Our Trees Still Grow In Dehra Read online

  For a week, longer probably, I was going to live alone in the red-brick bungalow on the outskirts of the town, on the fringe of the jungle. At night the sweeper-boy would keep guard, sleeping in the kitchen. Apart from him, I had no company; only the neighbours’ children, and I did not like them and they did not like me.

  Their mother said, ‘Don’t play with the sweeper-boy, he is unclean. Don’t touch him. Remember, he is a servant. You must come and play with my boys.’

  Well, I did not intend playing with the sweeper-boy; but neither did I intend playing with her children. I was going to sit on my bed all week and wait for my father to come home.

  Sweeper-boy … all day he pattered up and down between the house and the water-tank, with the bucket clanging against his knees.

  Back and forth, with a wide, friendly smile.

  I frowned at him.

  He was about my age, ten. He had short-cropped hair, very white teeth, and muddy feet, hands, and face. All he wore was an old pair of khaki shorts; the rest of his body was bare, burnt a deep brown.

  At every trip to the water tank he bathed, and returned dripping and glistening from head to toe.

  I dripped with sweat.

  It was supposedly below my station to bathe at the tank, where the gardener, water-carrier, cooks, ayahs, sweepers, and their children all collected. I was the son of a ‘sahib’ and convention ruled that I did not play with servant children.

  But I was just as determined not to play with the other sahibs’ children, for I did not like them and they did not like me.

  I watched the flies buzzing against the window-pane, the lizards scuttling across the rafters, the wind scattering petals of scorched, long-dead flowers.

  The sweeper-boy smiled, and saluted in play. I avoided his eyes, and said, ‘Go away.’

  He went into the kitchen.

  I rose and crossed the room, and lifted my sun helmet off the hatstand.

  A centipede ran down the wall, across the floor.

  I screamed and jumped on the bed, shouting for help.

  The sweeper-boy darted in. He saw me on the bed, the centipede on the floor; and picking a large book off the shelf, slammed it down on the repulsive insect.

  I remained standing on my bed, trembling with fear and revulsion.

  He laughed at me, showing his teeth, and I blushed and said, ‘Get out!’

  I would not, could not, touch or approach the hat or hatstand. I sat on the bed and longed for my father to come home.

  A mosquito passed close by me and sang in my ear. Half-heartedly, I clutched at it and missed; and it disappeared behind the dressing-table.

  That mosquito, I reasoned, gave the malaria to my father: now it is trying to give it to me!

  The next-door lady walked through the compound and smiled thinly from outside the window. I glared back at her.

  The sweeper-boy passed with the bucket, and grinned. I turned away.

  In bed at night, with the lights on, I tried reading: but even books could not quell my anxiety.

  The sweeper-boy moved about the house, bolting doors, fastening windows. He asked me if I had any orders.

  I shook my head.

  He skipped across to the electric switch, turned off the light, and slipped into his quarters. Outside, inside, all was dark; only one shaft of light squeezed in through a crack in the sweeper-boy’s door, and then that too went out.

  I began to wish I had stayed with the neighbours. The darkness worried me—silent and close—silent, as if in suspense.

  Once a bat flew flat against the window, falling to the ground outside; once an owl hooted. Sometimes a dog barked. And I tautened as a jackal howled hideously in the jungle behind the bungalow. But nothing could break the overall stillness, the night’s silence ….

  Only a dry puff of wind ….

  It rustled in the trees, and put me in mind of a snake slithering over dry leaves and twigs. I remembered a tale I had been told not long ago, of a sleeping boy who had been bitten by a cobra.

  I would not, could not, sleep. I longed for my father ….

  The shutters rattled, the doors creaked, it was a night for ghosts.

  Ghosts!

  God, why did I have to think of them?

  My God! There, standing by the bathroom door ….

  My father! My father dead from the malaria, and come to see me!

  I threw myself at the switch. The room lit up. I sank down on the bed in complete exhaustion, the sweat soaking my night clothes.

  It was not my father I had seen. It was his dressing-gown hanging on the bathroom door. It had not been taken with him to the hospital.

