Our Trees Still Grow In Dehra Read online

  ‘Ah,’ said Mr Muggeridge, not in the least put out. ‘I’ve always said, most great men are Englishmen. And what did this chap Guy Fawkes do?’

  ‘Tried to blow up Parliament,’ said my father.

  That afternoon we saw our first sharks. They were enormous creatures, and as they glided backward and forward under the boat it seemed they might hit and capsize us. They went away for some time, but returned in the evening.

  At night, as I lay half asleep beside my father, I felt a few drops of water strike my face. At first I thought it was the sea spray; but when the sprinkling continued, I realized that it was raining lightly.

  ‘Rain!’ I shouted, sitting up. ‘It’s raining!’

  Everyone woke up and did his best to collect water in mugs, hats or other containers. Mr Muggeridge lay back with his mouth open, drinking the rain as it fell.

  ‘This is more like it,’ he said. ‘You can have all the sun an’ sand in the world. Give me a rainy day in England!’

  But by early morning the clouds had passed, and the day turned out to be even hotter than the previous one. Soon we were all red and raw from sunburn. By midday even Mr Muggeridge was silent. No one had the energy to talk.

  Then my father whispered, ‘Can you hear a plane, lad?’

  I listened carefully, and above the hiss of the waves I heard what sounded like the distant drone of a plane; but it must have been very far away, because we could not see it. Perhaps it was flying into the sun, and the glare was too much for our sore eyes; or perhaps we’d just imagined the sound.

  Then the Dutchman who’d lost his memory thought he saw land, and kept pointing towards the horizon and saying, ‘That’s Batavia, I told you we were close to shore!’ No one else saw anything. So my father and I weren’t the only ones imagining things.

  Said my father, ‘It only goes to show that a man can see what he wants to see, even if there’s nothing to be seen!’

  The sharks were still with us. Mr Muggeridge began to resent them. He took off one of his shoes and hurled it at the nearest shark; but the big fish ignored the shoe and swam on after us.

  ‘Now, if your leg had been in that shoe, Mr Muggeridge, the shark might have accepted it,’ observed my father.

  ‘Don’t throw your shoes away,’ said the captain. ‘We might land on a deserted coastline and have to walk hundreds of miles!’

  A light breeze sprang up that evening, and the dinghy moved more swiftly on the choppy water.

  ‘At last we’re moving forward,’ said the captain.

  ‘In circles,’ said Mr Muggeridge.

  But the breeze was refreshing; it cooled our burning limbs, and helped us to get some sleep. In the middle of the night I woke up feeling very hungry.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked my father, who had been awake all the time.

  ‘Just hungry,’ I said.

  ‘And what would you like to eat?’

  ‘Oranges!’

  He laughed. ‘No oranges on board. But I kept a piece of my chocolate for you. And there’s a little water, if you’re thirsty.’

  I kept the chocolate in my mouth for a long time, trying to make it last. Then I sipped a little water.

  ‘Aren’t you hungry?’ I asked.

  ‘Ravenous! I could eat a whole turkey. When we get to Bombay or Madras or Colombo, or wherever it is we get to, we’ll go to the best restaurant in town and eat like—like—’

  ‘Like shipwrecked sailors!’ I said.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Do you think we’ll ever get to land, Dad?’

  ‘I’m sure we will. You’re not afraid, are you?’

  ‘No. Not as long as you’re with me.’

  Next morning, to everyone’s delight, we saw seagulls. This was a sure sign that land couldn’t be far away; but a dinghy could take days to drift a distance of thirty or forty miles. The birds wheeled noisily above the dinghy. Their cries were the first familiar sounds we had heard for three days and three nights, apart from the wind and the sea and our own weary voices.

  The sharks had disappeared, and that too was an encouraging sign. They didn’t like the oil slicks that were appearing in the water.

  But presently the gulls left us, and we feared we were drifting away from land.

  ‘Circles,’ repeated Mr Muggeridge. ‘Circles.’

  We had sufficient food and water for another week at sea; but no one even wanted to think about spending another week at sea.

