Rusty and the Leopard Read online

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘It is lucky if you see a snake early in the morning.’

  ‘It won’t bite you if you let it alone,’ she added reassuringly for our peace of mind.

  By eleven o’clock, after we had finished our dinner, and heard a few more ghost stories (too many for our comfort)—including one about Somi’s grandmother, whose spirit had only recently paid the family a visit— Ranbir and I were most reluctant to leave the company on the veranda and retire to the room which had been set apart for us. It did not make us feel any better to be told by Somi’s mother that we should recite certain magical verses to keep away the more troublesome spirits. We tried one, which went—

  Bhoot, pret, pisach, dana

  Chhoo mantar, sab nikal jana,

  Mano, mano, Shiv ka kahna . . .

  which, roughly translated, means—

  Ghost, spirit, goblin, gnome,

  Shoo, shoo, leave us well alone

  Obey Shiva or you’ll have to atone!

  But the more we repeated the verse, the more uneasy we became, and when I got into bed (after carefully examining it for snakes), I couldn’t lie still, but kept twisting and turning and looking at the walls for moving shadows. Ranbir attempted to raise our spirits by singing softly, but this only made the atmosphere more eerie. After a while we heard someone knocking at the door, and the voices of Somi and Mulia. Getting up and opening the door, I found them looking pale and anxious. They, too, had succeeded in frightening themselves after hearing all those ghost stories.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Somi. ‘Wouldn’t you like to sleep in our part of the house? It might be safer. Mulia will help us carry the beds across!’

  ‘We’re quite all right,’ protested Ranbir, refusing to admit we were actually quite nervous; but we were hustled along to the other side of the flat as though a band of ghosts was conspiring against us. Somi’s mother had been absent during all this activity but suddenly we heard her screaming from the direction of the room we had just left.

  ‘Rusty and Ranbir have disappeared!’ she cried. ‘Their beds too have gone!’

  And then, when she came out on the veranda and saw us dashing about in our pyjamas, she gave another scream and collapsed on a cot.

  After that, we prevented her from telling us any more ghost stories at night.

  IV

  At the end of August, when the rains were nearly over, Kishen, Somi and I met at the pool to make plans for the autumn. We had bathed, and were stretched out in the shade of the fresh, rain-washed sal trees, when Somi, pointing vaguely to the distant mountains, said: ‘Why don’t we go to the Pindari Glacier?’

  ‘The Pindari Glacier!’ exclaimed Kishen. ‘But that’s all snow and ice!’

  ‘Of course it is,’ said Somi. ‘But there’s a path through the mountains that goes all the way to the foot of the glacier. It’s only fifty-four miles!’

  ‘Do you mean we must—walk fifty-four miles?’ I asked incredulously.

  ‘Well, there’s no other way,’ said Somi matter-offactly. ‘Unless you prefer to sit on a mule. But your legs are too long, they’ll be trailing along the ground. No, we’ll have to walk. It will take us about ten days to get to the glacier and back, but if we take enough food there’ll be no problem. There are dak bungalows to stay in at night.’

  ‘Somi gets all the best ideas,’ I said admiringly. ‘But I suppose Kishen and I will have to get his parents’ permission. And some money.’

  ‘I am sure Mummy will not grant me permission to go,’ said Kishen. ‘She thinks I’m always getting up to some mischief. How can one get up to mischief on a lonely mountain? Have you been on the mountains, Rusty? But then she may allow you to go—she trusts you.’

  ‘I haven’t been on very high mountains,’ I replied. ‘But I’m sure it won’t be dangerous, people are always trekking to the glacier.’

  ‘Can you see that peak above the others on the right?’ asked Somi. He pointed to the distant snow-range, barely visible against the soft blue sky. ‘The Pindari Glacier is below it. It’s at 12,000 feet I think, but we won’t need any special equipment. There’ll be snow only for the final two or three miles. Do you know that it’s the beginning of the river Sarayu?’

  ‘You mean our river?’ asked Kishen in wonder, thinking of the little river that wandered along the outskirts of the town, joining the Ganges further downstream.

  ‘Yes. But it’s only a trickle where it starts.’

  ‘How much money will we need?’ I asked, determined to be practical.

