Ruskin Bond's Book of Nature Read online

  Once across the river, they would be safe. The fire could not touch them on the other side because the forest ended at the river’s edge. But could they get to the river in time?

  Clang, clang, clang, went Teju’s milk cans. But the sounds of the fire grew louder too.

  A tall silk-cotton tree, its branches leaning across the road, had caught fire. They were almost beneath it when there was a crash and a burning branch fell to the ground a few yards in front of them.

  The boys had to get off the bicycle and leave the road, forcing their way through a tangle of thorny bushes on the left, dragging and pushing at the bicycle and only returning to the road some distance ahead of the burning tree.

  ‘We won’t get out in time,’ said Teju, back on the crossbar, feeling disheartened.

  ‘Yes, we will,’ said Romi, pedalling with all his might. ‘The fire hasn’t crossed the road as yet.’

  Even as he spoke, he saw a small flame leap up from the grass on the left. It wouldn’t be long before more sparks and burning leaves were blown across the road to kindle the grass on the other side.

  ‘Oh, look!’ exclaimed Romi, bringing the bicycle to a sudden stop.

  ‘What’s wrong now?’ asked Teju, rubbing his sore eyes. And then, through the smoke, he saw what was stopping them.

  An elephant was standing in the middle of the road.

  Teju slipped off the crossbar, his cans rolling on the ground, bursting open and spilling their contents.

  The elephant was about forty feet away. It moved about restlessly, its big ears flapping as it turned its head from side to side, wondering which way to go.

  From far to the left, where the forest was still untouched, a herd of elephants moved towards the river. The leader of the herd raised his trunk and trumpeted a call. Hearing it, the elephant on the road raised its own trunk and trumpeted a reply. Then it shambled off into the forest, in the direction of the herd, leaving the way clear.

  ‘Come, Teju, jump on!’ urged Romi. ‘We can’t stay here much longer!’

  Teju forgot about his milk cans and pulled himself up on the crossbar. Romi ran forward with the bicycle, to gain speed, and mounted swiftly. He kept as far as possible to the left of the road, trying to ignore the flames, the crackling, the smoke, and the scorching heat.

  It seemed that all the animals who could get away had done so. The exodus across the road had stopped.

  ‘We won’t stop again,’ said Romi, gritting his teeth. ‘Not even for an elephant!’

  ‘We’re nearly there!’ said Teju. He was perking up again.

  A jackal, overcome by the heat and smoke, lay in the middle of the path, either dead or unconscious. Romi did not stop. He swerved round the animal. Then he put all his strength into one final effort.

  He covered the last hundred yards at top speed, and then they were out of the forest, freewheeling down the sloping road to the river.

  ‘Look!’ shouted Teju. ‘The bridge is on fire!’

  Burning embers had floated down on to the small wooden bridge and the dry, ancient timber had quickly caught fire. It was now burning fiercely.

  Romi did not hesitate. He left the road, riding the bicycle over sand and pebbles. Then with a rush they went down the river bank and into the water.

  The next thing they knew they were splashing around, trying to find each other in the darkness. ‘Help!’ cried Teju. ‘I’m drowning!’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Romi. ‘The water isn’t deep—it’s only up to the knees. Come here and grab hold of me.’

  Teju splashed across and grabbed Romi by the belt.

  ‘The water’s so cold,’ he said, his teeth chattering.

  ‘Do you want to go back and warm yourself?’ asked Romi. ‘Some people are never satisfied. Come on, help me get the bicycle up. It’s down here, just where we are standing.’

  Together they managed to heave the bicycle out of the water and stand it upright.

  ‘Now sit on it,’ said Romi. ‘I’ll push you across.’

  ‘We’ll be swept away,’ said Teju.

  ‘No, we won’t. There’s not much water in the river at this time of the year. But the current is quite strong in the middle, so sit still. All right?’

  ‘All right,’ said Teju nervously.

  Romi began guiding the bicycle across the river, one hand on the seat and one hand on the handlebar. The river was shallow and sluggish in midsummer; even so it was quite swift in the middle. But having got safely out of the burning forest, Romi was in no mood to let a little river defeat him.

  He kicked off his shoes, knowing they would be lost, and then gripping the smooth stones of the river bed with his toes, he concentrated on keeping his balance and getting the bicycle and Teju through the middle of the stream. The water here came up to his waist, and the current would have been too strong for Teju to cross by himself. But when they reached the shallows, Teju got down and helped Romi push the bicycle.

  They reached the opposite bank and sank down on the grass.

  ‘We can rest now,’ said Romi. ‘But not all night—I’ve got some medicine to give to my father.’ He felt in his pockets and found that the pills, in their envelope, had turned to a soggy mess. ‘Oh well, he has to take them with water anyway,’ he said.

  They watched the fire as it continued to spread through the forest. It had crossed the road down which they had come. The sky was a bright red, and the river reflected the colour of the sky.

  Several elephants had found their way down to the river. They were cooling off by spraying water on each other with their trunks. Further downstream there were deer and other animals.