  The sun was a ball of fire. Our water ration wasn’t sufficient to quench our thirst. By noon, we were without much hope or energy.

  My father had his pipe in his mouth. He didn’t have any tobacco, but he liked holding the pipe between his teeth. He said it prevented his mouth from getting too dry.

  The sharks came back.

  Mr Muggeridge removed his other shoe and threw it at them.

  ‘Nothing like a lovely wet English summer,’ he mumbled.

  I fell asleep in the well of the dinghy, my father’s large handkerchief spread over my face. The yellow spots on the cloth seemed to grow into enormous revolving suns.

  When I woke up, I found a huge shadow hanging over us. At first I thought it was a cloud. But it was a shifting shadow. My father took the handkerchief from my face and said, ‘You can wake up now, lad. We’ll be home and dry soon.’

  A fishing boat was beside us, and the shadow came from its wide, flapping sail. A number of bronzed, smiling, chattering fishermen—Burmese, as we discovered later—were gazing down at us from the deck of their boat.

  A few days later my father and I were in Bombay.

  My father sold his rare stamps for over a thousand rupees, and we were able to live in a comfortable hotel. Mr Muggeridge was flown back to England. Later we got a postcard from him, saying the English rain was awful!

  ‘And what about us?’ I asked. ‘Aren’t we going back to England?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said my father. ‘You’ll be going to a boarding school in Simla, until the war’s over.’

  ‘But why should I leave you?’ I asked.

  ‘Because I’ve joined the RAF,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, I’m being posted in Delhi. I’ll be able to come up to see you sometimes.’

  A week later I was on a small train which went chugging up the steep mountain track to Shimla. Several Indian, Ango-Indian and English children tumbled around in the compartment. I felt quite out of place among them, as though I had grown out of their pranks. But I wasn’t unhappy. I knew my father would be coming to see me soon. He’d promised me some books, a pair of roller-skates, and a cricket bat, just as soon as he got his first month’s pay.

  Meanwhile, I had the jade sea horse which Sono had given me.

  And I have it with me today.

  The Bent-Double Beggar

  The person I encounter most often on the road is old Ganpat, the bent-double beggar. Every morning he hobbles up and down the road below my rooms, biding his time, and suddenly manifesting himself in front of unwary passers-by or shoppers. It is difficult to resist Ganpat because, though bent double, he is very dignified. He has a long, white beard and a commanding eye. His voice is powerful and carries well; which is probably why people say he was once an actor.

  People say many things about him. One rumour has it that he was once a well-to-do lawyer with a European wife: a paralytic stroke put an end to his career, and his wife finally left him. I have also been told that he is a CID man in disguise—a rumour that might well have been started by Ganpat himself.

  I was curious to know the true story of his life, for I was convinced that he was not a beggar by choice; he had little in common with other members of his profession. His English was good, and he could recite passages from Shakespeare; his Hindi was excellent. He never made a direct request for money, but would enter into conversation with you, and remark on the weather or the innate meanness of the human race, until you slipped him a coin.

  ‘Look, Ganpat,’ I said one day, ‘I’ve heard a lot of stories about y
ou, and I don’t know which is true. How did you become a beggar? How did you get your crooked back?’

  ‘That’s a very long story,’ he said, flattered by my interest in him. ‘I don’t know if you will believe it. Besides, it is not to everyone that I would speak freely.’

  He had served his purpose in whetting my appetite. I said, ‘It will be worth a rupee if you tell me your story.’

  He stroked his beard, considering my offer.

  ‘Very well,’ he said, squatting down on his haunches, while I pulled myself up on a low wall. ‘But it happened more than twenty years ago, and you cannot expect me to remember the details very clearly ….’

  In those days,’ said Ganpat, ‘I was a healthy young man, with a wife and baby daughter. I owned a few acres of land, and, though we were not rich, we were not very poor. When I took my produce to the market, five miles away, I harnessed the bullocks and drove down the dusty village road, sometimes returning home late at night.

