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  ‘I have heard you say it three times,’ replied Ranji.

  ‘Then why are you not running away?’

  ‘I am waiting for you to run away!’

  ‘I will have to beat you,’ said the stranger, assuming a violent attitude, showing Ranji the palm of his hand.

  ‘I am waiting to see you do it,’ said Ranji.

  ‘You will see me do it,’ said the other boy.

  Ranji waited. The other boy made a strange, hissing sound. They stared each other in the eye for almost a minute. Then the Punjabi boy slapped Ranji across the face with all the force he could muster. Ranji staggered, feeling quite dizzy. There were thick red finger marks on his cheek.

  ‘There you are!’ exclaimed his assailant. ‘Will you be off now?’

  For answer, Ranji swung his arm up and pushed a hard, bony fist into the other’s face.

  And then they were at each other’s throats, swaying on the rock, tumbling on to the sand, rolling over and over, their legs and arms locked in a desperate, violent struggle. Gasping and cursing, clawing and slapping, they rolled right into the shallows of the pool.

  Even in the water the fight continued as, spluttering and covered with mud, they groped for each other’s head and throat. But after five minutes of frenzied, unscientific struggle, neither boy had emerged victorious. Their bodies heaving with exhaustion, they stood back from each other, making tremendous efforts to speak.

  ‘Now—now do you realize—I am a Punjabi?’ gasped the stranger.

  ‘Do you know I am a Rajput?’ said Ranji with difficulty.

  They gave a moment’s consideration to each other’s answers, and in that moment of silence there was only their heavy breathing and the rapid beating of their hearts.

  ‘Then you will not leave the pool?’ said the Punjabi boy.

  ‘I will not leave it,’ said Ranji.

  ‘Then we shall have to continue the fight,’ said the other.

  ‘All right,’ said Ranji.

  But neither boy moved, neither took the initiative.

  The Punjabi boy had an inspiration.

  ‘We will continue the fight tomorrow,’ he said. ‘If you dare to come here again tomorrow, we will continue this fight, and I will not show you mercy as I have done today.’

  ‘I will come tomorrow,’ said Ranji. ‘I will be ready for you.’

  They turned from each other then and, going to their respective rocks, put on their clothes, and left the forest by different routes.

  When Ranji got home, he found it difficult to explain the cuts and bruises that showed on his face, legs and arms. It was difficult to conceal the fact that he had been in an unusually violent fight, and his mother insisted on his staying at home for the rest of the day. That evening, though, he slipped out of the house and went to the bazaar, where he found comfort and solace in a bottle of vividly coloured lemonade and a banana leaf full of hot, sweet jalebis. He had just finished the lemonade when he saw his adversary coming down the road. His first impulse was to turn away and look elsewhere, his second to throw the lemonade bottle at his enemy. But he did neither of these things. Instead, he stood his ground and scowled at his passing adversary. And the Punjabi boy said nothing either, but scowled back with equal ferocity.

  The next day was as hot as the previous one. Ranji felt weak and lazy and not at all eager for a fight. His body was stiff and sore after the previous day’s encounter. But he could not refuse the challenge. Not to turn up at the pool would be an acknowledgement of defeat. From the way he felt just then, he knew he would be beaten in another fight. But he could not acquiesce in his own defeat. He must defy his enemy to the last, or outwit him, for only then could he gain his respect. If he surrendered now, he would be beaten for all time; but to fight and be beaten today left him free to fight and be beaten again. As long as he fought, he had a right to the pool in the forest.

  He was half hoping that the Punjabi boy would have forgotten the challenge, but these hopes were dashed when he saw his opponent sitting, stripped to the waist, on a rock on the other side of the pool. The Punjabi boy was rubbing oil on his body, massaging it into his broad thighs. He saw Ranji beneath the sal trees, and called a challenge across the waters of the pool.

  ‘Come over on this side and fight!’ he shouted.

  But Ranji was not going to submit to any conditions laid down by his opponent.

  ‘Come this side and fight!’ he shouted back with equal vigour.

  ‘Swim across and fight me here!’ called the other. ‘Or perhaps you cannot swim the length of this pool?’

