Children's Omnibus Read online

  "I have a cough that won't go away. Perhaps they can do something for it at the hospital in Mussoorie. Doctors don't like coming to villages, you know — there's no money to be made in villages. So we must go to the doctors in the towns. I had a brother who could not be cured in Mussoorie. They told him to go to Delhi. He sold his buffaloes and went to Delhi, but there they told him it was too late to do anything. He died on the way back. I won't go to Delhi. I don't wish to die amongst strangers."

  'You'll get well, uncle," said Bisnu.

  "Bless you for saying so. And you — what takes you to the big town?"

  "Looking for work — we need money at home."

  "It is always the same. There are many like you who must go out in search of work. But don't be led astray. Don't let your friends persuade you to go to Bombay to become a film star! It is better to be hungry in your village than to be hungry on the streets of Bombay. I had a nephew who went to Bombay. The smugglers put him to work selling afeem — opium — and now he is in jail. Keep away from the big cities, boy. Earn your money and go home."

  "I'll do that, uncle. My mother and sister will expect me to return before the summer season is over."

  The old man nodded vigorously and began coughing again. Presently he dozed off. The interior of the bus smelt of tobacco smoke and petrol fumes and as a result Bisnu had a headache. He kept his face near the open window to get as much fresh air as possible, but the dust kept getting into his mouth and eyes.

  Several dusty hours later the bus got into Mussoorie, honking its horn furiously at everything in sight. The passengers, looking dazed, got down and went their different ways. The old man trudged off to the hospital.

  Bisnu had to start looking for a job straightaway. He needed a lodging for the night and he could not afford the cheapest of the hotels. So he went from one shop to another, and to all the little restaurants and eating-places, asking for work — anything in exchange for a bed, a meal, and a minimum wage. A boy at one of the sweet shops told him there was a job at the Picture Palace, one of the town's three cinemas. The hill station's main road was crowded with people, for the season was just starting. Most of them were tourists who had come up from Delhi and other large towns.

  The street lights had come on, and the shops were lighting up, when Bisnu presented himself at the Picture Palace.

  The man who ran the cinema's tea-stall had just sacked the previous helper for his general clumsiness. Whenever he engaged a new boy (which was fairly often) he started him off with the warning:

  "I will be keeping a record of all the cups and plates you break, and their cost will be deducted from your salary at the end of the month."

  As Bisnu's salary had been fixed at fifty rupees a month, he would have to be very careful if he was going to receive any of it.

  "In my first month," said Chittru, one of the three tea-stall boys, "I broke six cups and five saucers, and my pay came to three rupees! Better be careful!"

  Bisnu's job was to help prepare the tea and samosas, serve these refreshments to the public during intervals in the film, and later wash up the dishes. In addition to his salary, he was allowed to drink as much tea as he wanted or could hold in his stomach.

  Bisnu went to work immediately and it was not long before he was as well-versed in his duties as the other two tea-boys, Chittru and Bali. Chittru was an easy-going, lazy boy who always tried to place the brunt of his work on someone else's shoulders. But he was generous and lent Bisnu five rupees during the first week. Bali, besides being a tea-boy, had the enviable job of being the poster-boy. As the cinema was closed during the mornings, Bali would be busy either in pushing the big poster-board around Mussoorie, or sticking posters on convenient walls.

  "Posters are very useful," he claimed. "They prevent old walls from falling down."

  Chittru had relatives in Mussoorie and slept at their house. But both Bisnu and Bali were on their own and had to sleep at the cinema. After the last show the hall was locked up, so they could not settle down in the expensive seats as they would have liked! They had to sleep in the foyer, near the ticket-office, where they were often at the mercy of icy Himalayan winds.

  Bali made things more comfortable by setting his poster-board at an angle to the wall, which gave them a little alcove where they could sleep protected from the wind. As they had only one blanket each, they placed their blankets together and rolled themselves into a tight warm ball.

  During shows, when Bisnu took the tea around, there was nearly always someone who would be rude and offensive. Once when he spilt some tea on a college student's shoes, he received a hard kick on the shin. He complained to the tea-stall owner, but his employer said, "The customer is always right. You should have got out of the way in time!"

  As he began to get used to this life, Bisnu found himself taking an interest in some of the regular customers.

