The Prospect of Flowers Read online

  The Prospect of Flowers

  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 Award 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 Dehradun. Apart from three years in the UK, he has spent all his life in India, and now lives in Mussoorie with his adopted family.

  RUSKIN

  BOND

  The Prospect of Flowers

  Published by

  Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd 2016

  7/16, Ansari Road, Daryaganj

  New Delhi 110002

  Copyright © Ruskin Bond 2016

  This anthology comprises both fiction and non-fiction pieces.

  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.

  Non-fiction: The views and opinions expressed are the author’s own and the facts are as reported by him which have been verified to the extent possible, and the publishers are not in any way liable for the same.

  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: 978-81-291-4210-8

  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

  The Prospect of Flowers

  The Blue Umbrella

  The Eyes of the Eagle

  From Small Beginnings

  On Fairy Hill

  The Playing Fields of Simla

  Gone Fishing

  Binya Passes By

  The Cherry Tree

  Once Upon a Mountain Time

  Night of the Leopard

  Introduction

  Walking around Himalayan towns, villages and forests, I have found many of my characters as they have strolled by, stopping to spend the time of day with me. Ambling down a hilly road, carrying an umbrella to keep away the pattering rain, stopping to admire the flowers growing wild on the mountainside—these are things I do every day, and what life in the mountains is often about.

  I don’t think some of these stories or characters could have lived and grown anywhere else. Could Binya with her blue umbrella have lived anywhere but in a mountain village with its tiny population of eccentric characters? Hilltops and mountainsides are the perfect setting for otherworldly people and happenings, including long dead masters appearing after years as in ‘Gone Fishing’ or the surreal ‘On Fairy Hill’. Adventure and intrigue lurk in rocky cliffs and shadowy recesses. Imagine grazing your sheep in the high mountains and then having to fight off an eagle determined to make off with one of the flock as Jai did in ‘The Eyes of the Eagle’.

  Connections that form between men, women and children disregarding the divisions of age and across the stages of life is something that fascinates me. A substantial part of my own childhood was spent in the company of my grandparents and this had a lasting impact. Among these stories, ‘The Cherry Tree’ is perhaps the most special. From a seed that Rakesh saves while eating cherries, grows a plant that becomes a tree despite setbacks of weather and the careless swish of a sickle. As Rakesh grows, so does the tree, and both are guided into their lives by Grandfather.

  It is among these mountains that I have also found lifelong friends and companions. ‘From Small Beginnings’ is about how Prem came into my life. One day a young man appeared, looking for work, like so many hill people who have to move away from their villages. From that time, Prem kept drifting in and out of my life for many years, sometimes in the employ of the government, and others in the home of the school headmaster. When Prem and the headmaster’s wife finally fell out, he came to me and became the first member of my ever-expanding family.

  It’s perhaps impossible to fathom how much the mountains have permeated my life and writing. I lived in the plains in my youth in order to make a living, but when the opportunity came, I went back to where my heart lay. My fifty years in Mussoorie are an epic in themselves. I do go away sometimes but I always return in some haste to my small study with its window looking out upon the mountains and the valley. Every writer needs a window. Preferably two.

  The inspiration I draw while sitting at my windows is mirrored in the pages of this book. The people who pass through, the little insects that buzz in and out, the birds that call out to me, the mountain and trees that stand there, eternal yet forever changing—these are the worlds I wish to preserve for my readers.

  Ruskin Bond

  The Prospect of Flowers

  FERN HILL, THE oaks, hunter’s lodge, the parsonage, the Pines, Dumbarnie, Mackinnon’s Hall and Windermere. These are the names of some of the old houses that still stand on the outskirts of one of the smaller Indian hill stations. Most of them have fallen into decay and ruin. They are very old, of course—built over a hundred years ago by Britishers who sought relief from the searing heat of the plains. Today’s visitors to the hill stations prefer to live near the markets and cinemas, and many of the old houses, set amidst oak and maple and deodar, are inhabited by wildcats, bandicoots, owls, goats and the occasional charcoal burner or mule driver.

  But amongst these neglected mansions stands a neat, whitewashed cottage called Mulberry Lodge. And in it, up to a short time ago, lived an elderly English spinster named Miss Mackenzie.

  In years Miss Mackenzie was more than ‘elderly’, being well over eighty. But no one would have guessed it. She was clean, sprightly, and wore old-fashioned but well-preserved dresses. Once a week, she walked the two miles to town to buy butter and jam and soap and sometimes a small bottle of eau de cologne.

  She had lived in the hill station since she had been a girl in her teens, and that had been before the First World War. Though she had never married, she had experienced a few love affairs and was far from being the typical frustrated spinster of fiction. Her parents had been dead thirty years; her brother and sister were also dead. She had no relatives in India, and she lived on a small pension of forty rupees a month and the gift parcels that were sent out to her from New Zealand by a friend of her youth.