  But Ranji could have swum the length of the pool a dozen times without tiring, and here he would show the Punjabi boy his superiority. So, slipping out of his vest and shorts, he dived straight into the water, cutting through it like a knife, and surfaced with hardly a splash. The Punjabi boy’s mouth hung open in amazement.

  ‘You can dive!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘It is easy,’ said Ranji, treading water, waiting for a further challenge. ‘Can’t you dive?’

  ‘No,’ said the other. ‘I jump straight in. But if you will tell me how, I will make a dive.’

  ‘It is easy,’ said Ranji. ‘Stand on the rock, stretch your arms out and allow your head to displace your feet.’

  The Punjabi boy stood up, stiff and straight, stretched out his arms, and threw himself into the water. He landed flat on his belly, with a crash that sent the birds screaming out of the trees.

  Ranji dissolved into laughter.

  ‘Are you trying to empty the pool?’ he asked, as the Punjabi boy came to the surface, spouting water like a small whale.

  ‘Wasn’t it good?’ asked the boy, evidently proud of his feat.

  ‘Not very good,’ said Ranji. ‘You should have more practice. See, I will do it again.’

  And pulling himself up on a rock, he executed another perfect dive. The other boy waited for him to come up, but, swimming under water, Ranji circled him and came upon him from behind.

  ‘How did you do that?’ asked the astonished youth.

  ‘Can’t you swim under water?’ asked Ranji.

  ‘No, but I will try it.’

  The Punjabi boy made a tremendous effort to plunge to the bottom of the pool and indeed he thought he had gone right down, though his bottom, like a duck’s, remained above the surface.

  Ranji, however, did not discourage him.

  ‘It was not bad,’ he said. ‘But you need a lot of practice.’

  ‘Will you teach me?’ asked his enemy.

  ‘If you like, I will teach you.’

  ‘You must teach me. If you do not teach me, I will beat you. Will you come here every day and teach me?’

  ‘If you like,’ said Ranji. They had pulled themselves out of the water, and were sitting side by side on a smooth grey rock.

  ‘My name is Suraj,’ said the Punjabi boy. ‘What is yours?’

  ‘It is Ranji.’

  ‘I am strong, am I not?’ asked Suraj, bending his arm so that a ball of muscle stood up stretching the white of his flesh.

  ‘You are strong,’ said Ranji. ‘You are a real pehelwan.’

  ‘One day I will be the world’s champion wrestler,’ said Suraj, slapping his thighs, which shook with the impact of his hand. He looked critically at Ranji’s hard, thin body. ‘You are quite strong yourself,’ he conceded. ‘But you are too bony. I know, you people do not eat enough. You must come and have your food with me. I drink one seer of milk every day. We have got our own cow! Be my friend, and I will make you a pehelwan like me! I know—if you teach me to dive and swim under water, I will make you a pehelwan! That is fair, isn’t it?’

  ‘That is fair!’ said Ranji, though he doubted if he was getting the better of the exchange.

  Suraj put his arm around the younger boy and said, ‘We are friends now, yes?’

  They looked at each other with honest, unflinching eyes, and in that moment love and understanding were born.

  ‘We are friends,’ sai
d Ranji.

  The birds had settled again in their branches, and the pool was quiet and limpid in the shade of the sal trees.

  ‘It is our pool,’ said Suraj. ‘Nobody else can come here without our permission. Who would dare?’

  ‘Who would dare?’ said Ranji, smiling with the knowledge that he had won the day.

  A Long Walk for Bina

  1

  A LEOPARD, lithe and sinewy, drank at the mountain stream, and then lay down on the grass to bask in the late February sunshine. Its tail twitched occasionally and the animal appeared to be sleeping. At the sound of distant voices it raised its head to listen, then stood up and leapt lightly over the boulders in the stream, disappearing among the trees on the opposite bank.

  A minute or two later, three children came walking down the forest path. They were a girl and two boys, and they were singing in their local dialect an old song they had learnt from their grandparents.

  Five more miles to go!

  We climb through rain and snow.

  A river to cross…

  A mountain to pass…

  Now we’ve four more miles to go!