  ‘Well, I’ve saved twenty rupees,’ said Somi.

  ‘But won’t you need that for your expenses at home?’ I asked.

  ‘No, this is extra. If each of us brings twenty rupees, we should have enough. There’s nothing to spend money on, once we are up on the mountains. There are only one or two villages on the way, and food is scarce, so we’ll have to take plenty of food with us. I learnt all this from the Tourist Office.’

  ‘Somi’s been planning this without our knowledge,’ complained Kishen.

  ‘He always plans in advance,’ I said. ‘But it’s a good idea, and it should be a fine adventure.’

  ‘All right,’ said Kishen. ‘But Rusty will have to be with me when I ask my mother. She thinks Rusty is very sensible, and might let me go if he says it’s quite safe.’ And he ended the discussion by jumping into the pool, where we soon joined him.

  Meena agreed to let Kishen be a part of the trek on the condition that I would always be with him. Then she generously gave us a sum of fifty rupees. ‘Have fun, but take care. Meanwhile I will plan for that picnic all of us are to go on—perhaps we can make it a couple of weeks later,’ she said. Mr Kapoor was hardly aware of our plans, but Meena said that he would hardly raise an objection if she had none. Happy with our heavy purse and exciting plans we promptly treated ourselves to cream cakes from the bazaar.

  On a cloudy day promising rain, we bundled ourselves into the bus that was to take us to Kapkote (where people lose their caps and coats, punned Kishen), the starting point of our trek. Each of us carried a haversack, and we had also brought along a good-sized bedding roll which, apart from blankets, also contained rice and flour thoughtfully provided by Somi’s mother. We had no idea how we would carry the bedding roll once we started walking; but an astrologer had told Somi’s mother it was a good day for travelling, so we didn’t worry much over minor details.

  We were soon in the hills, on a winding road that took us up and up, until we saw the valley and our town spread out beneath us, the river a silver ribbon across the plain. Kishen pointed to a patch of dense sal forest and said, ‘Our pool must be there!’ We took a sharp bend, and the valley disappeared, and the mountains towered above us.

  We had dull headaches by the time we reached Kapkote; but when we got down from the bus a cool breeze freshened us. At the wayside shop we drank glasses of hot, sweet tea, and the shopkeeper told us we could spend the night in one of his rooms. It was pleasant at Kapkote, the hills wooded with deodar trees, the lower slopes planted with fresh green paddy. At night there was a wind moaning in the trees, and it found its way through the cracks in the windows and eventually through our blankets. Then, right outside the door, a dog began howling at the moon. It had been a good day for travelling, but the astrologer hadn’t warned us that it would be a bad night for sleep.

  The next morning we washed our faces at a small stream about a hundred yards from the shop, and filled our water bottles for the day’s march. There was a boy sitting on one of the rocks, studying our movements.

  ‘Where are you going?’ he asked, unable to suppress his curiosity.

  ‘To the glacier,’ said Kishen.

  ‘Let me come with you,’ said the boy. ‘I know the way.’

  ‘You’re too small,’ said Somi. ‘We need someone sturdy who can carry our bedding roll.’

  ‘I’m small,’ the boy replied, ‘but I’m strong. I’m not a weakling like the boys in the plains.’ Though he was sho
rter than any of us, he certainly looked sturdy, and had a muscular well-knit body and pink cheeks. ‘See!’ he said, and picking up a rock the size of a football, he heaved it across the stream.

  ‘I think he can come with us,’ I said.

  ‘All right then. But what is your name?’ asked Kishen. ‘Bisnu!’ he yelled and shot off to inform his people of his employment. We agreed to pay him a rupee a day for acting as our guide and ‘sherpa’.

  And then we were walking—at first, above the little Sarayu river, then climbing higher along the rough mule track, always within sound of the water. Kishen wanted to bathe in the river. I said it was too far, and Somi pointed out that we wouldn’t reach the dak bungalow before dark if we went for a swim. Regretfully, we left the river behind, and marched on through a forest of oaks, over wet, rotting leaves that made a soft carpet for our feet. We ate at noon, under an oak. As we didn’t want to waste any time making a fire—not on this first crucial day—we ate beans from a tin and drank most of our water.

