of our colonial past.

  Oddly enough, although I spent three years in London and five in New Delhi, those great cities never gave me much by way of stories. It is easier to know people in small places. Sometimes you can’t help knowing them. Like the boy who walks four miles to school; or the elderly gentleman who is up every morning at five o’clock, taking his morning walk (tap-tap-tap, I hear his walking stick below my window); or that busy little woman gathering firewood for the winter; or the man from the nursery who sells me a potted geranium and ends up telling me the story of his life… So many stories waiting to be told! And, as I have discovered, small towns may be smaller than cities, and there may be fewer people living in them, but the stories they provide a writer with are big, they contain worlds upon worlds within them.

  There’s yet another advantage to writing about small places. You might get writer’s block living in Delhi or Mumbai, but in small town India you won’t run out of tales to tell. Like it or not, you are a part of the human comedy.

  Landour, Mussoorie

  November 2016

  THE BIG RACE

  Dawn crept quietly over the sleeping town. Only a cock was aware of it, and crowed. Koki heard a soft tapping on the windowpane, and immediately sat up in bed. She was ten years old. Her hair fell about her shoulders in a disorderly fashion and there were slight shadows under her dark eyes, but she was wide awake and listening. The tapping was repeated.

  Koki got out of bed and tiptoed across to the window and unlatched it. Ranji was standing outside, looking somewhat disgruntled.

  ‘Come on,’ h
e said. ‘It’s nearly time.’

  Koki put her finger to her lips, for she did not want her parents and grandmother to wake up.

  ‘You go and tell Bhim,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll meet you at the maidan.’

  Ranji hurried off in the direction of Bhim’s house, and Koki turned from the window and went to the dressing table. She combed her hair carelessly and tied it roughly with a ribbon. She was excited and in a hurry, and had slept in her dress, which was very crushed. Now she was ready to leave.

  Very quietly, she pulled open a dressing table drawer, and brought out a cardboard box in which were punctured little holes. She opened the lid of the box to see if Rajkumari was all right.

  Rajkumari, a dumpy rhino beetle, was asleep on the core of an apple. Koki did not disturb her. She closed the box and barefoot crept out of the house through the back door.

  As soon as she was outside, Koki broke into a run. She did not stop running until she reached the maidan.

  On the maidan, the slanting rays of the early morning sun were just beginning to make emeralds of the dewdrops. Later in the day the grass would dry and be prickly to the feet, but now it was cool and soft. A group of boys had gathered at one corner of the maidan, talking excitedly, and among them were Ranji and Bhim, a lanky, bespectacled boy of fourteen. Koki was the only girl among them.

  Bhim’s beetle was the favourite for the race. It was a large bamboo beetle, with a slim body and long, slender legs, rather like its master’s. It was called 2001. Ranji’s beetle was a stone carrier with what looked like a very long pair of whiskers. It was appropriately named Moocha. Koki’s beetle was not half as big as the other two. Though she did not know how to tell its sex, she was sure it was a female and had called it Rajkumari.

  There were only three entries. Strictly speaking, betting wasn’t allowed, but the boys made a few quiet bets among themselves. The prize was a giant insect (there was some disagreement as to whether it was a beetle or an outsize cockroach), which was meant to enable the winner to breed larger racing beetles.

  There was some confusion when Ranji’s Moocha escaped from his box and took a preliminary canter over the grass; but he was soon caught and returned to his enclosure. Moocha appeared to be in good form, in fact he would be tough competition for Bhim’s 2001.

  The course was about two metres long, the tracks fifteen centimetres wide. The tracks were fenced with strips of cardboard so that the contestants did not get in each other’s way or leave the course altogether. They were held at the starting post by another piece of cardboard, which would be placed behind them as soon as the race began—just to make sure that no one backed out.

  A little Sikh boy in a yellow pyjama-suit was acting as starter, and he kept blowing his whistle for order and attention. When the onlookers saw that the race was about to begin, they fell silent. The little Sikh boy then announced the rules of the race—the contestants were not to be touched during the race, or blown at from behind, or enticed forward with bits of food. They could, however, be cheered on as loudly as anyone wished.

  Moocha and 2001 were already at the starting post, but Koki was giving Rajkumari a few words of advice. Rajkumari seemed reluctant to leave her apple core and needed to be taken forcibly to the starting post.

  There was further delay when Moocha and 2001 got their horns and whiskers entangled. They had to be separated and calmed down before being placed in their respective tracks. The race was about to start.

  Koki knelt on the grass, very quiet and serious, looking from Rajkumari to the finishing line and back again. Ranji was biting his fingernails. Bhim’s glasses had clouded over, and he had to keep taking them off and wiping them on his shirt. There was a hush amongst the dozen or so spectators.

  ‘Pee-ee-eeep!’ The little Sikh boy blew his whistle.

  They were off!

  Or rather, Moocha and 2001 were off. Rajkumari was still at the starting post, wondering what had happened to her apple core.

  Everyone was cheering madly, and Ranji was jumping up and down, and Bhim’s glasses had been knocked off. Moocha was going at a spanking rate. 2001 wasn’t taking a great deal of interest in the proceedings, but he was moving, and anything could happen in a race like this.

  Koki was on the verge of tears. All the coaching she had given Rajkumari seemed to be of no avail. Her beetle was still looking bewildered and hurt.