  Romi and Teju looked at each other in the glow from the fire. They hadn’t known each other very well before. But now they felt they had been friends for years.

  * * *

  *This, of course, was a long time before the state of Meghalaya, of which Shillong is now the capital, was created.

  *This later became The Statesman.

  XI

  Green Notes

  Poets have gone into rapture over the joys of nature, but it was the playwright and social critic George Bernard Shaw who went to the heart of the matter when he wrote: ‘Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does.’

  The tree sums up nature’s perfection which can be seen in every leaf, flower, seed, and creatures great and small. We do not stop learning from the natural world. The earth, the seas, the heavens have still so much to tell us. Nature’s notebook is never closed.

  Night

  New moon in a deep purple sky.

  Rainy Day in June

  A thunderstorm, followed by strong winds, brought down the temperature. That was yesterday. And today it is cloudy, cool, drizzling a little, almost monsoon weather; but it is still too early for the real monsoon.

  The birds are enjoying the cool weather. The green-backed tits cool their bottoms in the rainwater pool. A king-crow flashes past, winging through the air like an arrow. On the wing, it snaps up a hovering dragonfly. The mynas fetch crow feathers to line their nests in the eaves of the house. I am lying so still on the window seat that a tit alights on the sill, within a few inches of my head. It snaps up a small dead moth before flying away.

  At dusk I sit at the window and watch the trees and listen to the wind as it makes light conversation in the leafy tops of the maples. There is a whirr of wings as the king-crows fly into the trees to roost for the night. But for one large bat it is time to get busy, and he flits in and out of the trees. The sky is just light enough to enable me to see the bat and the outlines of the taller trees.

  Up on Landour hill, the lights are just beginning to come on. It is deliciously cool, eight o’clock, a perfect summer’s evening. Prem is singing to himself in the kitchen. His wife and sister are chattering beneath the walnut tree. Down the hill, a kakar is barking, alarmed perhaps by the presence of a leopard.

  The wind grows stronger and the
tall maples bow before it: the maple moves its slender branches slowly from side to side, the oak moves its branches up and down. It is darker now; more lights on Landour. The cry of the barking deer has grown fainter, more distant, and now I hear a cricket singing in the bushes. The stars are out, the wind grows chilly, it is time to close the window.

  Simple Pleasures

  I did not feel like work this morning. And as it was raining there was nowhere to go. I tried reading a detective story, but it was one of those locked-room mysteries which usually try my patience. Gazing down at the road below didn’t help because the rain had kept most people indoors. One of the simple pleasures of life is watering my plants, but Gautam had forestalled me; in fact, he’d drowned the geraniums. Another is browsing among old books, but I’d done that yesterday. So I sat down and made a list of ‘simple pleasures’, and came up with the following:

  Listening to the cooing of doves and pigeons. But there are none in the vicinity. I remember an old well on the outskirts of Delhi; pigeons lived in the cool recesses of its walls. I wonder what happened to that well. The area is now a residential colony of multistoreyed flats.

  Watching blue jays (rollers) in flight, indulging in their aerial acrobatics. Another pleasure from the plains . . .

  I must get nearer home.

  All right. Watching the sun come up from my bed near the window. But this morning there wasn’t any sun!

  Walking barefoot over dew-drenched grass: if only the rain would stop!

  Peeling an orange. Except that they’re out of season.

  Then the rain stopped, the sun came out, and so did a swarm of yellow butterflies in compensation for the morning’s absence of simple pleasures.

  The Old Conservationists

  That the Doon valley is well forested today is due mainly to the early efforts of the forest department. Up to 1864 a free system of felling was prevalent, and we find Mr O’Callaghan, Deputy Conservator of Forests, writing in 1879:

  There can be no doubt that sal, tun and shisham were the trees chiefly felled, for even now there is no demand for any other kind of timber; and when I entered the department in 1854 the ground was everywhere studded with stumps of those trees.

  Restrictions were gradually imposed, but no real conservation was attempted until the 1880s. By then, all that was valuable had already been cut, and the main duty of the department was to encourage replanting and foster new generations of trees, those very trees which conservationists are striving to protect today.

  Those who look with horror upon the denudation of our hills might well look back on the situation that confronted a settlement officer over a hundred years ago. In the Jaunsar area, all misfortunes were believed to be due to the machinations of one or the other of their demon spirits; and in the Gazetteer of that period we read that the ‘people of Chijal, being afflicted with smallpox, burnt down four hundred deodar trees as a sacrifice’.

  Where Have All the Trees Gone?

  The peace and quiet of the Maplewood hillside disappeared forever one winter. The powers-that-be decided to build another new road into the mountains, and the PWD saw fit to take it right past the cottage, about six feet from the large window which had overlooked the forest.

  In my journal I wrote: already they have felled most of the trees. The walnut was one of the first to go, a tree I had lived with for over ten years, watching it grow just as I had watched Prem’s little son, Rakesh, grow up . . . Looking forward to its new leaf-buds, the broad, green leaves of summer, turning to spears of gold in September when the walnuts were ripe and ready to fall. I knew this tree better than the others. It was just below the window, where a buttress for the road is going up.

