A Song of Many Rivers Read online

  ‘There will be other animals,’ said Sita. ‘Should we climb into the tree?’

  ‘We are quite safe in the boat,’ said Krishan. ‘The animals are interested only in reaching dry land. They will not even hunt each other. Tonight, the deer are safe from the panther and the tiger. So lie down and sleep, and I will keep watch.’

  Sita stretched herself out in the boat and closed her eyes, and the sound of the water lapping against the sides of the boat soon lulled her to sleep. She woke once, when a strange bird called overhead. She raised herself on one elbow, but Krishan was awake, sitting in the prow, and he smiled reassuringly at her. He looked blue in the moonlight, the colour of the young god Krishna, and for a few moments Sita was confused and wondered if the boy was indeed Krishna; but when she thought about it, she decided that it wasn’t possible. He was just a village boy and she had seen hundreds like him—well, not exactly like him; he was different, in a way she couldn’t explain to herself…

  And when she slept again, she dreamt that the boy and Krishna were one, and that she was sitting beside him on a great white bird which flew over mountains, over the snow peaks of the Himalayas, into the cloud-land of the gods. There was a great rumbling sound, as though the gods were angry about the whole thing, and she woke up to this terrible sound and looked about her, and there in the moonlit glade, up to his belly in water, stood a young elephant, his trunk raised as he trumpeted his predicament to the forest—for he was a young elephant, and he was lost, and he was looking for his mother.

  He trumpeted again, and then lowered his head and listened. And presently, from far away, came the shrill trumpeting of another elephant. It must have been the young one’s mother, because he gave several excited trumpet calls, and then went stamping and churning through the flood water towards a gap in the trees. The boat rocked in the waves made by his passing.

  ‘It’s all right now,’ said Krishan. ‘You can go to sleep again.’

  ‘I don’t think I will sleep now,’ said Sita.

  ‘Then I will play my flute for you,’ said the boy, ‘and the time will pass more quickly.’

  From the bottom of the boat he took a flute, and putting it to his lips, he began to play. The sweetest music that Sita had ever heard came pouring from the little flute, and it seemed to fill the forest with its beautiful sound. And the music carried her away again, into the land of dreams, and they were riding on the bird once more, Sita and the blue god, and they were passing through clouds and mist, until suddenly the sun shot out through the clouds. And at the same moment, Sita opened her eyes and saw the sun streaming through the branches of the Toon tree, its bright green leaves making a dark pattern against the blinding blue of the sky.

  Sita sat up with a start, rocking the boat. There were hardly any clouds left. The trees were drenched with sunshine.

  The boy Krishan was fast asleep in the bottom of the boat. His flute lay in the palm of his half-open hand. The sun came slanting across his bare brown legs. A leaf had fallen on his upturned face, but it had not woken him, it lay on his cheek as though it had grown there.

  Sita did not move again. She did not want to wake the boy. It didn’t look as though the water had gone down, but it hadn’t risen, and that meant the flood had spent itself.

  The warmth of the sun, as it crept up Krishan’s body, woke him at last. He yawned, stretched his limbs, and sat up beside Sita.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ he said with a smile.

  ‘So am I,’ said Sita.

  ‘The last mangoes,’ he said, and emptied the basket of its last two mangoes.

  After they had finished the fruit, they sucked the big seeds until these were quite dry. The discarded seeds floated well on the water. Sita had always preferred them to paper boats.

  ‘We had better move on,’ said Krishan.

  He rowed the boat through the trees, and then for about an hour they were passing through the flooded forest, under the dripping branches of rain-washed trees. Sometimes they had to use the oars to push away vines and creepers. Sometimes drowned bushes hampered them. But they were out of the forest before noon.

  Now the water was not very deep and they were gliding over flooded fields. In the distance, they saw a village. It was on high ground. In the old days, people had built their villages on hilltops, which gave them a better defence against bandits and invading armies. This was an old village, and though its inhabitants had long ago exchanged their swords for pruning forks, the hill on which it stood now protected it from the flood.