  ‘Every night I passed a peepul tree, which was said to be haunted. I had never met the ghost, and did not really believe in him, but his name, I was told, was Bippin, and long ago he had been hanged from the peepul tree by a gang of dacoits. Since then this ghost had lived in the tree, and was in the habit of pouncing upon any person who resembled a dacoit and beating him severely. I suppose I must have looked a little guilty after a particularly successful business deal, because one night Bippin decided to pounce on me. He leapt out of the tree and stood in the middle of the road, bringing my bullocks to a halt.

  ‘“You, there,” he shouted. “Get off your cart, I am going to thrash you and then string you up from this tree!”

  ‘I was of course considerably alarmed, but decided to put on a bold front.’ “I have no intention of getting off my cart. If you like, you can climb up yourself!”

  ‘“Spoken like a man,” said Bippin, and he jumped up beside me. “But tell me one good reason for not stringing you up.”

  ‘“I am not a dacoit,” I replied.

  ‘“But you look as though you could be one. That is the same thing.”

  ‘“I am a poor man, with a wife and child to support.”

  ‘“You have no business being poor,” said Bippin angrily.

  ‘“Well, make me rich if you can.”

  ‘“Do you not believe I can? Do you defy me to make you rich?”

  ‘“Certainly,” I said. “I defy you to make me rich.”

  ‘“Then drive on,” cried Bippin. “I am coming home with you.”

  ‘And I drove on to the village with Bippin sitting beside me.

  ‘“I have so arranged it,” he said, “that no one will be able to see me. And another thing. I must sleep beside you every night, and no one must know of it. Should you tell anyone about my presence, I will not hesitate to strangle you!”

  ‘“You needn’t worry,” I said. “I won’t tell any one.”

  ‘“Good. I look forward to living with you. It was getting lonely in that peepul tree.”

  ‘And so Bippin came to live with me, and he slept beside me every night; and we got on very well together. He kept his promise, and money began to pour in from every conceivable source, until I was in a position to buy more land and cattle. Nobody knew of our association, though naturally my friends and relatives wondered where all the money was coming from. At the same time, my wife was rather upset at my unwillingness to sleep beside her at night. I could not very well put her in the same bed with a ghost, and Bippin was most particular about sleeping near me. At first I told my wife that I wasn’t well, and that I would sleep on the veranda. Then I told her that there was someone after our cows, and that I would have to keep an eye on them at night. Bippin and I slept in the cow-house.

  ‘My wife would often spy on me at night, suspecting infidelity; but she always found me lying alone amongst the cows. Unable to understand my strange behaviour, she mentioned it to her family; and next day my in-laws arrived on our doorstep, demanding an explanation.

  ‘At the same time my own relatives were insisting that I give them some explanation for my own rapidly increasing fortune. Uncles and aunts and distant cousins descended on me from all parts of the country, wanting to know where the money was coming from, and hoping to have some share of it.

  ‘“Do you all want me to die?” I said, losing my patience with them. “I am under an oath of silence. If I tell you the source of my wealth, I will be signing my own death-warrant.”

  ‘But they laughed at me, taking this for a lame excuse; they suspected I was trying to keep my fortune to myself. My wife’s relatives suspected that I had found another woman. Finally I became so exasperated with their questions and demands that in a moment of weakness I blurted out the truth.

  ‘They didn’t believe the truth (who does?), but it gave them something to think about and talk about, and they left me in peace for a few days.

  ‘But that same night Bippin did not come to sleep beside me. I was left alone with the cows. When he did not come the following night, I was afraid that he would throttle me while I slept. I was almost certain that my good fortune had come to an end, and I went back to sleeping in my own house.

  ‘The next time I was driving back to the village from the market, Bippin leapt out of the peepul tree.

  ‘“False friend,” he cried, halting the bullocks. “I gave you everything you wanted, and still you betrayed me!”

  ‘“I’m very sorry,” I said. “But as a ghost you wouldn’t understand what a man’s relatives can be like. You can of course hang me from the peepul tree, if you wish.”

