Tales of Fosterganj Read online

  Hassan stopped before an empty doorway. Behind it an empty courtyard. Behind it a wall with empty windows.

  ‘I lived here once,’ he said. ‘My parents, younger brother, sister, my first wife… all of us worked together, making bread and buns and pastries for the rich folk in the houses along the Dehra road. And in one night I lost everyone, everything—parents, brother, sister, wife… The fire swept through the mohalla, and those who ran out of their houses were cut down by swords and kirpans.’

  I stopped and put a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘It’s hard for me to talk about it. Later, perhaps…’ And he moved on.

  The street of lost homes gave way to a small bazaar, the only visible sign of some sort of recovery. A young man from a nearby village ran the small dhaba where we stopped for tea and pakoras. He was too young to have any memories of 1947. And in India, town and countryside often appear to have completely different histories.

  Hassan asked me to wait at the dhaba while he walked down to the local thana to enquire after Sunil.

  ‘A thana is no place for a respectable person like you,’ he said.

  ‘In Delhi, the prisons are full of respectable people,’ I said.

  ‘But not respected anymore?’

  ‘Well, some of them don’t seem to be too bothered. They get bail, come out with a swagger, and drive home in their cars.’

  ‘And what are their crimes?’

  ‘The same as Sunil’s. They pick pockets, but in a big way. You don’t see them doing it. But carry on, I’ll wait here for you.’

  The dhak, or flame of the forest, was in flower, and I sat on a bench taking in the sights and sounds of summer’s arrival in the valley. Scarlet bougainvillea cascaded over a low wall, and a flock of parrots flung themselves from one tall mango tree to another, sampling the young unripe fruit.

  ‘Will there be a good crop this year?’ I asked the young dhabawala.

  ‘Should be, if the parrots and monkeys leave any for us.’

  ‘You need a chowkidar,’ I said, and thought of recommending Sunil. But Hassan came back without him.

  ‘No magistrate in court today. We’ll try again tomorrow. In the meantime he gets board and lodging at government expense. He doesn’t have to pick any pockets.’

  ‘He will, if he gets a chance. It’s an incurable disease.’

  Eye of the Leopard

  We did not return by way of the ruined and deserted township. Hassan wished to avoid it. ‘Bad memories,’ he said.

  We cut across a couple of fields until we reached a small stream which came down the ravine below Fosterganj. Hassan knew it well. He went there to bathe from time to time. A narrow path took us upstream.

  ‘How did you escape?’ I asked, still curious about the events of 1947.

  Hassan continued to walk, looking straight ahead. He did not turn his face to me as he spoke. ‘I was late returning from Mussoorie. The houses were already ablaze. I began running towards ours, but the mob cut me off. Most of them Sikhs, wanting revenge—they had lost homes and loved ones in the Punjab—there was madness everywhere—hate and greed and madness. Gandhi couldn’t stop it. Several men caught hold of me and flung me to the ground. One stood over me with his sword raised. That’s when Bhai Saheb—Sunil’s father—appeared as if out of nowhere. “What are you doing?” he cried. “That’s my nephew. Don’t touch him, or my entire village will be up in arms against you!” The attackers left me and moved on to other targets. Of course it was all over with my people. Sunil’s father kept me in his village, not far from here, until the killing stopped. Sooner or later it had to stop. It exhausts itself. A few hours of madness and we spend years counting the cost.’

  ~

  After almost an hour of walking upstream, slipping on moss-covered boulders and struggling up the little-used pathway, we came to a pool, a catchment area where the water was still and deep.

  ‘We’ll rest here awhile,’ said Hassan. ‘Would you like to bathe?’

  It was a warm day, and down there in the ravine there was no breeze. I stripped to my underwear and slipped into the pool.

  After some time Hassan joined me. He was a well-built man. Having a half-dozen children had worn out his consumptive wife, but he was in fine shape—strong in the chest and thighs; he had the build of a wrestler.

  I was enjoying the water, swimming around, but Hassan was restless, continually looking up at the hillside and the overhanging branches of the trees that grew near the water. Presently he left the pool and began striding up a grassy knoll as though in search of something—as though he sensed the presence of danger. If you have faced danger once, you will know when it comes again.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ I called.