  In the afternoon we came to the river again. The water was swifter now, green and bubbling, still far below us. We saw two boys in the water, swimming in an inlet which reminded us of our own secret pool. They waved, and invited us to join them. We returned their greeting; but it would have taken us an hour to get down to the river and up again; so we continued on our way.

  We walked fifteen miles on the first day—our speed was to decrease after this—and we were at the dak bungalow by six o’clock. Bisnu busied himself collecting sticks for a fire. Somi found the bungalow’s watchman asleep in a patch of fading sunlight, and roused him. The watchman, who hadn’t been bothered by visitors for weeks, grumbled at our intrusion, but opened a room for us. He also produced some potatoes from his quarters, and these were roasted for dinner.

  It became cold after the sun had gone down, and we huddled close to Bisnu’s fire. The damp sticks burnt fitfully. But Bisnu had justified his inclusion in our party. He had balanced the bedding roll on his shoulders as though it were full of cotton wool instead of blankets. Now he was helping with the cooking. And we were glad to have him sharing our hot potatoes and strong tea.

  There were only two beds in the room, and we pushed these together, apportioning out the blankets as fairly as possible. Then the four of us leapt into bed, shivering with the cold. We were already over 5,000 feet. Bisnu, in his own peculiar way, was obviously quite unaware of the cold, for a cotton singlet and shorts were all that he wore for the night.

  ‘Tell us a story, Rusty,’ said Kishen. ‘It will help us to fall asleep.’

  I told them a ghost story—quite similar to the ones narrated by Somi’s mother, about a boy and a girl who had been changed into a pair of buffaloes; and then Bisnu told us about the ghost of a sadhu, who was to be seen sitting in the snow by moonlight, not far from the glacier. Far from putting us to sleep, this story kept us awake for hours.

  ‘Aren’t you asleep yet?’ I asked Somi in the middle of the night.

  ‘No, you keep kicking me,’ he lied.

  ‘We don’t have enough blankets,’ complained Kishen, ‘It’s too cold to sleep.’

  ‘I never sleep till it’s very late,’ mumbled Bisnu from the bottom of the bed.

  None of us was prepared to admit that our imaginations were keeping us awake.

  After a little while we heard a thud on the corrugated tin sheeting, and then the sound of someone—or something—scrambling about on the roof. Somi, Kishen and I sat up in bed, startled out of our wits. Bisnu, who had been winning the race to be fast asleep, merely turned over on his side and grunted.

  ‘It’s only a bear,’ he said. ‘Didn’t you notice the pumpkins on the roof? Bears love pumpkins.’

  For half an hour we had to listen to the bear as it clambered about on the roof, feasting on the watchman’s ripening pumpkins. Finally there was silence. Somi and I crawled out of our blankets and went to the window. And through the frosted glass we saw a black Himalayan bear ambling across the slope in front of the bungalow, a fat pumpkin held between its paws.

  It was raining when we woke, and the mountains were obscured by a heavy mist. We delayed our departure because of the rain and started playing football on the veranda with one of the pumpkins that had fallen off the roof. At noon the rain stopped, and the sun shone through the clouds. As the mist lifted, we saw the snowy mountain range, the great peaks of Nanda Kot and Trishul cutting into the sky.

  ‘It’s different up here,’ said Kishen. ‘I feel a different person.’

  ‘That’s the altitude,’ I said. ‘As we go higher, we’ll get lighter in the head.’

  ‘Kishen is light in the head already,’ said Somi. ‘I hope the altitude won’t be too much for him.’

  ‘If you two are going to be witty,’ retorted Kishen, ‘I shall go off with Bisnu, and you’ll have to find the way yourselves.’

  Bisnu grinned at each of us in turn to show us that he wasn’t taking sides; and after a breakfast of boiled eggs, we set off on our trek to the next bungalow.

  Rain had made the ground slippery, and we were soon ankle-deep in slush. Our next bungalow lay in a narrow valley, on the banks of the rushing Pindar river, which twisted its way through the mountains. We were not sure how far we had to go, but nobody seemed to be in a rush. On an impulse, I decided to hurry on ahead of the others. I wanted to be waiting for them at the river.