  There was, for instance, the large gentleman with the soup-strainer moustache, who drank his tea from the saucer. As he drank, his lips worked like a suction pump, and the tea, after a brief agitation in the saucer, would disappear in a matter of seconds. Bisnu often wondered if there was something lurking in the forests of that gentleman's upper lip, something that would suddenly spring out and fall upon him! The boys took great pleasure in exchanging anecdotes about the peculiarities of some of the customers.

  Bisnu had never seen such bright, painted women before. The girls in his village, including his sister Puja, were good-looking and often sturdy; but they did not use perfumes or make-up like these more prosperous women from the towns of the plains. Wearing expensive clothes and jewellery, they never gave Bisnu more than a brief, bored glance. Other women were more inclined to notice him, favouring him with kind words and a small tip when he took away the cups and plates. He found he could make a few rupees a month in tips; and when he received his first month's pay, he was able to send most of it home.

  Chittru accompanied him to the post office and helped him to fill in the money-order form. Bisnu had been to the village school, but he wasn't used to forms and official paper-work. Chittru, a town boy, knew all about them, even though he could just read and write.

  Walking back to the cinema, Chittru said, "'We can make more money at the limestone quarries."

  "All right, let's try it," said Bisnu.

  "Not now," said Chittru, who enjoyed the busy season in the hill station. "After the season — after the monsoon."

  But there was still no monsoon to speak of, just an occasional drizzle which did little to clear the air of the dust that blew up from the plains. Bisnu wondered how his mother and sister were faring at home. A wave of homesickness swept over him. The hill station, with all its glitter, was just a pretty gift box with nothing inside.

  One day in the cinema Bisnu saw the old man who had been with him on the bus. He greeted him like a long lost friend. At first the old man did not recognise the boy, but when Bisnu asked him if he had recovered from his illness, the old man remembered and said, "So you are still in Mussoorie, boy. That is good. I thought you might have gone down to Delhi to make more money." He added that he was a little better and that he was undergoing a course of treatment at the hospital. Bisnu brought him a cup of tea and refused to take any money for it; it could be included in his own quota of free tea. When the show was over, the old man went his way and Bisnu did not see him again.

  In September the town began to empty. The taps were running dry or giving out just a trickle of muddy water. A thick mist lay over the mountain for days on end, but there was no rain. When the mists cleared, an autumn wind came whispering through the deodars.

  At the end of the month the manager of the Picture Palace gave everyone a week's notice, a week's pay, and announced that the cinema would be closing for the winter.

  Bali said, "I'm going to Delhi to find work. I'll come back next summer. What about you, Bisnu, why don't you come with me? It's easier to find work in Delhi."

  "I'm staying with Chittru," said Bisnu. "We may
work at the quarries."

  "I like the big towns," said Bali. "I like shops and people and lots of noise. I will never go back to my village. There is no money there, no fun."

  Bali made a bundle of his things and set out for the bus stand. Chittru bought himself a pair of cheap shoes, for the old ones had fallen to pieces. With what was left of his money, he sent another money-order home. Then he and Chittru set out for the limestone quarries, an eight-mile walk from Mussoorie.

  They knew they were nearing the quarries when they saw clouds of limestone dust hanging in the air. The dust hid the next mountain from view. When they did see the mountain, they found that the top of it was missing — blasted away by dynamite to enable the quarriers to get at the rich strata of limestone rock below the surface.

  The skeletons of a few trees remained on the lower slopes. Almost everything else had gone — grass, flowers, shrubs, birds, butterflies, grasshoppers, ladybirds.... A rock lizard popped its head out of a crevice to look at the intruders. Then, like some prehistoric survivor, it scuttled back into its underground shelter.

  "I used to come here when I was small," announced Chittru cheerfully.

  "Were the quarries here then?"

  "Oh, no. My friends and I — we used to come for the strawberries. They grew all over this mountain. Wild strawberries, but very tasty."

  "Where are they now?" asked Bisnu, looking around at the devastated hillside.

  "All gone," said Chittru. "Maybe there are some on the next mountain."

  Even as they approached the quarries, a blast shook the hillside. Chittru pulled Bisnu under an overhanging rock to avoid the shower of stones that pelted down on the road. As the dust enveloped them, Bisnu had a fit of coughing. When the air cleared a little, they saw the limestone dump ahead of them.

  Chittru, who was older and bigger than Bisnu, was immediately taken on as a labourer; but the quarry foreman took one look at Bisnu and said. 'You're too small. You won't be able to break stones or lift those heavy rocks and load them into the trucks. Be off, boy. Find something else to do."