  ‘Stop sulking,’ said Koki. ‘I won’t keep you if you don’t try.’

  Then Moocha stopped suddenly, less than a metre from the finishing line. He seemed to be having trouble with his whiskers, and kept twitching them this way and that. 2001 was catching up slowly but surely, and both Ranji and Bhim were shouting themselves hoarse. Nobody paid any attention to Rajkumari, who was considered to be out of the race; but Koki was using all her willpower to get her racer going.

  As 2001 approached Moocha, he seemed to sense his rival’s trouble and stopped to find out what was the matter. They could not see each other over the cardboard fence, but otherwise appeared to be communicating very well. Ranji and Bhim were becoming quite frantic in their efforts to rally their faltering steeds, and the cheering on all sides was deafening.

  Rajkumari, goaded with rage and frustration at having been deprived of her apple core, now took it into her head to make a bid for liberty and new pastures, and rushed forward in great style.

  Koki shouted with joy, but the others did not notice the new challenge until Rajkumari had drawn level with her conferring rivals. There was a gasp from the crowd as Rajkumari strode across the finishing line in record time.

  Everyone cheered the gallant outsider. Ranji and Bhim very sportingly shook Koki’s hand, congratulating her on Rajkumari’s victory. The little Sikh boy in the yellow pyjama-suit blew his whistle for silence and presented Koki with her prize.

  Koki gazed in rapture at the new beetle—or was it a cockroach? She stroked its back with her thumb. The insect didn’t seem to mind. Then, lest Rajkumari should feel jealous, Koki closed the prize box and, picking up her victorious beetle, returned her to the apple core.

  The crowd began to break up. Ranji decided that he would trim Moocha’s whiskers before the next race, and Bhim thought 2001 was in need of a special diet.

  ‘Just wait till next Sunday,’ said Ranji. ‘Then watch my Moocha leave the rest of you standing!’

  Bhim said nothing. He looked very thoughtful. There were some new training methods which he was going to try out for next time.

  Koki walked home, a cardboard box under each arm. Her thoughts were busy with the future. She would breed beetles (or would they be cockroaches?) until she had a stable of about twenty. Her racers would win every event, both here and in the next town. They might make her famous. Beetle racing would become a national sport!

  Meanwhile, she was happy, and Rajkumari was happy on the apple core, and the new insect was just being an insect and did not know and did not care about anything except how to get out of that wretched box.

  UP THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE

  We lived in an old palace beside a lake. The palace looked a ruin from the outside, but the rooms were cool and comfortable. We lived in one wing, and my father organized a small school in another wing. His pupils were the children of the raja and the raja’s relatives. My father had started life in India as a tea planter; but he had been trained as a teacher and the idea of starting a school in a small state facing the Arabian Sea had appealed to him. The pay wasn’t much, but we had a palace to live in, the latest 1938 model Hillman to drive about in, and a number of servants. In those days, of course, everyone had servants (although the servants did not have any). Ayah was our own; but the cook, the bearer, the gardener and the bhisti were all provided by the state.

  Sometimes I sat in the schoolroom with the other children (who were all much bigger than me), sometimes I remained in the house with Ayah, sometimes I followed the gardener Dukhi about the spacious garden.

  Dukhi means ‘sad’, and though I never could discover if
the gardener had anything to feel sad about, the name certainly suited him. He had grown to resemble the drooping weeds that he was always digging up with a tiny spade. I seldom saw him standing up. He always sat on the ground with his knees well up to his chin, and attacked the weeds from this position. He could spend all day on his haunches, moving about the garden simply by shuffling his feet along the grass.

  I tried to imitate his posture, sitting down on my heels and putting my knees into my armpits, but could never hold the position for more than five minutes.

  Time had no meaning in a large garden, and Dukhi never hurried. Life, for him, was not a matter of one year succeeding another but of five seasons—winter, spring, hot weather, monsoon and autumn—arriving and departing. His seedbeds had always to be in readiness for the coming season, and he did not look any further than the next monsoon. It was impossible to tell his age. He may have been thirty-six or eighty-six. He was either very young for his years or very old for them.

  Dukhi loved bright colours, especially reds and yellows. He liked strongly scented flowers, like jasmine and honeysuckle. He couldn’t understand my father’s preference for the more delicately perfumed petunias and sweet peas. But I shared Dukhi’s fondness for the common, bright orange marigold, which is offered in temples and used to make garlands and nosegays. When the garden was bare of all colour, the marigold would still be there, gay and flashy, challenging the sun.

  Dukhi was very fond of making nosegays, and I liked to watch him at work. A sunflower formed the centrepiece. It was surrounded by roses, marigolds and oleanders, fringed with green leaves, and bound together with silver thread. The perfume was overpowering. The nosegays were presented to me or my father on special occasions, that is, on birthdays or any party, at moments of arrival or departure, or to guests of my father’s who were considered important.

  One day I found Dukhi making a nosegay, and said, ‘No one is coming today, Dukhi. It isn’t even a birthday.’

  ‘It is a birthday, chota sahib,’ he said. ‘Little sahib’ was the title he had given me. It wasn’t much of a title compared to raja sahib or diwan sahib or burra sahib but it was nice to have a title at the age of seven.