Rusty and the Leopard Read online

  This time, however, I wanted to make sure that nothing went wrong. I wanted to reach London at all cost, by all means.

  ‘Please hurry,’ I begged of the tonga driver. ‘I’ll miss the train.’

  ‘Miss the train?’ mumbled the tonga driver, coming out of his coma. ‘No one ever misses the train—not when I take them to the station!’

  ‘Why, does the train wait for you to arrive?’ asked Devinder. ‘Oh, no,’ said the driver. ‘But it waits.’

  ‘Well, it should have left at seven,’ I said. ‘And it’s five past seven now. Even if it leaves on time, which means ten minutes late, we won’t catch it at this speed.’

  ‘You will be there in ten minutes, sahib.’ And the man called out an endearment to his pony.

  Neither Devinder nor I could make out what the tonga driver said, but it did wonders to the pony. The beast came to life as though it had been injected with a new wonder hormone. Devinder and I were jerked upright in our seats. The pony kicked up its hind legs and plunged forward, and cyclists and pedestrians scattered for safety. We raced through the town, followed by oaths and abuses from a vegetable seller whose merchandise had been spilled on the road. Only at the station entrance did the pony slow down and then, as suddenly and unaccountably as it had come to life, it returned to its former dispirited plod.

  Paying off the man, we grabbed hold of the luggage and tumbled on to the railway platform. Here we banged into Kishen who, having heard of my departure (from the barber, who had got it from an egg vendor, who had got it from Devinder), had come to see me off.

  ‘You didn’t tell me anything,’ said Kishen with an injured look. ‘You seem to have forgotten me altogether.’

  ‘I hadn’t forgotten you, Kishen. I did come to see you—but I couldn’t bring myself to say goodbye. It seems final, saying goodbye. I wanted to slip away quietly, that’s all.’

  ‘How selfish you are!’ said Kishen.

  A last-minute quarrel with Kishen was the last thing I wanted.

  ‘We must hurry,’ said Devinder urgently. ‘The train is about to leave.’

  The guard was blowing his whistle, and there was a final scramble among the passengers. If sardines could have taken a look at the situation in the third-class railway compartments of that train that day, they would not have anything to complain about. It was a perfect example of the individual being swallowed up by the mass, of a large number of identities merging into one corporate whole. Your leg, you discover, is not yours but your neighbour’s; the growth of hair on your shoulder is someone’s beard and the cold wind whistling down your neck is his asthmatic breath; a baby materializes in your lap and is reclaimed only after it has wet your trousers; and the corner of a seat which you had happily thought was your own green spot on this earth is suddenly usurped by a huge Sikh with a sword dangling at his side. I knew from experience in third-class compartments that if I did not get into one of them immediately, my way would be permanently barred.

  ‘There’s no room anywhere,’ said Kishen cheerfully. ‘You’d better go tomorrow.’

  ‘The boat sails in three days,’ I said.

  ‘Then come on, let’s squeeze you in somewhere.’

  Managing the luggage ourselves, and ignoring the protests of the station coolies, we hurried down the length of the platform looking for a compartment less crowded than most. We discovered an open door and a space within, and my worldly goods were bundled into it.

  ‘It’s empty!’ I said delightedly, after getting into the compartment. ‘There’s no one in it.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Kishen. ‘It’s a first-class compartment.’

  But the train was already in motion and there was no time to get out.

  ‘You can shift into another compartment after Hardwar,’ said Devinder. ‘The train won’t be so crowded then.’

  I closed the door and stuck my head out of the window. Perhaps this mad, confusing departure was the best thing that could have happened. It was impossible to say goodbye in dignified solemnity. And I would have hated a solemn, tearful departure. Devinder and Kishen had time only to look relieved—relieved at having been able to get me into the train. They would not realize, till later, that I was going out of their lives forever.

  I waved to them from the window, and they waved back, smiling and wishing me luck. They were not dismayed at my departure. Rather, they looked pleased that my life had taken a new direction; they were impressed by my good fortune, and they took it for granted that I would come back some day, with money and honours. Such is the optimism of youth.

  I waved until my friends were lost in the milling throng on the platform, until the station lights were a distant glow. And then the train was thundering through the swift-falling darkness of India. I looked in the glass of the window and saw my own face dimly reflected. And I wondered if I would ever come back.

  There was someone else’s reflection in the glass, and I realized that I was not alone in the compartment. Someone had just come out of the washroom and was staring at me in some surprise. A familiar face, a foreigner. The man I had met at the Raiwala waiting-room, when I had been travelling with Kishen to Dehra in different circumstances.