  Like other lonely old people, she kept a pet—a large black cat with bright yellow eyes. In her small garden she grew dahlias, chrysanthemums, gladioli and a few rare orchids. She knew a great deal about plants and about wild flowers, trees, birds and insects. She had never made a serious study of these things, but having lived with them for so many years had developed an intimacy with all that grew and flourished around her.

  She had few visitors. Occasionally, the padre from the local church called on her, and once a month the postman came with a letter from New Zealand or her pension papers. The milkman called every second day with a litre of milk for the lady and her cat. And sometimes she received a couple of eggs free, for the egg seller remembered a time when Miss Mackenzie, in her earlier prosperity, had bought eggs from him in large quantities.
He was a sentimental man. He remembered her as a ravishing beauty in her twenties when he had gazed at her in round-eyed, nine-year-old wonder and consternation.

  Now it was September and the rains were nearly over, and Miss Mackenzie’s chrysanthemums were coming into their own. She hoped the coming winter wouldn’t be too severe because she found it increasingly difficult to bear the cold.

  One day, as she was pottering about in her garden, she saw a schoolboy plucking wild flowers on the slope about the cottage.

  ‘Who’s that?’ she called. ‘What are you up to, young man?’

  The boy was alarmed and tried to dash up the hillside, but he slipped on pine needles and came slithering down the slope on to Miss Mackenzie’s nasturtium bed.

  When he found there was no escape, he gave a bright disarming smile and said, ‘Good morning, miss.’

  He belonged to the local English-medium school and wore a bright red blazer and a red-and-black striped tie. Like most polite Indian schoolboys, he called every woman ‘miss’.

  ‘Good morning,’ said Miss Mackenzie severely. ‘Would you mind moving out of my flower bed?’

  The boy stepped gingerly over the nasturtiums and looked up at Miss Mackenzie with dimpled cheeks and appealing eyes. It was impossible to be angry with him.

  ‘You’re trespassing,’ said Miss Mackenzie.

  ‘Yes, miss.’

  ‘And you ought to be in school at this hour.’

  ‘Yes, miss.’

  ‘Then what are you doing here?’

  ‘Picking flowers, miss.’ And he held up a bunch of ferns and wild flowers.

  ‘Oh.’ Miss Mackenzie was disarmed. It was a long time since she had seen a boy taking an interest in flowers, and, what was more, playing truant from school in order to gather them.

  ‘Do you like flowers?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, miss. I’m going to be a botan—a botantist?’

  ‘You mean a botanist.’

  ‘Yes, miss.’

  ‘Well, that’s unusual. Most boys at your age want to be pilots or soldiers or perhaps engineers. But you want to be a botanist. Well, well. There’s still hope for the world, I see. And do you know the names of these flowers?’

  ‘This is a bukhilo flower,’ he said, showing her a small golden flower. ‘That’s a Pahari name. It means puja or prayer. The flower is offered during prayers. But I don’t know what this is…’

  He held out a pale pink flower with a soft, heart-shaped leaf.

  ‘It’s a wild begonia,’ said Miss Mackenzie. ‘And that purple stuff is salvia, but it isn’t wild. It’s a plant that escaped from my garden. Don’t you have any books on flowers?’

  ‘No, miss.’

  ‘All right, come in and I’ll show you a book.’

  She led the boy into a small front room, which was crowded with furniture and books and vases and jam jars, and offered him a chair. He sat awkwardly on its edge. The black cat immediately leapt on to his knees, and settled down on them, purring loudly.

  ‘What’s your name?’ asked Miss Mackenzie, as she rummaged through her books.

  ‘Anil, miss.’

  ‘And where do you live?’

  ‘When school closes, I go to Delhi. My father has a business.’

  ‘Oh, and what’s that?’

  ‘Bulbs, miss.’

  ‘Flower bulbs?’

  ‘No, electric bulbs.’

  ‘Electric bulbs! You might send me a few, when you get home. Mine are always fusing, and they’re so expensive, like everything else these days. Ah, here we are!’ She pulled a heavy volume down from the shelf and laid it on the table. ‘Flora Himaliensis, published in 1892, and probably the only copy in India. This is a very valuable book, Anil. No other naturalist has recorded so many wild Himalayan flowers. And let me tell you this, there are many flowers and plants which are still unknown to the fancy botanists who spend all their time with microscopes instead of in the mountains. But perhaps, you’ll do something about that, one day.’

  ‘Yes, miss.’

  They went through the book together, and Miss Mackenzie pointed out many flowers that grew in and around the hill station, while the boy made notes of their names and seasons. She lit a stove, and put the kettle on for tea. And then the old English lady and the small Indian boy sat side by side over cups of hot sweet tea, absorbed in a book on wild flowers.

  ‘May I come again?’ asked Anil, when finally he rose to go.

  ‘If you like,’ said Miss Mackenzie. ‘But not during school hours. You mustn’t miss your classes.’

