No Man is an Island Read online

‘Hallo,’ I said with a friendly smile.

  She looked suspiciously at me. ‘Who are you?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m a ghost.’

  She laughed, and her laugh had a gay, mocking quality. ‘You look like one!’

  I didn’t think her remark particularly flattering, but I had asked for it. I stopped smiling anyway. Most children don’t like adults smiling at them all the time.

  ‘What have you got up there?’ she asked.

  ‘Magic,’ I said.

  She laughed again but this time without mockery. ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said.

  ‘Why don’t you come up and see for yourself?’

  She hesitated a little but came round to the steps and began climbing them, slowly, cautiously. And when she entered the room, she brought a magic of her own.

  ‘Where’s your magic?’ she asked, looking me in the eye.

  ‘Come here,’ I said, and I took her to the window, and showed her the world.

  She said nothing but stared out of the window uncomprehendingly at first, and then with increasing interest. And after some time she turned round and smiled at me, and we were friends.

  I only knew that her name was Koki, and that she had come with her aunt for the summer months; I didn’t need to know any more about her, and she didn’t need to know anything about me except that I wasn’t really a ghost—not the frightening sort anyway…

  She came up my steps nearly every day, and joined me at the window. There was a lot of excitement to be had in our world, especially when the rains broke.

  At the first rumblings, women would rush outside to retrieve the washing on the clothes line and if there was a breeze, to chase a few garments across the compound. When the rain came, it came with a vengeance, making a bog of the garden and a river of the path. A cyclist would come riding furiously down the path, an elderly gentleman would be having difficulty with an umbrella, naked children would be frisking about in the rain. Sometimes Koki would run out on the roof, and shout and dance in the rain. And the rain would come through the open door and window of the room, flooding the floor and making an island of the bed.

  But the window was more fun than anything else. It gave us the power of detachment: we were deeply interested in the life around us, but we were not involved in it.

  ‘It is like a cinema,’ said Koki. ‘The window is the screen, the world is the picture.’

  Soon the mangoes were ripe, and Koki was in the branches of the mango tree as often as she was in my room. From the window I had a good view of the tree, and we spoke to each other from the same height. We ate far too many mangoes, at least five a day.

  ‘Let’s make a garden on the roof,’ suggested Koki. She was full of ideas like this.

  ‘And how do you propose to do that?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s easy. We bring up mud and bricks and make the flowerbeds. Then we plant the seeds. We’ll grow all sorts of flowers.’

  ‘The roof will fall in,’ I predicted.

  But it didn’t. We spent two days carrying buckets of mud up the steps to the roof and laying out the flowerbeds. It was very hard work, but Koki did most of it. When the beds were ready, we had the opening ceremony. Apart from a few small plants collected from the garden below we had only one species of seeds—pumpkin…

  We planted the pumpkin seeds in the mud, and felt proud of ourselves.

  But it rained heavily that night, and in the morning I discovered that everything—except the bricks—had been washed away.

  So we returned to the window.

  A myna had been in a fight—with a crow perhaps—and the feathers had been knocked off its head. A bougainvillaea that had been climbing the wall had sent a long green shoot in through the window.

  Koki said, ‘Now we can’t shut the window without spoiling the creeper.’

  ‘Then we will never close the window,’ I said.

  And we let the creeper into the room.

  The rains passed, and an autumn wind came whispering through the branches of the banyan tree. There were red leaves on the ground, and the wind picked them up and blew them about, so that they looked like butterflies. I would watch the sun rise in the morning, the sky all red, until its first rays splashed the windowsill and crept up the walls of the room. And in the evening Koki and I watched the sun go down in a sea of fluffy clouds; sometimes the clouds were pink, and sometimes orange; they were always coloured clouds, framed in the window.

  ‘I’m going tomorrow,’ said Koki one evening.

  I was too surprised to say anything.

  ‘You stay here forever, don’t you?’ she said.

  I remained silent.

  ‘When I come again next year you will still be here, won’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But the window will still be here.’

  ‘Oh, do be here next year,’ she said, ‘or someone will close the window!’

  In the morning the tonga was at the door, and the servant, the aunt and Koki were in it. Koki waved to me at my window. Then the driver flicked the reins, the wheels of the carriage creaked and rattled, the bell jingled. Down the path went the tonga, down the path and through the gate, and all the time Koki waved; and from the gate I must have looked like a ghost, standing alone at the high window, amongst the bougainvillaea.

