Uncles, Aunts and Elephants Read online

  When Grandfather and I had settled into the compartment of a normal train late that night, Mr Ghosh came to the window to say goodbye.

  As the train began moving, he thrust a cardboard box into my hands and said, ‘A present for you and your grandfather!’

  ‘More rasgullas,’ I thought. But when the train was underway and I had lifted the lid of the box, I found two white mice asleep on a bed of cotton wool.

  *

  Back in Dehra, I kept the white mice in their box; I had plans for them. Uncle Ken had spent most of the day skulking in the guava orchard, too embarrassed to face me. Granny had given him a good lecture on how to be a responsible adult. But I was thirsty for revenge!

  After dinner I slipped into my uncle’s room and released the mice under his bedsheet.

  An hour later we had all to leap out of our beds when Uncle Ken dashed out of his room, screaming that something soft and furry was running about inside his pyjamas.

  ‘Well, off with the pyjamas!’ said Grandfather, giving me a wink; he had a good idea of what had happened.

  After Uncle Ken had done a tap dance, one white mouse finally emerged from the pyjamas; but the other had run up the sleeve of his pyjama-coat and suddenly popped out beneath my uncle’s chin. Uncle Ken grew hysterical. Convinced that his room was full of mice — pink, white and brown — he locked himself into the storeroom and slept on an old sofa.

  Next day Grandfather took me to the station and put me on the train to Delhi. It was the right train this time.

  ‘I’ll look after the white mice,’ he said.

  Grandfather grew quite fond of the mice, and even wrote to Mr Ghosh, asking if he could spare another pair. But Mr Ghosh, he learnt later, had been transferred to another part of the country, and had taken his family with him.

  Wilson’s Bridge

  The old, wooden bridge has gone, and today an iron suspension bridge straddles the Bhagirathi as it rushes down the gorge below Gangotri. But villagers will tell you that you can still hear the hoofs of Wilson’s horse as he gallops across the bridge he had built a hundred and fifty years ago. At the time people were sceptical of its safety, and so, to prove its sturdiness, he rode across it again and again. Parts of the old bridge can still be seen on the far bank of the river. And the legend of Wilson and his pretty hill bride, Gulabi, is still well known in this region.

  I had joined some friends in the old forest rest house near the river. There were the Rays, recently married, and the Dattas, married many years. The younger Rays quarrelled frequently; the older Dattas looked on with more amusement than concern. I was a part of their group and yet something of an outsider. As a single man, I was a person of no importance. And as a marriage counsellor, I wouldn’t have been of any use to them.

  I spent most of my time wandering along the riverbanks or exploring the thick deodar and oak forests that covered the slopes. It was these trees that had made a fortune for Wilson and his patron, the Raja of Tehri. They had exploited the great forests to the full, floating huge logs downstream to the timber yards in the plains.

  Returning to the rest house late one evening, I was halfway across the bridge when I saw a figure at the other end, emerging from the mist. Presently I made out a woman, wearing the plain dhoti of the hills, her hair falling loose over her shoulders. She appeared not to see me, and reclined against the railing of the bridge, looking down at the rushing waters far below. And then, to my amazement and horror, she climbed over the railing and threw herself into the river.

  I ran forward, calling out, but I reached the railing only to see her fall into the foaming waters below, where she was carried swiftly downstream.

  The watchman’s cabin stood a little way off. The door was open. The watchman, Ram Singh, was lying on his bed, smoking a hookah.

  ‘Someone just jumped off the bridge,’ I said breathlessly. ‘She’s been swept down the river!’

  The watchman was unperturbed. ‘Gulabi again,’ he said, almost to himself; and then to me, ‘Did you see her clearly?’

  ‘Yes, a woman with long, loose hair — but I didn’t see her face very clearly.’

  ‘It must have been Gulabi. Only a ghost, my dear sir. Nothing to be alarmed about. Every now and then someone sees her throw herself into the river. Sit down,’ he said, gesturing towards a battered old armchair, ‘be comfortable and I’ll tell you all about it.’