  After that, Anil visited Miss Mackenzie about once a week, and nearly always brought a wild flower for her to identify. She found herself looking forward to the boy’s visits—and sometimes, when more than a week passed and he didn’t come, she was disappointed and lonely and would grumble at the black cat.

  Anil reminded her of her brother, when the latter had been a boy. There was no physical resemblance. Andrew had been fair- haired and blue-eyed. But it was Anil’s eagerness, his alert, bright look and the way he stood—legs apart, hands on hips, a picture of confidence—that reminded her of the boy who had shared her own youth in these same hills.

  And why did Anil come to see her so often?

  Partly because she knew about wild flowers, and he really did want to become a botanist. And partly because she smelt of freshly baked bread, and that was a smell his own grandmother had possessed. And partly because she was lonely and sometimes a boy of twelve can sense loneliness better than an adult. And partly because he was a little different from other children.

  By the middle of October, when there was only a fortnight left for the school to close, the first snow had fallen on the distant mountains. One peak stood high above the rest, a white pinnacle against the azure-blue sky. When the sun set, this peak turned from orange to gold to pink to red.

  ‘How high is that mountain?’ asked Anil.

  ‘It must be over twelve thousand feet,’ said Miss Mackenzie. ‘About thirty miles from here, as the crow flies. I always wanted to go there, but there was no proper road. At that height, there’ll be flowers that you don’t get here—the blue gentian and the purple columbine, the anemone and the edelweiss.’

  ‘I’ll go there one day,’ said Anil.

  ‘I’m sure you will, if you really want to.’

  The day before his school closed, Anil came to say goodbye to Miss Mackenzie.

  I don’t suppose you’ll be able to find many wild flowers in Delhi,’ she said. ‘But have a good holiday.’

  ‘Thank you, miss.’

  As he was about to leave, Miss Mackenzie, on an impulse, thrust the Flora Himaliensis into his hands.

  ‘You keep it,’ she said. ‘It’s a present for you.’

  ‘But I’ll be back next year, and I’ll be able to look at it then. It’s so valuable.’

  ‘I know it’s valuable and that’s why I’ve given it to you. Otherwise it will only fall into the hands of the junk dealers.’

  ‘But, miss…’

  ‘Don’t argue. Besides, I may not be here next year.’

  ‘Are you going away?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I may go to England.’

  She had no intention of going to England; she had not seen the country since she was a child, and she knew she would not fit in with the life of post-war Britain. Her home was in these hills, among the oaks and maples and deodars. It was lonely, but at her age it would be lonely anywhere.

  The boy tucked the book under his arm, straightened his tie, stood stiffly to attention and said, ‘Goodbye, Miss Mackenzie.’

  It was the first time he had spoken her name.

  Winter set in early and strong winds brought rain and sleet, and soon there were no flowers in the garden or on the hillside. The cat stayed indoors, curled up at the foot of Miss Mackenzie’s bed.

  Miss Mackenzie wrapped herself up in all her old shawls and mufflers, but still she felt the cold. Her fingers grew so stiff that she took almost an hour to
open a can of baked beans. And then it snowed and for several days the milkman did not come. The postman arrived with her pension papers, but she felt too tired to take them up to town to the bank.

  She spent most of the time in bed. It was the warmest place. She kept a hot-water bottle at her back, and the cat kept her feet warm. She lay in bed, dreaming of the spring and summer months. In three months’ time the primroses would be out, and with the coming of spring the boy would return.

  One night the hot-water bottle burst and the bedding was soaked through. As there was no sun for several days, the blanket remained damp. Miss Mackenzie caught a chill and had to keep to her cold, uncomfortable bed. She knew she had a fever but there was no thermometer with which to take her temperature. She had difficulty in breathing.

  A strong wind sprang up one night, and the window flew open and kept banging all night. Miss Mackenzie was too weak to get up and close it, and the wind swept the rain and sleet into the room. The cat crept into the bed and snuggled close to its mistress’s warm body. But towards morning that body had lost its warmth and the cat left the bed and started scratching about on the floor.

  As a shaft of sunlight streamed through the open window, the milkman arrived. He poured some milk into the cat’s saucer on the doorstep, and the cat leapt down from the windowsill and made for the milk.

  The milkman called a greeting to Miss Mackenzie, but received no answer. Her window was open and he had always known her to be up before sunrise. So he put his head in at the window and called again. But Miss Mackenzie did not answer. She had gone away to the mountain where the blue gentian and purple columbine grew.

  The Blue Umbrella

  1

  ‘NEELU! NEELU!’ CRIED Binya.

  She scrambled barefoot over the rocks, ran over the short summer grass, up and over the brow of the hill, all the time calling ‘Neelu, Neelu!’

  Neelu—Blue—was the name of the blue-grey cow. The other cow, which was white, was called Gori, meaning Fair One. They were fond of wandering off on their own, down to the stream or into the pine forest, and sometimes they came back by themselves and sometimes they stayed away—almost deliberately, it seemed to Binya.