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

  ‘Nonsense,’ 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.

  ‘You had better take it away yourself,’ said Grandmother, in a relentless mood. ‘Leave it in the jungle across the riverbed.’

  ‘All right, but let me give it a feed first,’ said Grandfather; and producing a plucked chicken, he took it into the bathroom, followed, in single file, by me, Grandmother and a curious cook and gardener.

  Grandfather threw open the door and stepped into the bathroom. I peeped round his legs, while the others remained well behind. We couldn’t see the python anywhere.

  ‘He’s gone,’ announced Grandfather. ‘He must have felt hungry.’

  ‘I hope he isn’t too hungry,’ I said.

  ‘We left the window open,’ said Grandfather, looking embarrassed.

  A careful search was made of the house, the kitchen, the garden, the stable and the poultry shed; but the python couldn’t be found anywhere.

  ‘He’ll be well away by now,’ said Grandfather reassuringly.

  ‘I certainly hope so,’ said Grandmother, who was half way between anxiety and relief.

  Aunt Mabel arrived next day for a three-week visit, and for a couple of days Grandfather and I were a little apprehensive in case the python made a sudden reappearance; but on the third day, when he didn’t show up, we felt confident that he had gone for good.

  And then, towards evening, we were startled by a scream from the garden. Seconds later, Aunt Mabel came flying up the veranda steps, looking as though she had seen a ghost.

  ‘In the guava tree!’ she gasped. ‘I was reaching for a guava, when I saw it staring at me. The look in its eyes! As though it would devour me—’

  ‘Calm down, my dear,’ urged Grandmother, sprinkling her with eau-de-cologne. ‘Calm down and tell us what you saw.’

  ‘A snake!’ sobbed Aunt Mabel. ‘A great boa constrictor. It must have been twenty feet long! In the guava tree. Its eyes were terrible. It looked at me in such a queer way…’

  My grandparents looked significantly at each other, and Grandfather said, ‘I’ll go out and kill it,’ and sheepishly taking hold of an umbrella, sallied out into the garden. But when he reached the guava tree, the python had disappeared.

  ‘Aunt Mabel must have frightened it away,’ I said.

  ‘Hush,’ said Grandfather. ‘We mustn’t speak of your aunt in that way.’ But his eyes were alive with laughter.

  After this incident, the python began to make a series of appearances, often in the most unexpected places. Aunt Mabel had another fit of hysterics when she saw him admiring her from under a cushion. She packed her bags, and Grandmother made us intensify the hunt.

  Next morning I saw the python curled up on the dressing table, gazing at his reflection in the mirror. I went for Grandfather, but by the time we returned the python had moved elsewhere. A little later he was seen in the garden again. Then he was back on the dressing table, admiring himself in the mirror. Evidently he had become enamoured of his own reflection. Grandfather observed that perhaps the attention he was receiving from everyone had made him a little conceited.

  ‘He’s trying to look better for Aunt Mabel,’ I said; a remark that I instantly regretted, because Grandmother overheard it, and brought the flat of her broad hand down on my head.

  ‘Well, now we know his weakness,’ said Grandfather.

  ‘Are you trying to be funny too?’ demanded Grandmother, looking her most threatening.

  ‘I only meant he was becoming very vain,’ said Grandfather hastily. ‘It should be easier to catch him now.’

  He set about preparing a large cage with a mirror at one end. In the cage he left a juicy chicken and various other delicacies, and fitted up the opening with a trapdoor. Aunt Mabel had already left by the time we had this trap ready, but we had to go on with the project because we couldn’t have the python prowling about the house indefinitely.

  For a few days nothing happened, and then, as I was leaving for school one morning, I saw the python curled up in the cage. He had eaten everything left out for him, and was relaxing in front of the mirror with something resembling a smile on his face—if you can imagine a python smiling… I lowered the trapdoor gently, but the python took no notice; he was in raptures over his handsome reflection. Grandfather and the gardener put the cage in the ponytrap, and made a journey to the other side of the riverbed. They left the cage in the jungle, with the trapdoor open.

  ‘He made no attempt to get out,’ said Grandfather later. ‘And I didn’t have the heart to take the mirror away. It’s the first time I’ve seen a snake fall in love.’

  ‘And the frogs have sung their old song in the mud…’ This was Grandfather’s favourite quotation from Virgil, and he used it whenever we visited the rainwater pond behind the house where there were quantities of mud and frogs and the occasional water buffalo. Grandfather had once brought a number of frogs into the house. He had put them in a glass jar, left them on a windowsill, and then forgotten all about them. At about four o’clock in the morning the entire household was awakened by a loud and fearful noise, and Grandmother and several nervous relatives gathered in their nightclothes on the veranda. Their timidity changed to fury when they discovered that the ghastly sounds had come from Grandfather’s frogs. Seeing the dawn breaking, the frogs had with one accord begun their morning song.

  Grandmother wanted to throw the frogs, bottle and all, out of the window; but Grandfather said that if he gave the bottle a good shaking, the frogs would remain quiet. He was obliged to keep awake, in order to shake the bottle whenever the frogs showed any inclination to break into song. Fortunately for all concerned, the next day a servant took the top off the bottle to see what was inside. The sight of several big frogs so startled him that he ran off without replacing the cover; the frogs jumped out and presumably found their way back to the pond.