  ‘Nothing,’ he replied. ‘Just looking around.’ And he went further up the path.

  I swam around a little, then pulled myself up on a flat boulder, and sat there in the sun, contemplating a thicket of ferns. A long-tailed magpie squawked and flew away in a hurry. The sun was in my eyes. I turned my back to it, and looked up into the yellow eyes of a leopard crouching on the rocks above me.

  I wanted to shout, but couldn’t. And perhaps it was better that I remained silent. Was it the man-eater? There was no way of knowing, but it seemed likely.

  For what seemed an age, I looked at the leopard and the leopard stared at me. In fact, it was only a matter of seconds; but each second was an hour to me.

  The leopard came forward a little and snarled. Perhaps he was puzzled that I made no sound and did not run. But he sank down, his forepaws spreading to get a grip on the rocks. His tail began to twitch—a sure signal that he was about to spring. His lips drew back and the sun shone on his canines and the dark pink of his gums.

  Then I saw Hassan appear just behind the crouching beast. He held a large rock in his hands—it was bigger than a football. He raised his arms and brought the rock down with all his might on the leopard’s head.

  The leopard seemed to sag. Its paws scrabbled in the dust. Blood trickled from its ears. Hassan appeared again, with an even bigger rock, and he brought it down with such force that I heard the animal’s skull crack. There was a convulsive movement, and then it was still.

  ~

  We returned to Fosterganj and told everyone that the man-eater was dead. A number of people went down to the stream to fetch the carcass. But Hassan did not join them. He was behind with his work, and had to bake twenty to thirty loaves of bread for delivery the next morning. I tried to help him, but I am not much good at baking bread, and he told me to go to bed early.

  Everyone was pleased that the leopard had been killed. Everyone, that is, except Vishaal, the bank manager, who had been hoping to vanquish it himself.

  An Evening with Foster

  Keep right on to the end of the road,

  Keep right on to the end.

  If your way be long

  Let your heart be strong,

  And keep right on to the end.

  If you’re tired and weary

  Still carry on,

  Till you come to your happy abode.

  And then all you love

  And are dreaming of,

  Will be there—

  At the end of the road!

  The voice of Sir Harry Lauder, Scottish troubadour of the 1930s, singing one of his favourites, came drifting across the hillside as I took the winding path to Foster’s cottage.

  On one of my morning walks, I had helped him round up some runaway hens, and he had been suitably grateful.

  ‘Ah, it’s a fowl subject, trying to run a poultry farm,’ he quipped. ‘I’ve already lost a few to jackals and foxes. Hard to keep them in their pens. They jump over the netting and wander all over the place. But thank you for your help. It’s good to be young. Once the knees go, you’ll never be young again. Why don’t you come over in the evening and split a bottle with me? It’s a homemade brew, can’t hurt you.’

  I’d heard of Foster’s home-made brew. More than one person h
ad tumbled down the khad after partaking of the stuff. But I did not want to appear standoffish, and besides, I was curious about the man and his history. So towards sunset one summer’s evening, I took the path down to his cottage, following the strains of Harry Lauder.

  The music grew louder as I approached, and I had to knock on the door several times before it was opened by my bleary-eyed host. He had already been at the stuff he drank, and at first he failed to recognize me.

  ‘Nice old song you have there,’ I said. ‘My father used to sing it when I was a boy.’

  Recognition dawned, and he invited me in. ‘Come in, laddie, come in. I’ve been expecting you. Have a seat!’

  The seat he referred to was an old sofa and it was occupied by three cackling hens. With a magnificent sweep of the arm Foster swept them away, and they joined two other hens and a cock-bird on a book-rack at the other end of the room. I made sure there were no droppings on the sofa before subsiding into it.

  ‘Birds are finding it too hot out in the yard,’ he explained. ‘Keep wanting to come indoors.’

  The gramophone record had run its course, and Foster switched off the old record-player.