  I turned off the light.

  The hush outside seemed deeper, nearer. I remembered the centipede, the bat, thought of the cobra and the sleeping boy; pulled the sheet tight over my head. If I could see nothing, well then, nothing could see me.

  A thunderclap shattered the brooding stillness.

  A streak of lightning forked across the sky, so close that even through the sheet I saw a tree and the opposite house silhouetted against the flashing canvas of gold.

  I dived deeper beneath the bedclothes, gathered the pillow about my ears.

  But at the next thunderclap, louder this time, louder than I had ever heard, I leapt from my bed. I could not stand it. I fled, blundering into the sweeper-boy’s room.

  The boy sat on the bare floor.

  ‘What is happening?’ he asked.

  The lightning flashed, and his teeth and eyes flashed with it. Then he was a blur in the darkness.

  ‘I am afraid,’ I said.

  I moved towards him and my hand touched a cold shoulder.

  ‘Stay here,’ he said. ‘I too am afraid.’

  I sat down, my back against the wall; beside the untouchable, the outcaste … and the thunder and lightning ceased, and the rain came down, swishing and drumming on the corrugated roof.

  ‘The rainy season has started,’ observed the sweeper-boy, turning to me. His smile played with the darkness, and he laughed. And I laughed too, but feebly.

  But I was happy and safe. The scent of the wet earth blew in through the skylight and the rain fell harder.

  All Creatures Great and Small

  Instead of having brothers and sisters to grow up with in India, I had as my companions an odd assortment of pets, which included a monkey, a tortoise, a python and a Great Indian Hornbill. The person responsible for all this wildlife in the home was my grandfather. As the house was his own, other members of the family could not prevent him from keeping a large variety of pets, though they could certainly voice their objections; and as most of the household consisted of women—my grandmother, visiting aunts and occasional in-laws (my parents were in Burma at the time)—Grandfather and I had to be alert and resourceful in dealing with them. We saw eye to eye on the subject of pets, and whenever Grandmother decided it was time to get rid of a tame white rat or a squirrel, I would conceal them in a hole in the jackfruit tree; but unlike my aunts, she was generally tolerant of Grandfather’s hobby, and even took a liking to some of our pets.

  Grandfather’s house and menagerie were in Dehra and I remember travelling there in a horse-drawn buggy. There were cars in those days—it was just over twenty years ago—but in the foothills a tonga was just as good, almost as fast, and certainly more dependable when it came to getting across the swift little Tons river.

  During the rains, when the river flowed strong and deep, it was impossible to get across except on a hand-operated ropeway; but in the dry months, the horse went splashing through, the carriage wheels churning through clear mountain water. If the horse found the going difficult, we removed our shoes, rolled up our skirts or trousers, and waded across.

  When Grandfather first went to stay in Dehra, early in the century, the only way of getting there was by the night mail-coach. Mail ponies, he told me, were difficult animals, always attempting to turn around and get into the coach with the passengers. It was only when the coach
man used his whip liberally, and reviled the ponies’ ancestors as far back as their third and fourth generations, that the beasts could be persuaded to move. And once they started, there was no stopping them. It was a gallop all the way to the first stage, where the ponies were changed to the accompaniment of a bugle blown by the coachman.

  At one stage of the journey, drums were beaten; and if it was night, torches were lit to keep away the wild elephants who, resenting the approach of this clumsy caravan, would sometimes trumpet a challenge and throw the ponies into confusion.

  Grandfather disliked dressing up and going out, and was only too glad to send everyone shopping or to the pictures—Harold Lloyd and Eddie Cantor were the favourites at Dehra’s small cinema—so that he could be left alone to feed his pets and potter about in the garden. There were a lot of animals to be fed, including, for a time, a pair of Great Danes who had such enormous appetites that we were forced to give them away to a more affluent family.

  The Great Danes were gentle creatures, and I would sit astride one of them and go for rides round the garden. Inspite of their size, they were very sure-footed and never knocked over people or chairs. A little monkey, like Toto, did much more damage.