  The path dropped steeply, then rose and went round a big mountain. I met a woodcutter and asked him how far it was to the river. He was a short, stocky man, with gnarled hands and a weathered face.

  ‘Seven miles,’ he said. ‘Are you alone?’

  ‘No, the others are following but I cannot wait for them. If you meet them, tell them I’ll be waiting at the river.’

  The path descended steeply now, and I had to run a little. It was a dizzy, winding path. The hillside was covered with lush green ferns, and, in the trees, unseen birds sang loudly. Soon I was in the valley, and the path straightened out. A girl was coming from the opposite direction. She held a long, curved knife, with which she had been cutting grass and fodder. There were rings in her nose and ears, and her arms were covered with heavy bangles. The bangles jingled musically when she moved her hands—it was as though her hands spoke a language of their own.

  ‘How far is it to the river?’ I asked.

  The girl had probably never been near the river, or she may have been thinking of another one, because she replied, ‘Twenty miles,’ without any hesitation.

  I laughed, and ran down the path. A parrot screeched suddenly, flying low over my head—a flash of blue and green—and took the course of the path, while I followed its dipping flight, until the path rose and the bird disappeared into the trees.

  A trickle of water came from the hillside, and I stopped to drink from it. The water was cold and sharp and very refreshing. I had walked alone for nearly an hour. Presently I saw a boy ahead of me, driving a few goats along the path.

  ‘How far is it to the river?’ I asked, when I caught up with him.

  The boy said, ‘Oh, not far, just round the next hill.’

  As I was hungry, I produced some dry bread from my pocket and, breaking it in two, offered half to the boy. We sat on the grassy hillside and ate in silence. Then we walked on together and began talking. Because of his company and our conversation I did not notice the smarting of my feet and the distance I covered. But after some time the boy, whose name was Dev Singh, had to diverge along another path, and I was once more on my own.

  After going on my own for some time, I began to miss Dev Singh. I looked up and down the path, but could see no one, no sign of Somi and Kishen and Bisnu, and the river was not in sight either. I began to feel discouraged. But I couldn’t turn back; I was determined to be at the river before the others.

  And so I walked on, along the muddy path, past terraced fields and small stone houses, until there were no more fields and houses, only the forest, the sun and silence.

  The silenc
e was impressive and a little frightening. It was different from the silence of a room or an empty street. Nor was there any movement, except for the bending of grass beneath my feet, and the circling of a hawk high above the fir trees.

  And then, as I rounded a sharp bend, the silence broke into a deafening sound all of a sudden.

  The sound of the river.

  Far down in the valley, the river was tumbling over itself in its impatience to reach the plains. I began to run, slipped and stumbled, but continued running.

  The water was blue and white and wonderful.

  When Kishen, Somi and Bisnu arrived, the four of us bravely decided to bathe in the little river. The late afternoon sun was still warm, but the water—so clear and inviting—proved to be ice-cold. Only twenty miles upstream the river emerged as a little trickle from the glacier, and in its swift descent down the mountain slopes it did not give the sun a chance to penetrate its waters. But we were determined to bathe, to wash away the dust and sweat of our two days’ trudging, and we leapt about in the shallows like startled porpoises, slapping water on each other, and gasping with the shock of each immersion. Bisnu, more accustomed to mountain streams than us, ventured across in an attempt to catch an otter, but wasn’t fast enough. Then we were on the springy grass, wrestling each other in order to get warm.

  The bungalow stood on a ledge just above the river, and the sound of the water rushing down the mountain defile could be heard at all times. The sound of the birds, which we had grown used to, was drowned by the roar of the river; but the birds themselves could be seen, many-coloured, standing out splendidly against the dark green forest foliage: the red-crowned jay, the paradise flycatcher, the purple whistling thrush and many others we could not recognize.

  Higher up the mountain, above some terraced land where oats and barley were grown, stood a small cluster of huts. This, we were told by the watchman, was the last village on the way to the glacier. It was, in fact, one of the last villages in India, because if we crossed the difficult passes beyond the glacier, we would find ourselves in Tibet. We told the watchman we would be quite satisfied just to reach the Pindari Glacier.