  Their school satchels looked new, their clothes had been washed and pressed. Their loud and cheerful singing startled a Spotted Forktail. The bird left its favourite rock in the stream and flew down the dark ravine.

  ‘Well, we have only three more miles to go,’ said the bigger boy, Prakash, who had been this way hundreds of times. ‘But first we have to cross the stream.’

  He was a sturdy twelve-year-old with eyes like black currants and a mop of bushy hair that refused to settle down on his head. The girl and her small brother were taking this path for the first time.

  ‘I’m feeling tired, Bina,’ said the little boy.

  Bina smiled at him, and Prakash said, ‘Don’t worry, Sonu, you’ll get used to the walk. There’s plenty of time.’ He glanced at the old watch he’d been given by his grandfather. It needed constant winding. ‘We can rest here for five or six minutes.’

  They sat down on a smooth boulder and watched the clear water of the shallow stream tumbling downhill. Bina examined the old watch on Prakash’s wrist. The glass was badly scratched and she could barely make out the figure on the dial. ‘Are you sure it still gives the right time?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, it loses five minutes every day, so I put it ten minutes forward at night. That means by morning it’s quite accurate! Even our teacher, Mr Mani, asks me for the time. If he doesn’t ask, I tell him! The clock in our classroom keeps stopping.’

  They removed their shoes and let the cold mountain water run over their feet. Bina was the same age as Prakash. She had pink cheeks, soft brown eyes, and hair that was just beginning to lose its natural curls. Hers was a gentle face, but a determined little chin showed that she could be a strong person. Sonu, her younger brother, was ten. He was a thin boy who had been sickly as a child but was now beginning to fill out. Although he did not look very athletic, he could run like the wind.

  ■

  Bina had been going to school in her own village of Koli, on the other side of the mountain. But it had been a Primary School, finishing at Class 5. Now, in order to study in the Class 6, she would have to walk several miles every day to Nauti, where there was a High School going up to Class 8. It had been decided that Sonu would also shift to the new school, to give Bina company. Prakash, their neighbour in Koli, was already a pupil at the Nauti school. His mischievous nature, which sometimes got him into trouble, had resulted in his having to repeat a year.

  But this didn’t seem to bother him. ‘What’s the hurry?’ he had told his indignant parents. ‘You’re not sending me to a foreign land when I finish school. And our cows aren’t running away, are they?’

  ‘You would prefer to look after the cows, wouldn’t you?’ asked Bina, as they got up to continue their walk.

  ‘Oh, school’s all right. Wait till you see old Mr Mani. He always gets our names mixed up, as well as the subjects he’s supposed to be teaching. At our last lesson, instead of maths, he gave us a geography lesson!’

  ‘More fun than maths,’ said Bina.

  ‘Yes, but there’s a new teacher this year. She’s very young they say, just out of college. I wonder what she’ll be like.’

  Bina walked faster and Sonu had some trouble keeping up with them. She was excited about the new school and the prospect of different surroundings. She had seldom been outside her own village, with its small school and single ration shop. The day’s routine never varied—helping her mother in the fields or with household tasks like fetching water from the spring or cutting grass and fodder for the cattle. Her father, who was a soldier, was away for nine months in the year and Sonu was still too small for the heavier tasks.

  As they neared Nauti village, they were joined by other children coming from different directions. Even where there were no major roads, the mountains were full of little lanes and shortcuts. Like a game of snakes and ladders, these narrow paths zigzagged around the hills and villages, cutting through fields and crossing narrow ravines until they came together to form a fairly busy road along which mules, cattle and goats joined the throng.

  Nauti was a fairly large village, and from here a broader but dustier road started for Tehri. There was a small bus, several trucks and (for part of the way) a road roller. The road hadn’t been completed because the heavy diesel roller couldn’t take the steep climb to Nauti. It stood on the roadside halfway up the road from Tehri.

  Prakash knew almost everyone in the area, and exchanged greetings and gossip with other children as well as with muleteers, bus drivers, milkmen and labourers working on the road. He loved telling everyone the time, even if they weren’t interested.

  ‘It’s nine o’clock,’ he would announce, glancing at his wrist. ‘Isn’t your bus leaving today?’

  ‘Off with you!’ the bus driver would respond, ‘I’ll leave when I’m ready.’