  When the tonga was out of sight I took the spray of bougainvillaea in my hand and pushed it out of the room. Then I closed the window. It would be opened only when the spring and Koki came again.

  The Fight

  anji had been less than a month in Rajpur when he discovered the pool in the forest. It was the height of summer, and his school had not yet opened, and, having as yet made no friends in this semi-hill station, he wandered about a good deal by himself into the hills and forests that stretched away interminably on all sides of the town. It was hot, very hot, at that time of year, and Ranji walked about in his vest and shorts, his brown feet white with the chalky dust that flew up from the ground. The earth was parched, the grass brown, the trees listless, hardly stirring, waiting for a cool wind or a refreshing shower of rain.

  It was on such a day—a hot, tired day—that Ranji found the pool in the forest. The water had a gentle translucency, and you could see the smooth round pebbles at the bottom of the pool. A small stream emerged from a cluster of rocks to feed the pool. During the monsoon, this stream would be a gushing torrent, cascading down from the hills, but during the summer it was barely a trickle. The rocks, however, held the water in the pool, and it did not dry up like the pools in the plains.

  When Ranji saw the pool, he did not hesitate to get into it. He had often gone swimming, alone or with friends, when he had lived with his parents in a thirsty town in the middle off the Rajputana desert. There, he had known only sticky, muddy pools, where buffaloes wallowed and women washed clothes. He had never seen a pool like this—so clean and cold and inviting. He threw off all his clothes, as he had done when he went swimming in the plains, and leapt into the water. His limbs were supple, free of any fat, and his dark body glistened in patches of sunlit water.

  The next day he came again to quench his body in the cool waters of the forest pool. He was there for almost an hour, sliding in and out of the limpid green water, or lying stretched out on the smooth yellow rocks in the shade of broad-leaved sal trees. It was while he lay thus, naked on a rock, that he noticed another boy standing a little distance away, staring at him in a rather hostile manner. The other boy was a little older than Ranji, taller, thick-set, with a broad nose and thick, red lips. He had only just noticed Ranji, and he stood at the edge of the pool, wearing a pair of bathing shorts, waiting for Ranji to explain himself.

  When Ranji did not say anything, the other called out, ‘What are you doing here, Mister?’

  Ranji, who was prepared to be friendly, was taken aback at the hostility of the other’s tone.

  ‘I am swimming,’ he replied. ‘Why don’t you join me?’

  ‘I always swim alone,’ said the othe
r. ‘This is my pool, I did not invite you here. And why are you not wearing any clothes?’

  It is not your business if I do not wear clothes. I have nothing to be ashamed of.’

  ‘You skinny fellow, put on your clothes.’

  ‘Fat fool, take yours off.’

  This was too much for the stranger to tolerate. He strode up to Ranji, who still sat on the rock and, planting his broad feet firmly on the sand, said (as though this would settle the matter once and for all), ‘Don’t you know I am a Punjabi? I do not take replies from villagers like you!’

  ‘So you like to fight with villagers?’ said Ranji. ‘Well, I am not a villager. I am a Rajput!’

  ‘I am a Punjabi!’

  ‘I am a Rajput!’

  They had reached an impasse. One had said he was a Punjabi, the other had proclaimed himself a Rajput. There was little else that could be said.

  ‘You understand that I am a Punjabi?’ said the stranger, feeling that perhaps this information had not penetrated Ranji’s head.

  ‘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, leg 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 pahelwan.’

  ‘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 pahelwan like me! I know—if you teach me to dive and swim underwater, I will make you a pahelwan! 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,’ said 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?’ said Ranji, smiling with the knowledge that he had won the day.

  The Crooked Tree

  ‘You must pass your exams and go to college, but do not feel that if you fail, you will be able to do nothing.’

  y room in Shahganj was very small. I had paced about in it so often that I knew its exact measurements: twelve feet by ten. The string of my cot needed tightening. The dip in the middle was so pronounced that I invariably woke up in the morning with a backache; but I was hopeless at tightening charpoy strings.

  Under the cot was my tin trunk. Its contents ranged from old, rejected manuscripts to clothes and letters and photographs. I had resolved that one day, when I had made some money with a book, I would throw the trunk and everything else out of the window, and leave Shahganj forever. But until then I was a prisoner. The rent was nominal, the window had a view of the bus stop and rickshaw stand, and I had nowhere else to go.