  The people of the village—long-limbed, sturdy Jats—were generous, and gave the stranded children food and shelter. Sita was anxious to find her grandparents, and an old farmer who had business in Shahganj offered to take her there. She was hoping that Krishan would accompany her, but he said he would wait in the village, where he knew others would soon be arriving, his own people among them.

  ‘You will be all right now,’ said Krishan. ‘Your grandfather will be anxious for you, so it is best that you go to him as soon as you can. And in two or three days, the water will go down and you will be able to return to the island.’

  ‘Perhaps the island has gone forever,’ said Sita.

  As she climbed into the farmer’s bullock cart, Krishan handed her his flute.

  ‘Please keep it for me,’ he said. ‘I will come for it one day.’ And when he saw her hesitate, he added, his eyes twinkling, ‘It is a good flute!’

  ∼

  It was slow going in the bullock cart. The road was awash, the wheels got stuck in the mud, and the farmer, his grown son and Sita had to keep getting down to heave and push in order to free the big wooden wheels. They were still in a foot or two of water. The bullocks were bespattered with mud, and Sita’s legs were caked with it.

  They were a day and a night in the bullock cart before they reached Shahganj; by that time, Sita, walking down the narrow bazaar of the busy market town, was hardly recognizable.

  Grandfather did not recognize her. He was walking stiffly down the road, looking straight ahead of him, and would have walked right past the dusty, dishevelled girl if she had not charged straight at his thin, shaky legs and clasped him around the waist.

  ‘Sita!’ he cried, when he had recovered his wind and his balance. ‘But how are you here? How did you get off the island? I was so worried—it has been very bad these last two days…’

  ‘Is Grandmother all right?’ asked Sita.

  But even as she spoke, she knew that Grandmother was no longer with them. The dazed look in the old man’s eyes told her as much. She wanted to cry, not for Grandmother, who could suffer no more, but for Grandfather, who looked so helpless and bewildered; she did not want him to be unhappy. She forced back her tears, took his gnarled and trembling hand, and led him down the crowded street. And she knew, then, that it would be on her shoulder that Grandfather would have to lean in the years to come.

  They returned to the island after a few days, when the river was no longer in spate. There was more rain, but the worst was over. Grandfather still had two of the goats; it had not been necessary to sell more than one.

  He could hardly believe his eyes when he saw that the tree had disappeared from the island—the tree that had seemed as permanent as the island, as much a part of his life as the river itself. He marvelled at Sita’s escape. ‘It was the tree that saved you,’ he said.

  ‘And the boy,’ said Sita.

  Yes, and the boy.

  She thought about the boy, and wondered if she would ever see him again. But she did not think too much, because there was so much to do.

  For three nights they slept under a crude shelter made out of jute bags. During the day, she helped Grandfather rebuild the mud hut. Once again, they used the big rock as a support.

  The trunk which Sita had packed so carefully had not been swept off the island, but the water had got into it, and the food and clothing had been spoilt. But Grandfather’s hookah had been saved, and, in the evenings, after their work was done and th
ey had eaten the light meal which Sita prepared, he would smoke with a little of his old contentment, and tell Sita about other floods and storms which he had experienced as a boy.

  Sita planted a mango seed in the same spot where the peepul tree had stood. It would be many years before it grew into a big tree, but Sita liked to imagine sitting in its branches one day, picking the mangoes straight from the tree, and feasting on them all day. Grandfather was more particular about making a vegetable garden and putting down peas, carrots, gram and mustard.

  One day, when most of the hard work had been done and the new hut was almost ready, Sita took the flute which had been given to her by the boy, and walked down to the water’s edge and tried to play it. But all she could produce were a few broken notes, and even the goats paid no attention to her music.

  Sometimes, Sita thought she saw a boat coming down the river and she would run to meet it; but usually there was no boat, or if there was, it belonged to a stranger or to another fisherman. And so she stopped looking out for boats. Sometimes she thought she heard the music of a flute, but it seemed very distant and she could never tell where the music came from.