  I was far from comfortable, but I listened to Ram Singh tell me the tale of Gulabi’s suicide. After making me a glass of hot, sweet tea, he launched into a long, rambling account of how Wilson, a British adventurer seeking his fortune, had been hunting musk deer when he encountered Gulabi on the path from her village. The girl’s grey-green eyes and peach-blossom complexion enchanted him, and he went out of his way to get to know her people. Was Wilson in love with her, or did he simply find her beautiful and desirable? We shall never really know. In the course of his travels and adventures he had known many women, but Gulabi was different, childlike and ingenuous, and he decided he would marry her. The humble family to which she belonged had no objection.

  Hunting had its limitations, and Wilson found it more profitable to trap the region’s great forest wealth. In a few years he had made a fortune. He built a large, timbered house at Harsil, another in Dehradun, and a third at Mussoorie. Gulabi had all she could have wanted, including two robust little sons. When Wilson was away on work, she looked after their children and their large apple orchard at Harsil.

  And then came the evil day when Wilson met the Englishwoman, Ruth, in the Mussoorie mall, and decided that she should have a share of his affections and his wealth. A fine house was provided for her too. The time he spent at Harsil with Gulabi and his children dwindled. ‘Business affairs’ — he was now one of the owners of a bank — kept him in the fashionable hill resort. He was a popular host and took his friends and associates on shikar parties in the Doon.

  Gulabi brought up her children in village style. She came to know stories of Wilson’s dalliance with the Mussoorie woman. On one of his rare visits, she confronted him and voiced her resentment, demanding that he leave the other woman. He brushed her aside and told her not to listen to idle gossip. When he turned away from her, she picked up the flintlock pistol that lay on the gun table, and fired one shot at him. The bullet missed him and shattered her looking glass. Gulabi ran out of the house, through the orchard and into the forest, then down the steep path to the bridge built by Wilson only two or three years before. When he had recovered his composure, he mounted his horse and came looking for her. It was too late. She had already thrown herself off the bridge into the swirling waters far below. Her body was found a mile or two downstream, caught between some rocks.

  This was the tale that Ram Singh told me, with various flourishes and interpolations of his own. I thought it would make a good story to tell my friends that evening, before the fireside in the rest house. They found the story fascinating, but when I told them I had seen Gulabi’s ghost, they thought I was doing a little embroidering of my own. Mrs Dutta thought it was a tragic tale. Young Mrs Ray thought Gulabi had been very silly. ‘She was a simple girl,’ opined Mr Dutta. ‘She responded in the only way she knew . . .’ ‘Money can’t buy happiness,’ put in Mr Ray. ‘No,’ said Mrs Dutta, ‘but it can buy you a great many comforts.’ Mrs Ray wanted to talk of other things, so I changed the subject. It can get a little confusing for a bachelor who must spend the evening with two married couples. There are undercurrents which he is aware of but not equipped to deal with.

  I would walk across the bridge quite often after that. It was busy with traffic during the day, but after dusk there were only a few vehicles on the road and seldom any pedestrians. A mist rose from the gorge below and obscured the far end of the bridge. I preferred walking there in the evening, half-expecting, half-hoping to see Gulabi’s ghost again. It was her face that I really wanted to see. Would she still be as beautiful as she was fabled to be?

  It was on the evening before our de
parture that something happened that would haunt me for a long time afterwards.

  There was a feeling of restiveness as our days there drew to a close. The Rays had apparently made up their differences, although they weren’t talking very much. Mr Dutta was anxious to get back to his office in Delhi and Mrs Dutta’s rheumatism was playing up. I was restless too, wanting to return to my writing desk in Mussoorie.

  That evening I decided to take one last stroll across the bridge to enjoy the cool breeze of a summer’s night in the mountains. The moon hadn’t come up, and it was really quite dark, although there were lamps at either end of the bridge providing sufficient light for those who wished to cross over.

  I was standing in the middle of the bridge, in the darkest part, listening to the river thundering down the gorge, when I saw a sari-draped figure emerging from the lamplight and making towards the railings.