  Another tree I’ll miss is the young deodar, the only one growing in this stretch of the woods. Some years back it was stunted from lack of sunlight. The oaks covered it with their shaggy branches. So I cut away some of the overhanging branches and after that the deodar grew much faster. It was just coming into its own this year, now cut down in its prime like my younger brother on the road to Delhi last month: both victims of the roads. The tree killed by the PWD: my brother by a truck.

  Twenty oaks have been felled just in this small stretch near the cottage. By the time this bypass reaches Jabarkhet, about six miles from here, over a thousand oaks will have been slaughtered, besides many other fine trees—maples, deodars and pines—most of them unnecessarily, as they grew some fifty to sixty yards from the roadside.

  The trouble is, hardly anyone (with the exception of the contractor who buys the felled trees) really believes that trees and shrubs are necessary. They get in the way so much, don’t they? According to my milkman, the only useful tree is one which can be picked clean of its leaves for fodder! And a young man remarked to me: ‘You should come to Pauri. The view is terrific, there are no trees in the way!’

  Well, he can stay here now, and enjoy the view of the ravaged hillside. But as the oaks have gone, the milkman will have to look further afield for his fodder.

  Rakesh calls the maples the butterfly trees because, when the winged seeds fall, they flutter like butterflies in the breeze. No maples now. No bright red leaves to flame against the sky. No birds!

  That is to say, no birds near the house. No longer will it be possible for me to open the window and watch the scarlet minivets flitting through the dark green foliage of the oaks; the long-tailed magpies gliding through the trees; the barbet calling insistently from his perch on top of the deodar. Forest birds, all of them, will now be in search of some other stretch of surviving forest. The only visitors will be the crows, who have learnt to live with, and off, humans, and seem to multiply along with roads, houses and people. And even when all the people have gone, the crows will still be around.

  Other things to look forward to: trucks thundering past in the night, perhaps a tea and pakora shop around the corner, the grinding of gears, the music of motor horns. Will the whistling-thrush be heard above them? The explosions that continually shatter the silence of the mountains, as thousand-year-old rocks are dynamited, have frightened away all but the most intrepid of birds and animals. Even the bold langurs haven’t shown their faces for over a fortnight.

  Somehow, I don’t think we shall wait for the tea shop to arrive. There must be some other quiet corner, possibly on the next mountain, where new roads have yet to come into being. No doubt this is a negative attitude, and if I had any sense I’d open my own tea shop. To retreat is to be a loser. But the trees are losers too; and when they fall, they do so with a certain dignity.

  Never mind. Men come and go; the mountains remain.

  Perfection

  The smallest insect in the world is a sort of firefly and its body is only a fifth of a millimetre long. One can only just see it with the naked eye. Almost like a speck of dust, yet it has perfect little wings and little combs on its legs for preening itself.

  That is perfection.

  A Bedbug Gives Thanks

  I’m a child of the Universe

  Claimed the bug

  As he crawled out of the woodwork.

  I’ve every right

  To be a blight.

  To Infinite Intelligence I owe

  My place—

  Chief pest

  Upon the human race!

  I’m here to stay—

  To feast upon their delicate display,

  Those luscious thighs,

  Those nooks and crannies

  Where the blood runs sweet.

  No, no, I don’t despise

  These creatures made for my delight.

  A kind Creator had my needs in mind . . .

  I thank you, Lord, for human-kind . . .

  The Snake

  When, after days of rain,

  The sun appears,

  The snake emerges

  Green-gold on the grass.

  Kept in so long,

  He basks for hours,

  Soaks up the hot bright sun.

  Knowing how shy he is of me,


  I walk a gentle pace,

  Letting him doze in peace.

  But to the snake, earth bound,

  Each step must sound like thunder.

  He glides away,

  Goes underground.

  I’ve known him for some years:

  A harmless green grass snake

  Who, when he sees me on the path,

  Uncoils and disappears.

  The Miracle of the Cosmos

  A good year for the cosmos flower. Banks of them everywhere. They like the day-long sun; clean and fresh, this month’s flower, en masse. But by itself, the wild commelina, sky blue against dark green, always catches at the heart.

  My Way

  Holi brings warmer days, ladybirds, new friends. Trees in new leaf. The fresh light green of the maples is very soothing.

  I may not have contributed anything towards the progress of civilization, but neither have I robbed the world of anything. Not one tree or bush or bird or flower. Even the spider on my wall is welcome to his (her) space.

  But I must confess to having swatted the odd mosquito. And if you have read my Introduction you will understand why I am a little wary of bees and wasps.

  Brief Memories

  No one lived on the hill, except occasionally a coal burner in a temporary grass-thatched hut. But villagers used the path, grazing their sheep and cattle on the grassy slopes. Each cow or sheep had a bell suspended from its neck, to let the shepherd boy know of its whereabouts. The boy could then lie in the sun and eat wild strawberries without fear of losing his animals.