  Slowly, the rains came to an end. The flood waters had receded, and in the villages people were beginning to till the land again and sow crops for the winter months. There were cattle fairs and wrestling matches. The days were warm and sultry. The water in the river was no longer muddy, and one evening Grandfather brought home a huge Mahseer fish and Sita made it into a delicious curry.

  ∼

  Grandfather sat outside the hut, smoking his hookah. Sita was at the far end of the island, spreading clothes on the rocks to dry. One of the goats had followed her. It was the friendlier of the two, and often followed Sita about the island. She had made it a necklace of coloured beads.

  She sat down on a smooth rock, and, as she did so, she noticed a small bright object in the sand near her feet. She stooped and picked it up. It was a little wooden toy—a coloured peacock—that must have come down on the river and been swept ashore on the island. Some of the paint had rubbed off, but for Sita, who had no toys, it was a great find. Perhaps it would speak to her, as Mumta had spoken to her.

  As she held the toy peacock in the palm of her hand, she thought she heard the flute music again, but she did not look up. She had heard it before, and she was sure that it was all in her mind.

  But this time the music sounded nearer, much nearer. There was a soft footfall in the sand. And, looking up, she saw the boy, Krishan, standing over her.

  ‘I thought you would never come,’ said Sita.

  ‘I had to wait until the rains were over. Now that I am free, I will come more often. Did you keep my flute?’

  ‘Yes, but I cannot play it properly. Sometimes it plays by itself, I think, but it will not play for me!’

  ‘I will teach you to play it,’ said Krishan.

  He sat down beside her, and they cooled their feet in the water, which was clear now, reflecting the blue of the sky. You could see the sand and the pebbles of the riverbed.

  ‘Sometimes the river is angry, and sometimes it is kind,’ said Sita.

  ‘We are part of the river,’ said the boy. ‘We cannot live without it.’

  It was a good river, deep and strong, beginning in the mountains and ending in the sea. Along its banks, for hundreds of miles, lived millions of people, and Sita was only one small girl among them, and no one had ever heard of her, no one knew her—except for the old man, the boy and the river.

  Ferns in Foliage

  At the bottom of the hill there is a small rippling stream, its water almost hidden by the bright green, tangled growth along its course. It is only by its sound as it batters over the pebbles, that we become aware of it. Here we came across many plants that delight to grow in such places—wild strawberries, wood sorrel, orchids, violets and dandelions, and a nest of ferns.

  The first thing one notices is a beautiful group of ferns growing almost to the water. This is the Lady Fern, whose broad fronds must be four to five feet high, a delicate plant, frail and almost transparent in the fineness of its foliage, and looking so tender that you would think the sun and wind would almost scorch or shrivel it up. But the abundant supply of flowing water keeps these ferns cool and fresh.

  When the frosts of winter come, the fronds will crumple up into a heap of brown fragments. But their strength has by that time returned into the thick clump of roots to be stored and used for a still finer group of fronds next year.

  In the moist parts of any forest there are sure to be several other kinds of ferns such as the Male Fern, with its strong, upright fronds looking like a large green shuttlecock three feet high. One of the commonest of Indian ferns is the Maidenhair which grows along the west coast and in the Himalayan foothills. During the monsoon, it can be found on almost every wall and rock—a delicate, tender fern, easily torn by the wind.

  On the stump of a fallen tree grow the Prickly-toothed Buckler fern and the Broad Buckler fern, whose rootlets penetrate the soft, rotting wood to obtain their moisture. They are hardy, often remaining green all through the winter. The handsome Bracken fern often grows to a height of six or seven feet.

  Then there is the lovely Hart’s tongue fern, great clumps of which grow beside the forest paths. It has broad, green crinkled fronds and is quite unlike other ferns. If you look at the back of the fronds you will see from the little heaps of rust-coloured spore cases, that this is indeed a fern; all ferns grow their seeds in this way.