  Instinctively I called out, ‘Gulabi!’ She half-turned towards me, but I could not see her clearly. The wind had blown her hair across her face and all I saw was wildly staring eyes. She raised herself over the railing and threw herself off the bridge. I heard the splash as her body struck the water far below.

  Once again I found myself running towards the part of the railing where she had jumped. And then someone was running towards the same spot, from the direction of the rest house. It was young Mr Ray.

  ‘My wife!’ he cried out. ‘Did you see my wife?’

  He rushed to the railing and stared down at the swirling waters of the river.

  ‘Look! There she is!’ He pointed at a helpless figure bobbing about in the water.

  We ran down the steep bank to the river but the current had swept her on. Scrambling over rocks and bushes, we made frantic efforts to catch up with the drowning woman. But the river in that defile is a roaring torrent, and it was over an hour before we were able to retrieve poor Mrs Ray’s body, caught in driftwood about a mile downstream.

  She was cremated not far from where we found her and we returned to our various homes in gloom and grief, chastened but none the wiser for the experience.

  If you happen to be in that area and decide to cross the bridge late in the evening, you might see Gulabi’s ghost or hear the hoof beats of Wilson’s horse as he canters across the old wooden bridge looking for her. Or you might see the ghost of Mrs Ray and hear her husband’s anguished cry. Or there might be others. Who knows?

  The Eyes of the Eagle

  It was a high, piercing sound, almost like the yelping of a dog.

  Jai stopped picking the wild strawberries that grew in the grass around him, and looked up at the sky. He had a dog — a shaggy guard dog called Motu — but Motu did not yelp, he growled and barked. The strange sound came from the sky, and Jai had heard it before. Now, realizing what it was, he jumped to his feet, calling out to his dog, calling his sheep to start for home. Motu came bounding towards him, ready for a game.

  ‘No, not now, Motu!’ said Jai. ‘We must get the lambs home quickly.’ And again Jai looked up at the sky.

  He saw it now, a black speck against the sun, growing larger as it circled the mountain, coming lower every moment: a golden eagle, king of the skies over the higher Himalayas, ready to swoop and seize its prey.

  Had it seen a pheasant or a pine marten? Or was it after one of the lambs? Jai had never lost a lamb to an eagle, but recently some of the other shepherds had been talking about a golden eagle that had been preying on their flocks.

  The sheep had wandered some way down the side of the mountain, and Jai ran after them to make sure that none of the lambs had gone off on its own.

  Motu ran about, barking furiously. He wasn’t very good at keeping the sheep together — in fact, he was often bumping into them and sending them tumbling down the slope, but his size and bear-like appearance kept the leopards and wolves at a distance.

  Jai was counting the lambs; they were bleating loudly and staying close to their mothers. One — two — three — four . . .

  There should have been a fifth. Jai couldn’t see it on the slope below him. He looked up towards a rocky ledge near the steep path to the Tungnath temple. The golden eagle was circling the rocks.

  Suddenly the great bird stopped circling. It dropped a few feet, and then, wings held back and powerful feet thrust out below like the wheels of a plane about to land, it came swooping down, heading straight for a spot behind the rocks.

  The eagle disappeared from sight for a moment, then rose again with a small creature grasped firmly in its terrible talons.

  ‘It has taken a lamb!’ shouted Jai. He started scrambling up the slope. Motu ran ahead of him, barking furiously at the big bird as it glided away over the tops of the stunted junipers to its eyrie on the cliffs above Tung.

  There was nothing that Jai and Motu could do except stare helplessly and angrily at the disappearing eagle. The lamb had died the instant it had been struck. The rest of the flock seemed unaware of what had happened. They still grazed on the thick, sweet grass of the mountain slopes.

  ‘We had better drive them home, Motu,’ said Jai, and at a nod from the boy, the big dog bounded down the slope, to take part in his favourite game of driving the sheep homewards. Soon he had them running all over the place, and Jai had to dash about trying to keep them together. Finally they straggled homewards.