  It became a habit with me to visit the pond on my own, in order to explore its banks and shallows. Taking off my shoes, I would wade into the muddy water up to my knees, to pluck the water lilies that floated on the surface.

  One day I found the pond already occupied by several buffaloes. Their keeper, a boy a little older than me, was swimming about in the middle. Instead of climbing out on to the bank, he would pull himself up on the back of one of his buffaloes, stretch his naked brown body out on the animal’s glistening wet hide, and start singing to himself.

  When he saw me staring at him from across the pond, he smiled, showing gleaming white teeth in a dark, sun-burnished face. He invited me to join him in a swim. I told him I couldn’t swim, and he offered to teach me. I hesitated, knowing that Grandmother held strict and old-fashioned views about mixing with village children; but, deciding that Grandfather—who sometimes smoked a ho
okah on the sly—would get me out of any trouble that might occur, I took the bold step of accepting the boy’s offer. Once taken, the step did not seem so bold.

  He dived off the back of his buffalo, and swam across to me. And I, having removed my clothes, followed his instructions until I was floundering about among the water lilies. His name was Ramu, and he promised to give me swimming lessons every afternoon; and so it was during the afternoon—especially summer afternoons when everyone was asleep—that we usually met. Before long I was able to swim across the pond to sit with Ramu astride a contented buffalo, the great beast standing like an island in the middle of a muddy ocean.

  Sometimes we would try racing the buffaloes, Ramu and I sitting on different mounts. But they were lazy creatures, and would leave one comfortable spot only to look for another; or, if they were in no mood for games, would roll over on their backs, taking us with them into the mud and green slime of the pond. Emerging in shades of green and khaki, I would slip into the house through the bathroom and bathe under the tap before getting into my clothes.

  One afternoon, Ramu and I found a small tortoise in the mud, sitting over a hole in which it had laid several eggs. Ramu kept the eggs for his dinner, and I presented the tortoise to Grandfather. He had a weakness for tortoises, and was pleased with this addition to his ménagerie, giving it a large tub of water all to itself, with an island of rocks in the middle. The tortoise, however, was always getting out of the tub and wandering about the house. As it seemed able to look after itself quite well, we did not interfere. If one of the dogs bothered it too much, it would draw its head and legs into its shell and defy all their attempts at rough play.

  Ramu came from a family of bonded labourers, and had received no schooling. But he was well-versed in folklore, and knew a great deal about birds and animals.

  ‘Many birds are sacred,’ said Ramu, as we watched a blue jay swoop down from a peepul tree and carry off a grasshopper. He told me that both the blue jay and the God Shiva were called ‘Nilkanth’. Shiva had a blue throat, like the bird, because out of compassion for the human race he had swallowed a deadly poison which was intended to destroy the world. Keeping the poison in his throat, he did not let it go any further.

  ‘Are squirrels sacred?’ I asked, seeing one sprint down the trunk of the peepul tree.

  ‘Oh, yes, Lord Krishna loved squirrels,’ said Ramu. ‘He would take them in his arms and stroke them with his long fingers. That is why they have four dark lines down their backs from head to tail. Krishna was very dark, and the lines are the marks of his fingers.’

  Both Ramu and Grandfather were of the opinion that we should be more gentle with birds and animals and should not kill so many of them.

  ‘It is also important that we respect them,’ said Grandfather. ‘We must acknowledge their rights. Everywhere, birds and animals are finding it more difficult to survive, because we are trying to destroy both them and their forests. They have to keep moving as the trees disappear.’

  This was especially true of the forests near Dehra, where the tiger and the pheasant and the spotted deer were beginning to disappear.

  Ramu and I spent many long summer afternoons at the pond. I still remember him with affection, though we never saw each other again after I left Dehra. He could not read or write, so we were unable to keep in touch. And neither his people, nor mine, knew of our friendship. The buffaloes and frogs had been our only confidantes. They had accepted us as part of their own world, their muddy but comfortable pond. And when I left Dehra, both they and Ramu must have assumed that I would return again like the birds.

  The Four Feathers

  OUR SCHOOL dormitory was a very long room with about thirty beds, fifteen on either side of the room. This was good for pillow fights. Class V would take on Class VI (the two senior classes in our Prep school) and there would be plenty of space for leaping, struggling small boys, pillows flying, feathers flying, until there was a cry of ‘Here comes Fishy!’ or ‘Here comes Olly!’ and either Mr Fisher, the Headmaster, or Mr Oliver, the Senior Master, would come striding in, cane in hand, to put an end to the general mayhem. Pillow fights were allowed, up to a point; nobody got hurt. But parents sometimes complained if, at the end of the term, a boy came home with a pillow devoid of cotton-wool or feathers.

  In that last year at Prep school in Shimla, there were four of us who were close friends—Bimal, whose home was in Bombay; Riaz, who came from Lahore; Bran, who hailed from Vellore; and your narrator, who lived wherever his father (then in the Air Force) was posted.