  As the children approached Nauti, the small flat school buildings came into view on the outskirts of the village, fringed by a line of long-leaved pines. A small crowd had assembled on the one playing field. Something unusual seemed to have happened. Prakash ran forward to see what it was all about. Bina and Sonu stood aside, waiting in a patch of sunlight near the boundary wall.

  Prakash soon came running back to them. He was bubbling over with excitement.

  ‘It’s Mr Mani!’ he gasped. ‘He’s disappeared! People are saying a leopard must have carried him off!’

  2

  Mr Mani wasn’t really old. He was about fifty-five and was expected to retire soon. But for the children, most adults over forty seemed ancient! And Mr Mani had always been a bit absent-minded, even as a young man.

  He had gone out for his early morning walk, saying he’d be back by eight o’clock, in time to have his breakfast and be ready for class. He wasn’t married, but his sister and her husband stayed with him. When it was past nine o’clock his sister presumed he’d stopped at a neighbour’s house for breakfast (he loved tucking into other people’s breakfast) and that he had gone on to school from there. But when the school bell rang at ten o’clock, and everyone but Mr Mani was present, questions were asked and guesses were made.

  No one had seen him return from his walk and enquiries made in the village showed that he had not stopped at anyone’s house. For Mr Mani to disappear was puzzling; for him to disappear without his breakfast was extraordinary.

  Then a milkman returning from the next village said he had seen a leopard sitting on a rock on the outskirts of the pine forest. There had been talk of a cattle-killer in the valley, of leopards and other animals being displaced by the constructions of a dam. But as yet no one had heard of a leopard attacking a man. Could Mr Mani have been its first victim? Someone found a strip of red cloth entangled in a blackberry bush and went running through the village showing it to everyone. Mr Mani had been known to wear red pyjamas. Surely he had been seized and eaten! But where were his remains? And why had he
been in his pyjamas?

  Meanwhile Bina and Sonu and the rest of the children had followed their teachers into the school playground. Feeling a little lost, Bina looked around for Prakash. She found herself facing a dark slender young woman wearing spectacles, who must have been in her early twenties—just a little too old to be another student. She had a kind, expressive face and she seemed a little concerned by all that had been happening.

  Bina noticed that she had lovely hands; it was obvious that the new teacher hadn’t milked cows or worked in the fields!

  ‘You must be new here,’ said the teacher, smiling at Bina. ‘And is this your little brother?’

  ‘Yes, we’ve come from Koli village. We were at school there.’

  ‘It’s a long walk from Koli. You didn’t see any leopards, did you? Well, I’m new too. Are you in the sixth class?’

  ‘Sonu is in the third. I’m in the sixth.’

  ‘Then I’m your new teacher. My name is Tania Ramola. Come along, let’s see if we can settle down in our classroom.’

  ■

  Mr Mani turned up at twelve o’clock, wondering what all the fuss was about. No, he snapped, he had not been attacked by a leopard; and yes, he had lost his pyjamas and would someone kindly return them to him?

  ‘How did you lose your pyjamas, sir?’ asked Prakash.

  ‘They were blown off the washing line!’ snapped Mr Mani.

  After much questioning, Mr Mani admitted that he had gone further than he had intended, and that he had lost his way coming back. He had been a bit upset because the new teacher, a slip of a girl, had been given charge of the sixth, while he was still with the fifth, along with that troublesome boy Prakash, who kept on reminding him of the time! The headmaster had explained that as Mr Mani was due to retire at the end of the year, the school did not wish to burden him with a senior class. But Mr Mani looked upon the whole thing as a plot to get rid of him. He glowered at Miss Ramola whenever he passed her. And when she smiled back at him, he looked the other way!

  Mr Mani had been getting even more absent-minded of late—putting on his shoes without his socks, wearing his homespun waistcoat inside out, mixing up people’s names and, of course, eating other people’s lunches and dinners. His sister had made a mutton broth for the postmaster, who was down with ‘flu’ and had asked Mr Mani to take it over in a thermos. When the postmaster opened the thermos, he found only a few drops of broth at the bottom—Mr Mani had drunk the rest somewhere along the way.