  ‘Used to have a real gramophone,’ he said, ‘but can’t get the needles any more. These electric players aren’t any good. But I still have all the old records.’ He indicated a pile of 78 rpm gramophone records, and I stretched across and sifted through some of them. Gracie Fields, George Formby, The Street Singer… music hall favourites from the 1930s and 40s. Foster hadn’t added to his collection for twenty years.

  He must have been close to eighty, almost twice my age. Like his stubble (a permanent feature), the few wisps of hair on his sunburnt head were also grey. Mud had dried on his hands. His old patched-up trousers were held up by braces. There were buttons missing from his shirt, laces missing from his shoes.

  ‘What will you have to drink, laddie? Tea, cocoa or whisky?’

  ‘Er—not cocoa. Tea, maybe—oh, anything will do.’

  ‘That’s the spirit. Go for what you like. I make my own whisky, of course. Real Scotch from the Himalaya. I get the best barley from yonder village.’ He gestured towards the next mountain, then turned to a sagging mantelpiece, fetched a bottle that contained an oily yellow liquid, and poured a generous amount into a cracked china mug. He poured a similar amount into a dirty glass tumbler, handed it to me, and said, ‘Cheers! Bottoms up!’

  ‘Bottoms up!’ I said, and took a gulp.

  It wasn’t bad. I drank some more and asked Foster how the poultry farm was doing.

  ‘Well, I had fifty birds to start with. But they keep wandering off, and the boys from the village make off with them. I’m down to forty. Sold a few eggs, though. Gave the bank manager the first lot. He seemed pleased. Would you like a few eggs? There’s a couple on that cushion, newly laid.’

  The said cushion was on a stool a few feet from me. Two large hens’ eggs were supported upon it.

  ‘Don’t sit on ’em,’ said Foster, letting out a cackle which was meant to be laughter. ‘They might hatch!’

  I took another gulp of Foster’s whisky and considered the eggs again. They looked much larger now, more like goose eggs.

  Everything was looking larger.

  I emptied the glass and stood up to leave.

  ‘Don’t go yet,’ said Foster. ‘You haven’t had a proper drink. And there’s dinner to follow. Sausages and mash! I make my own sausages, did you know? My sausages were famous all over Mussoorie. I supplied the Savoy, Hakmans, the schools.’

  ‘Why did you stop?’ I was back on the sofa, holding another glass of Himalayan Scotch.

  ‘Somebody started spreading a nasty rumour that I was using dog’s meat. Now why would I do that when pork was cheap? Of course, during the war years a lot of rubbish went into sausages—stuff you’d normally throw away. That’s why they were called “Sweet mysteries”. You remember the old song? “Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life!” Nebon Eddy and Jeanette Macdonald. Well, the troops used to sing it whenever they were given sausages for breakfast. You never knew what went into them—cats, dogs, camels, scorpions. If you survived those sausages, you survived the war!’

  ‘And your sausages, what goes into them?’

  ‘Good, healthy chicken meat. Not crow’s meat, as some jealous rivals tried to make out.’

  He frowned into his china mug. It was suddenly quieter inside. The hens had joined their sisters in the back yard; they were settling down for the night, sheltering in cardboard cartons and old mango-wood boxes. Quck-quck-quck. Another day nearer to having their sad necks wrung.

  I looked around the room. A threadbare carpet. Walls that hadn’t received a coat of paint for many years. A couple of loose rafters letting in a blast of cold air. Some pictures here and there—mostly racing scenes. Foster must have been a betting man. Perhaps that was how he ran out of money.

  He noticed my interest in the pictures and said, ‘Owned a racehorse once. A beauty, she was. That was in Meerut, just before the war. Meerut had a great racecourse. Races every Saturday. Punters came from Delhi. There was money to be made!’

  ‘Did you win any?’ I asked.

  ‘Won a couple of races hands down. Then unexpectedly she came in last, and folks lost a lot of money. I had to leave town in a hurry. All my jockey’s fault—he was hand in glove with the bookies. They made a killing, of course! Anyway, I sold the horse to a sporting Parsi gentleman and went into the canteen business with my Uncle Fred in Roorkee. That’s Uncle Fred, up there.’