  Grandfather bought Toto from a tonga-owner for the sum of five rupees. The tonga-man used to keep the little, red monkey tied to a feeding-trough, and Toto looked so out of place there—almost conscious of his own incongruity—that Grandfather immediately decided to add him to our menagerie.

  Toto was really a pretty, little monkey. His bright eyes sparkled with mischief beneath deep-set eyebrows, and his teeth, a pearly-white, were often on display in a smile that frightened the life out of elderly Ango-Indian ladies. His hands were not those of a Tallulah Bankhead (Grandfather’s only favourite actress), but were shrivelled and dried-up, as though they had been pickled in the sun for many years. But his fingers were quick and restless; and his tail, while adding to his good looks—Grandfather maintained that a tail would add to anyone’s good looks—often performed the service of a third hand. He could use it to hang from a branch; and it was capable of scooping up any delicacy that might be out of reach of his hands.

  Grandmother, anticipating an outcry from other relatives, always raised objections when Grandfather brought home some new bird or animal; and so for a while we managed to keep Toto’s presence a secret by lodging him in a little closet opening into my bedroom wall. But in a few hours he managed to dispose of Grandmother’s ornamental wall-paper and the better part of my school blazer. He was transferred to the stables for a day or two, and then Grandfather had to make a trip to neighbouring Saharanpur to collect his railway pension. Anxious to keep Toto out of trouble, he decided to take the monkey along with him.

  Unfortunately I could not accompany Grandfather on this trip, but he told me about it afterwards.

  A black kit-bag was provided for Toto. When the strings of the bag were tied, there was no means of escape from within, and the canvas was too strong for Toto to bite his way through. His initial efforts to get out only had the effect of making the bag roll about on the floor, or occasionally jump in the air—an exhibition that attracted a curious crowd of onlookers on the Dehra railway platform.

  Toto remained in the bag as far as Saharanpur, but while Grandfather was producing his ticket at the railway turnstile, Toto managed to get his hands through the aperture where the bag was tied, loosened the strings, and suddenly thrust his head through the opening.

  The poor ticket-collector was visibly alarmed; but with great presence of mind, and much to the annoyance of Grandfather, he said, ‘Sir, you have a dog with you. You’ll have to pay for it accordingly.’

  In vain did Grandfather take Toto out of the bag to prove that a monkey was not a dog or even a quadruped. The ticket-collector, now thoroughly annoyed, insisted on classing Toto as a dog; and three rupees and four annas had to be handed over as his fare. Then Grandfather, out of sheer spite, took out from his pocket a live tortoise that he happened to have with him, and said, ‘What must I pay for this, since you charge for all animals?’

  The ticket-collector retreated a pace or two; then advancing again with caution, he subjected the tortoise to a grave and knowledgeable stare.

  ‘No ticket is necessary, sir,’ he finally declared. ‘There is no charge for insects.’

  When we discovered that Toto’s favourite pastime was catching mice, we were able to persuade Grandmother to let us keep him. The unsuspecting mice would emerge from their holes at night to pick up any corn left over by our pony; and to get at it they had to run the gauntlet of Toto’s section of the stable. He knew this, and would pretend to be asleep, keeping, however, one eye open. A mouse would make a rush—in vain; Toto, as swift as a cat, would have his paws upon him …. Grandmother decided to put his talents to constructive use by tying him up one night in the larder, where a guerrilla-band of mice were playing havoc with our food supplies.

  Toto was removed from his comfortable bed of straw in the stable, and chained up in the larder, beneath shelves of jam-pots and other delicacies. The night was a long and miserable one for Toto, who must have wondered what he had done to deserve such treatment. The mice scampered about the place, while he, most uncatlike, lay curled up in a soup tureen, trying to snatch some sleep. At dawn, the mice returned to their holes; Toto awoke, scratched himself, emerged from the soup tureen, and looked about for something to eat. The jam-pots attracted his notice, and it did not take him long to prise open the covers. Grandmother’s treasured jams—she had made most of them herself—disappeared in an amazingly short time. I was present when she opened the door to see how many mice Toto had caught. Even the rain-god Indra could not have looked more terrible when planning a thunderstorm; and the imprecations Grandmother hurled at Toto were surprising coming from someone who had been brought up in the genteel Victorian manner.