  ‘We meet again,’ said the American. ‘Remember me?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We seem to share a fondness for trains.’

  ‘Well, I have to make this journey every week.’

  ‘How is your work?’

  ‘Much the same. I’m trying, but with little success, to convince farmers that a steel plough will pay greater dividends than a wooden plough.’

  ‘And they aren’t convinced?’

  ‘Oh, they’re quite prepared to be convinced. Trouble is, they find it cheaper and easier to repair a wooden plough. You see how complicated everything is? It’s a question of parts. For want of a bolt, the plough was lost, for want of a plough the crop was lost, for want of a crop . . . And where are you going, friend? I see you’re alone this time.’

  ‘Yes, I’m going away. I’m leaving India.’

  ‘Where are you going? England?’

  I nodded and looked out of the window in time to see a shooting star skid across the heavens and vanish. A bad omen; but I was defiant of omens.

  ‘I’m going to England,’ I said. ‘I’m going to Europe and America and Japan and Timbuctoo. I’m going everywhere, and no one can stop me!’

  Author’s Note

  IN THIS THIRD volume devoted to the life and times of Rusty in his teens, we find him deeply involved in the affairs of the Kapoor family who befriended him when he ran away from his guardian’s home. Forced into vagrancy for some time, Kishen and Rusty take to the open road, encountering some fascinating characters as they tramp through the Doon valley and the Garhwal hills.

  The other day, when I sat down at my desk, my mind wandered back in time, and I wrote this little verse:

  When I was young, I dreamt of power and fame; And now I’m old, I dream of being a boy again.

  Happy to put up with hardships, Rusty set forth on his quest without money or prospects, but with plenty of optimism and all the confidence of youth.

  He kept right on to the end of the road; and Rusty today is the product of Rusty the boy’s hunger and determination.

  Once again, I am indebted to the Puffin editors Udayan Mitra and Anjana Ramakrishnan for giving the Rusty stories and novellas their natural sequence and continuity, and to Archana Sreenivasan for the excellent illustrations and cover.

  Puffins are brainy birds. They eat lots of fish. And I try to emulate them by giving myself large helpings of fish and chips.

  Landour, Mussoorie

  October 2014

  Ruskin Bond

  Read More in Puffin

  Thick as Thieves: Tales of Friendship

  Ruskin Bond

  Somewhere in life

  There must be someone

  To take your hand

  And share the torrid day.

  Without the touch of friendship


  There is no life and we must fade away.

  Discover a hidden pool with three young boys, laugh out loud as a little mouse makes demands on a lonely writer, follow the mischievous ‘four feathers’ as they discover a baby lost in the hills and witness the bond between a tiger and his master. Some stories will make you smile, some will bring tears to your eyes, some may make your heart skip a beat but all of them will renew your faith in the power of friendship.

  Read More in Puffin

  Uncles, Aunts and Elephants: Tales from your Favourite Storyteller

  Ruskin Bond

  I know the world’s a crowded place,

  And elephants do take up space,

  But if it makes a difference, Lord,

  I’d gladly share my room and board.

  A baby elephant would do…

  But, if he brings his mother too,

  There’s Dad’s garage. He wouldn’t mind.

  To elephants, he’s more than kind.

  But I wonder what my Mum would say

  If their aunts and uncles came to stay!

  Ruskin Bond has entertained generations of readers for many decades. This delightful collection of poetry, prose and non-fiction brings together some of his best work in a single volume. Sumptuously illustrated, Uncles, Aunts and Elephants is a book to treasure for all times.

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  Hip-Hop Nature Boy and Other Poems

  Ruskin Bond

  If a tortoise could run

  And losses be won,

  And bullies be buttered on toast;

  If a song brought a shower

  And a gun grew a flower,

  This world would be nicer than most!

  Beautiful, poignant and funny, Ruskin Bond’s verses for children are a joy to read to yourself on a lazy summer afternoon or to recite in school among friends. For the first time, his poems for children, old and new, come together in this illustrated volume. Nature, love, friends, school, books—all find a place in the poetry of India’s favourite children’s writer.

  THE BEGINNING

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  PUFFIN BOOKS

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  Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

  This collection published 2003

  Copyright © Ruskin Bond, 2003

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Jacket images © Aparajita Ninan

  ISBN: 978-0-143-33341-8

  This digital edition published in 2014.

  e-ISBN: 978-8-184-75448-3

  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 and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.