  ‘A fine lamb gone,’ said Jai to himself. ‘I wonder what Grandfather will say.’

  *

  Grandfather said, ‘Never mind. It had to happen some day. That eagle has been watching the sheep for sometime.’

  Grandmother, more practical, put in, ‘We could have sold the lamb for three hundred rupees. You’ll have to be more careful in future, Jai. Don’t fall asleep on the hillside, and don’t read storybooks when you are supposed to be watching the sheep!’

  ‘I wasn’t reading this morning,’ answered Jai truthfully, forgetting to mention that he had been gathering strawberries.

  ‘It’s good for him to read,’ put in Grandfather, who had never had the luck to go to school. In his days, there weren’t any schools in the mountains. Now there was one in every village.

  ‘Time enough to read at night,’ retorted Grandmother, who did not think much of the little one-room school down at Maku, their home village.

  ‘Well, these are the October holidays,’ said Grandfather, ‘otherwise he would not be here to help us with the sheep. It will snow by the end of the month, and then we will move with the flock. You will have more time for reading then, Jai.’

  At Maku, which was down in the warmer valley, Jai’s parents tilled a few narrow terraces on which they grew barley, millet and potatoes. The old people brought their sheep up to the Tung meadows to graze during the summer months. They stayed in a small stone hut just off the path which pilgrims took to the ancient temple. At 12,000 feet above sea level, it was the highest Hindu temple on the inner Himalayan ranges.

  The following day Jai and Motu were very careful. They did not let the sheep out of their sight even for a minute. Nor did they catch a glimpse of the golden eagle.

  ‘What if it attacks again?’ wondered Jai. ‘How will I stop it?’

  The great eagle, with its powerful beak and talons, was more than a match for boy or dog. The eagle’s hind claw, four inches round the curve, was its most dangerous weapon. When it spread its wings, the distance from tip to tip was more than eight feet.

  The eagle did not appear that day because it had fed well and was now resting in its eyrie. Old bones, which had belonged to pheasants, snowcocks, pine martens and even foxes, were scattered about the rocks which formed the eagle’s home. The eagle had a mate, but it was not the breeding season and she was away on a scouting expedition of her own.

  The golden eagle stood on its rocky ledge, staring majestically across the valley. Its hard, unblinking eyes missed nothing. Those strange orange-yellow eyes could spot a field rat or a mouse hare more than a hundred yards below.

  There were other eagles on the mountain, but usually they ke
pt to their own territory. Only the bolder ones went for lambs, because the flocks were always protected by men and dogs.

  *

  The eagle took off from its eyrie and glided gracefully, powerfully over the valley, circling the Tung mountain.

  Below lay the old temple, built from slabs of grey granite. A line of pilgrims snaked up the steep, narrow path. On the meadows below the peak, the sheep grazed peacefully, unaware of the presence of the eagle. The great bird’s shadow slid over the sunlit slopes.

  The eagle saw the boy and the dog, but it did not fear them. It had his eye on a lamb that was frisking about on the grass, a few feet away from the other sheep.

  Jai did not see the eagle until it swept round an outcrop of rocks about a hundred feet away. The bird moved silently, without any movement of its wings, for it had already built up the momentum for its dive. Now it came straight at the lamb.

  Motu saw the bird in time. With a low growl he dashed forward and reached the side of the lamb at almost the same instant that the eagle swept in.

  There was a terrific collision. Feathers flew. The eagle screamed with rage. The lamb tumbled down the slope, and Motu howled in pain as the huge beak struck him high on the leg.

  The big bird, a little stunned by the clash, flew off rather unsteadily, with a mighty beating of its wings.

  Motu had saved the lamb. It was frightened, but unhurt. Bleating loudly, it joined the other sheep, who took up the bleating. It sounded as though they had all started complaining at once about the awful state of affairs.

  Jai ran up to Motu, who lay whimpering on the ground. There was a deep gash in the dog’s thigh, and blood was seeping onto the grass.