  There are several hundred varieties of ferns. They are easily pressed and preserved. They may also be grown indoors in pots. But they are loveliest in the open, in cool, damp places, in the depths of the forest or by the side of a mountain stream.

  The history of ferns goes back to the mists of antiquity. There was a time when ferns and plants like them filled the earth. It was a wet and dripping time. Flowers would have been of no use at all but spores could carry on their lives in the prevailing dampness. Some ferns grew as large as trees. The falling stems of these mighty tree ferns were floated together by mighty streams, carried away to the sea and buried under sand and mud. The remains of these plants being, thus, shut off from the air, could not rot but were slowly changed into coal. The impressions of leaves and stems of these ferns can be distinctively seen on many pieces of coal.

  As the earth became drier, ferns retired to the damp, shady spots in which we now find them. They are a declining family but let us hope they will remain with us for some time, for a forest stream without ferns would be like a maiden whose loveliest tresses have been shorn.

  A Marriage of the Waters

  In summer the grass on the hills is still a pale yellowish green, tinged with brown, and that is how it remains until the monsoon rains bring new life to everything that subsists on the stony Himalayan soil. And then, for four months, the hills are deep, dark, and emerald bright.

  But the other day, taking a narrow path that left the dry Mussoorie ridge to link up with Pari Tibba (Fairy Hill), I ran across a path of lush green grass, and I knew there had to be water there.

  The grass was soft and springy, spotted with the crimson of small, wild strawberries. Delicate Maidenhair, my favourite fern, grew from a cluster of moist, glistening rocks. Moving the ferns a little, I discovered the spring, a freshet of clear sparkling water.

  I never cease to wonder at the tenacity of water—its ability to make its way through various strata of rock, zigzagging, back tracking, finding space, cunningly discovering faults and fissures in the mountain, and sometimes travelling underground for great distance before emerging into the open. Of course, there’s no stopping water. For no matter how tiny that little trickle, it has to go somewhere!

  Like this little spring. At first I thought it was too small to go anywhere, that it would dry up at the edge of the path. Then I discovered that the grass remained soft and green for some distance along the verge, and that there was moisture beneath the grass. This wet stretch ended abrupt
ly; but, on looking further, I saw it continued on the other side of the path, after briefly going underground again.

  I decided to follow its fortunes as it disappeared beneath a tunnel of tall grass and bracken fern. Slithering down a stony slope, I found myself in a small ravine, and there I discovered that my little spring had grown, having been joined by the waters of another spring bubbling up from beneath a path of primroses.

  A short distance away, a spotted forktail stood on a rock, surveying this marriage of the waters. His long, forked tail moved slowly up and down. He paid no attention to me, being totally absorbed in the movements of a water spider. A swift peck, and the spider vanished, completing the bird’s breakfast. Thirsty, I cupped my hands and drank a little water. So did the forktail. We had a perennial supply of pure water all to ourselves!

  There was now a rivulet to follow, and I continued down the ravine until I came to a small pool that was fed not only by my brook (I was already thinking of it as my very own!) but also by a little cascade of water coming down from a rocky ledge. I climbed a little way up the rocks and entered a small cave, in which there was just enough space for crouching down. Water dripped and trickled off its roof and sides. And most wonderful of all, some of these drops created tiny rainbows, for a ray of sunlight had struck through a crevice in the cave roof making the droplets of moisture radiant with all the colours of the spectrum.

  When I emerged from the cave, I saw a pair of pine martens drinking at the pool. As soon as they saw me, they were up and away, bounding across the ravine and into the trees.

  The brook was now a small stream, but I could not follow it much farther, because the hill went into a steep decline and the water tumbled over large, slippery boulders, becoming a waterfall and then a noisy little torrent as it sped toward the valley.

  Climbing up the sides of the ravine to the spur of Pari Tibba, I could see the distant silver of a meandering river and I knew my little stream was destined to become part of it; and that the river would be joined by another that could be seen slipping over the far horizon, and that their combined waters would enter the great Ganga, or Ganges, farther downstream.