  Foster gestured towards the mantelpiece. I expected to see a photograph of his Uncle Fred but instead of a photo I found myself staring at a naked skull. It was a well-polished skull and it glistened in the candlelight.

  ‘That’s Uncle Fred,’ said Foster proudly.

  ‘That skull? Where’s the rest of him?’

  ‘In his grave, back in Roorkee.’

  ‘You mean you kept the skull but not the skeleton?’

  ‘Well, it’s a long story,’ said Foster, ‘but to keep it short, Uncle Fred died suddenly of a mysterious malady—a combination of brain fever, blood-pressure and Housemaid’s Knee.’

  ‘Housemaid’s Knee!’

  ‘Yes, swollen kneecaps, brought about by being beaten too frequently with police lathis. He wasn’t really a criminal, but he’d get into trouble from time to time, harmless little swindles such as printing his own lottery tickets or passing forged banknotes. Spent some time in various district jails until his health broke down. Got a pauper’s funeral—but his cadaver was in demand. The students from the local medical college got into the cemetery one night and made off with his cranium! Not that he had much by way of a brain, but he had a handsome, well-formed skull, as you can see.’

  I did see. And the skull appeared to be listening to the yarn, because its toothless jaws were extended in a grin; or so I fancied.

  ‘And how did you get it back?’ I asked.

  ‘Broke into their demonstration room, naturally. I was younger then, and pretty agile. There it was on a shelf, among a lot of glass containers of alcohol, preserving everything from giant tapeworms to Ghulam Kadir’s penis and testicles.’

  ‘Ghulam Kadir?’

  ‘Don’t you know your history? He was the fellow who blinded the Emperor Shah Alam. They caught up with him near Saharanpur and cut his balls off. Preserved them for posterity. Waste of alcohol, though. Have another drink, laddie. And then for a sausage. Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life!’

  After another drink and several ‘mystery’ sausages, I made my getaway and stumbled homewards up a narrow path along an open ridge. A jackal slunk ahead of me, and a screech-owl screeched, but I got home safely, none the worse for an evening with the descendant of Bonnie Prince Charlie.

  Who’s Been Sleeping in My Bed?

  There was a break in the rains, the clouds parted, and the moon appeared—a full moon, bathing the mountains in a pollen-yellow light. Little Fosterganj, straddling the slopes of the Ganga-Yamuna watershed, b
asked in the moonlight, each lighted dwelling a firefly in the night.

  Only the Fairy Glen palace was unlit, brooding in the darkness. I was returning from an evening show at the Realto in Mussoorie. It had been a long walk, but a lovely one. I stopped outside the palace gate, wondering about its lonely inhabitants and all that might have happened within its walls. I wanted to see them again, but not at night—not with strange birds flapping around and skeletons hidden in the box-beds. Old skeletons, maybe; but what were they doing there?

  I reached Hassan’s bakery around midnight, and mounted the steps to my room. My door was open. It was never locked, as I had absolutely nothing that anyone would want to take away. The typewriter, which I had hired from a shop in Dehradun, was a heavy machine, designed for office use; no one was going to carry it off.

  But someone was in my bed.

  Fast asleep. Snoring peacefully. Not Goldilocks. Nor a bear.

  I switched on the light, shook the recumbent figure. He started up. It was Sunil. After giving him a beating, the police had let him go.

  ‘Uncle, you frightened me!’ he exclaimed.

  He called me ‘Uncle’, although I was only some fifteen or sixteen years older than him. Call a tiger ‘Uncle’, and he won’t harm you; or so the forest-dwellers say. Not quite how it works out with people approaching middle age. Being addressed as ‘Uncle’ didn’t make me very fond of Sunil.

  ‘I’m the one who should be frightened,’ I said. ‘A pickpocket in my bed!’

  ‘I don’t pick pockets any more, Uncle. I’ve turned a new leaf. Don’t you know that expression?’ Sunil had studied up to Class 8 in a ‘convent school’.

  ‘Well, you can turn out of my bed,’ I said. ‘And return that watch you took off me before you got into trouble.’