  ‘“No, I cannot kill you,” he said. “We have been friends for too long. But I must punish you all the same.”

  ‘Picking up a stout stick, he struck me three times across the back, until I was bent double.

  ‘After that,’ concluded Ganpat, ‘I could never straighten myself up again, and for twenty years I have been a crooked man. My wife left me and went back to her family, and I could no longer work in the fields. I left my village and wandered from one city to another, begging for a living. That is how I came here. People in this town seem to be more generous than elsewhere.’

  He looked at me with his most appealing smile, waiting for the promised rupee.

  ‘You can’t expect me to believe that story,’ I said. ‘But for your powers of invention you deserve a rupee.’

  ‘No, no,’ said Ganpat, backing away and affecting indignation. ‘If you don’t believe me, keep the rupee!’

  Finally he permitted me to force the note into his hand, and then he went hobbling away to the bazaar. I was almost certain he had been telling me a very tall story. But you can never really be sure. Perhaps it was true about Bippin. And it was clever to give him the rupee, just in case he was, after all, a CID man.

  Some Teachings of the Bent-Double Beggar:

  ‘A woman can become jealous of anyone, anything,’ maintained Ganpat. ‘Even of a ghost.’

  ‘You must love everyone,’ said the bent-double beggar.

  ‘Even my enemies?’ I asked.

  ‘It is difficult to love your enemies. Much simpler not to have enemies.’

  We observed a naked ascetic ‘meditating’ beneath a peepul tree.

  ‘He is superior to us,’ I said. ‘He has conquered all desire. We cannot be like that, Ganpat.’

  ‘You think so? Well, let’s see….’ And approaching the ascetic, he said, ‘Babaji, can you teach us to meditate as you do?’

  ‘Yes, I will teach you,’ said the other readily. ‘It will cost only fifty rupees a lesson.’

  ‘You see?’ said Ganpat, turning to me. ‘There is indeed some purpose—even desire—in his meditation. I must remember to charge a fee the next time you ask me for advice.’

  Ganpat the bent-double beggar used to say that if all the troubles in the world could be laid down in one big heap, and everyone was allowed to choose one trouble, we should end up by picking up our old trouble again.

  He saw in th
e commonplace what others did not see. A snake. He taught me to see not only the snake, but the path taken by the snake, the beauty of its movements; both the nature of the snake and the nature of the path. He taught me to be that snake, even if it was only for the duration of its passing.

  ‘I asked you to my party, but you did not come,’ I complained.

  ‘You asked me, that is the important thing. What does it matter if I did not come? You wanted me there, amongst your rich friends. That knowledge gave me all the refreshment I needed.’

  In this life all our desires are fulfilled, on the condition that they do not bring the happiness we expected from them.

  It is no use getting upset about delays in India; they come with unfailing punctuality.

  His favourite proverb: If you must eat dung, eat elephant’s dung.

  One can forgive ignorance in a man who has had little or no education; but ignorance in a man who has been to college is unforgivable. Yet it is quite common.

  For democracy to succeed, the first requirement is that the majority of people should be honest.

  Nietzsche was wrong; it isn’t action but pleasure that binds us to existence.

  It is difficult to be miserable all the time. Human nature won’t permit it. Even when we are burning or burying our dead, we are thinking of what we will eat or drink later in the day.

  Chance gives, and takes away, and gives again.

  I travelled a lot once (said Ganpat), but you can go on doing that and not get anywhere. Wherever you go or whatever you do, most of your life will have to happen in your mind. And there’s no escape from that little room!

  Untouchable

  (This was my first short story, written when I was sixteen.)

  The sweeper-boy splashed water over the khus matting that hung in the doorway, and for a while the air was cooled. I sat on the edge of my bed, staring out of the open window, brooding upon the dusty road shimmering in the noon-day heat. A car passed, and the dust rose in billowing clouds.

  Across the road lived the people who were supposed to look after me while my father lay in hospital with malaria. I was supposed to stay with them, sleep with them: but except for meals, I kept away. I did not like them and they did not like me.