  The monkey was later reinstated in Grandmother’s favour. A great treat for him on cold winter evenings was the large bowl of warm water provided by Grandmother for his bath. He would bathe himself, first of all gingerly testing the temperature of the water with his fingers. Leisurely he would step into the bath, first one foot, then the other, as he had seen me doing, until he was completely sitting down in it. Once comfortable, he would take the soap in his hands or feet, and rub himself all over. When he found the water becoming cold, he would get out and run as quickly as he could to the fire, where his coat soon dried. If anyone laughed at him during this performance, he would look extremely hurt, and refuse to go on with his ablutions.

  One day Toto nearly succeeded in boiling himself to death.

  The large kitchen kettle had been left on the fire to boil for tea; and Toto, finding himself for a few minutes alone with it, decided to take the lid off. On discovering that the water inside was warm, he got into the kettle with the intention of having a bath, and sat down with his head protruding from the opening. This was very pleasant for some time, until the water began to simmer. Toto raised himself a little, but finding it cold outside, sat down again. He continued standing and sitting for some time, not having the courage to face the cold air. Had it not been for the timely arrival of Grandmother, he would have been cooked alive.

  If there is a part of the brain especially devoted to mischief, that part must have been largely developed in Toto. He was always tearing things to bits, and whenever one of my aunts came near him, he made every effort to get hold of her dress and tear a hole in it. A variety of aunts frequently came to stay with my grandparents, but during Toto’s stay they limited their visits to a day or two, much to Grandfather’s relief and Grandmother’s annoyance.

  Toto, however, took a liking to Grandmother, inspite of the beatings he often received from her. Whenever she allowed him the liberty, he would lie quietly in her lap instead of scrambling all over her as he did on most people.

  Toto lived with us over a year, but the following winter, after too much bathing, he caught pneumonia. Grandmother wrapped him in flannel, an
d Grandfather gave him a diet of chicken soup and Irish stew; but Toto did not recover. He was buried in the garden, under his favourite mango tree.

  Perhaps it was just as well that Toto was no longer with us when Grandfather brought home the python, or his demise might have been less conventional. Small monkeys are a favourite delicacy with pythons.

  Grandmother was tolerant of most birds and animals, but she drew the line at reptiles. She said they made her blood run cold. Even a handsome, sweet-tempered chameleon had to be given up. Grandfather should have known that there was little chance of his being allowed to keep the python. It was about four feet long, a young one, when Grandfather bought it from a snake-charmer for six rupees, impressing the bazaar crowd by slinging it across his shoulders and walking home with it. Grandmother nearly fainted at the sight of the python curled round Grandfather’s throat.

  ‘You’ll be strangled!’ she cried. ‘Get rid of it at once!’

  ‘Nonesense,’ said Grandfather. ‘He’s only a young fellow. He’ll soon get used to us.’

  ‘Will he, indeed?’ said Grandmother. ‘But I have no intention of getting used to him. You know quite well that your cousin Mabel is coming to stay with us tomorrow. She’ll leave us the minute she knows there’s a snake in the house.’

  ‘Well, perhaps we ought to show it to her as soon as she arrives,’ said Grandfather, who did not look forward to fussy Aunt Mabel’s visits any more than I did.

  ‘You’ll do no such thing,’ said Grandmother.

  ‘Well, I can’t let it loose in the garden,’ said Grandfather with an innocent expression. ‘It might find its way into the poultry house, and then where would we be?’

  ‘How exasperating you are!’ grumbled Grandmother. ‘Lock the creature in the bathroom, go back to the bazaar and find the man you bought it from, and get him to come and take it back.’

  In my awestruck presence, Grandfather had to take the python into the bathroom, where he placed it in a steep-sided tin tub. Then he hurried off to the bazaar to look for the snake-charmer, while Grandmother paced anxiously up and down the veranda. When he returned looking crestfallen, we knew he hadn’t been able to find the man.