  We called ourselves the ‘Four Feathers’, the feathers signifying that we were companions in adventure, comrades-in-arms, and knights of the round table. Bimal adopted a peacock’s feather as his emblem—he was always a bit showy. Riaz chose a falcon’s feather—although we couldn’t find one. Bran and I were at first offered crow’s or murghi feathers, but we protested vigorously and threatened a walkout. Finally, I settled for a parrot’s feather (taken from Mrs Fisher’s pet parrot), and Bran found a woodpecker’s, which suited him, as he was always knocking things about.

  Bimal was all thin legs and arms, so light and frisky that at times he seemed to be walking on air. We called him ‘Bambi’, after the delicate little deer in the Disney film. Riaz, on the other hand, was a sturdy boy, good at games though not very studious; but always good-natured, always smiling.

  Bran was a dark, good-looking boy from the South; he was just a little spoilt—hated being given out in a cricket match and would refuse to leave the crease!—but he was affectionate and a loyal friend. I was the ‘scribe’—good at inventing stories in order to get out of scrapes—but hopeless at sums, my highest marks being twenty-two out of one hundred.

  On Sunday afternoons, when there were no classes or organized games, we were allowed to roam about on the hillside below the school. The Four Feathers would laze about on the short summer grass, sharing the occasional food parcel from home, reading comics (sometimes a book), and making plans for the long winter holidays. My father, who collected everything from stamps to seashells to butterflies, had given me a butterfly net and urged me to try and catch a rare species which, he said, was found only near Chotta Shimla. He described it as a large purple butterfly with yellow and black borders on its wings. A Purple Emperor, I think it was called. As I wasn’t very good at identifying butterflies, I would chase anything that happened to flit across the school grounds, usually ending up with Common Red Admirals, Clouded Yellows, or Cabbage Whites. But that Purple Emperor—that rare specimen being sought by collectors the world over—proved elusive. I would have to seek my fortune in some other line of endeavour.

  One day, scrambling about among the rocks, and thorny bushes below the school, I almost fell over a small bundle lying in the shade of a young spruce tree. On taking a closer look, I discovered that the bundle was really a baby, wrapped up in a tattered old blanket.

  ‘Feathers, feathers!’ I called, ‘come here and look. A baby’s been left here!’

  The feathers joined me and we all stared down at the infant, who was fast asleep.

  ‘Who would leave a baby on the hillside?’ asked Bimal of no one in particular.

  ‘Someone who doesn’t want it,’ said Bran.

  ‘And hoped some good people would come along and keep it,’ said Riaz.’

  ‘A panther might have come along instead,’ I said. ‘Can’t leave it here.’

  ‘Well, we’ll just have to adopt it,’ said Bimal.

  ‘We can’t adopt a baby,’ said Bran.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘We have to be married.’

  ‘We don’t.’

  ‘Not us, you dope. The grown-ups who adopt babies.’

  Well, we can’t just leave it here for grows-ups to come along,’ I said.

  ‘We don’t even know if it’s a boy or a girl,’ said Riaz.

  ‘Makes no difference. A baby’s a baby. Let’s take it back to school.’

  ‘And keep it in the dormitory?�
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  ‘Of course not. Who’s going to feed it? Babies need milk. We’ll hand it over to Mrs Fisher. She doesn’t have a baby.’

  ‘Maybe she doesn’t want one. Look, it’s beginning to cry. Let’s hurry!’

  Riaz picked up the wide-awake and crying baby and gave it to Bimal who gave it to Bran who gave it to me. The Four Feathers marched up the hill to school with a very noisy baby.

  ‘Now it’s done potty in the blanket,’ I complained. ‘And some, of it’s on my shirt.’

  ‘Never mind,’ said Bimal. ‘It’s in a good cause. You’re a Boy Scout, remember? You’re supposed to help people in distress.’

  The headmaster and his wife were in their drawing room, enjoying their afternoon tea and cakes. We trudged in, and Bimal announced, ‘We’ve got something for Mrs Fisher.’

  Mrs Fisher took one look at the bundle in my arms and let out a shriek. ‘What have you brought here, Bond?’

  ‘A baby, ma’am. I think it’s a girl. Do you want to adopt it?’

  Mrs Fisher threw up her arms in consternation, and turned to her husband. ‘What are we to do, Frank? These boys are impossible. They’ve picked up someone’s child!’

  ‘We’ll have to inform the police,’ said Mr Fisher, reaching for the telephone. ‘We can’t have lost babies in the school.’

  Just then there was a commotion outside, and a wild-eyed woman, her clothes dishevelled, entered at the front door accompanied by several menfolk from one of the villages. She ran towards us, crying out, ‘My baby, my baby! Mera bachcha! You’ve stolen my baby!’

  ‘We found it on the hillside,’ I stammered. ‘That’s right,’ said Bran. ‘Finder’s keepers!’

  ‘Quiet, Adams,’ said Mr Fisher, holding up his hand for order and addressing the villagers in a friendly manner. ‘These boys found the baby alone on the hillside and brought it here before…before…’

  ‘Before the hyenas got it,’ I put in.

  ‘Quite right, Bond. And why did you leave your child alone?’ he asked the woman.