  He was offered a job in the labourers' canteen, but he'd had enough of making tea and washing dishes. He was about to turn round and walk back to Mussoorie when he felt a heavy hand descend on his shoulder. He looked up to find a grey-bearded turbaned Sikh looking down at him in some amusement.

  "I need a cleaner for my truck," he said. "The work is easy, but the hours are long!"

  Bisnu responded immediately to the man's gruff but jovial manner.

  "What will you pay?" he asked.

  "Fifteen rupees a day, and you'll get food and a bed at the depot."

  "As long as I don't have to cook the food," said Bisnu.

  The truck driver laughed. 'You might prefer to do so, once you've tasted the depot food. Are you coming on my truck? Make up your mind."

  "I'm your man," said Bisnu; and waving goodbye to Chittru, he followed the Sikh to his truck.

  A horn blared, shattering the silence of the mountains, and the truck came round the bend in the road. A herd of goats scattered to left and right.

  The goatherds cursed as a cloud of dust enveloped them, and then the truck had left them behind and was rattling along the bumpy, unmetalled road to the quarries.

  At the wheel of the truck, stroking his grey moustache with one hand, sat Pritam Singh. It was his own truck. He had never allowed anyone else to drive it. Every day he made two trips to the quarries, carrying truckloads of limestone back to the depot at the bottom of the hill. He was paid by the trip and he was always anxious to get in two trips every day.

  Sitting beside him was Bisnu, his new cleaner. In less than a month Bisnu had become an experienced hand at looking after trucks, riding in them, and even sleeping in them. He got on well with Pritam, the grizzled, fifty-year-old Sikh, who boasted of his two well-off sons — one a farmer in the Punjab, the other a wine merchant in far-off London. He could have gone to live with either of them, but his sturdy independence kept him on the road in his battered old truck.

  Pritam pressed hard on his horn. Now there was no one on the road — neither beast nor man — but Pritam was fond of the sound of his horn and liked blowing it. He boasted that it was the loudest horn in northern India. Although it struck terror into the hearts of all who heard it — for it was louder than the trumpeting of an elephant — it was music to Pritam's ears.

  Pritam treated Bisnu as an equal and a friendly banter had grown between them during their many trips together.

  "One more year on this bone-breaking road," said Pritam, "and then I'll sell my truck and retire."

  "But who will buy such a shaky old truck," said Bisnu. "It will retire before you do!"

  "Now don't be insulting, boy. She's only twenty years old-there are still a few years left in her!" And as though to prove it, he blew the horn again. Its strident sound echoed and re-echoed down the mountain gorge. A pair of wildfowl burst from the bushes and fled to more silent regions.

  Pritam's thoughts went to his dinner.

  "Haven't had a good meal for days."

  "Haven't had a good meal for weeks" said Bisnu, although in fact he looked much healthier than when he had worked at the cinema's tea-stall.

  "Tonight I'll give you a dinner in a good hotel. Tandoori chicken and rice pullao," Pritam said. He sounded his horn again as though to put a seal on his promise. Then he slowed down, because the road had become narrow and precipitous, and trotting ahead of them was a train of mules.

  As the horn blared, one mule ran forward, another ran backward. One went uphill, another went downhill. Soon there were mules all over the place. Pritam cursed the mules and the mule-drivers cursed Pritam; but he had soon left them far behind.

  Along this range, all the hills were bare and dry. Most of the forest had long since disappeared.

  "Are your hills as bare as these?" asked Pritam.

  "No, we still have some trees," said Bisnu, "Nobody has started blasting the hills as yet. In front of our house there is a walnut tree which gives us two baskets of walnuts every year. And there is an apricot tree. But it was a bad year for fruit. There was no rain. And the stream is too far away."

  "It will rain soon," said Pritam. "I can smell rain. It is coming from the north. The winter will be early."

  "It will settle the dust."

  Dust was everywhere. The truck was full of it. The leaves of the shrubs and the few trees were thick with it. Bisnu could feel the dust under his eyelids and in his mouth. And as they approached the quarries, the dust increased. But it was a different kind of dust now — whiter, stinging the eyes, irritating the nostrils.

  They had been blasting all morning.

  "Let's wait here," said Pritam, bringing the truck to a halt.

  They sat in silence, staring through the windscreen at the scarred cliffs a little distance down the road. There was a sharp crack of explosives and the hillside blossomed outwards. Earth and rocks hurtled down the mountain.

  Bisnu watched in awe as shrubs and small trees were flung into the air. It always frightened him — not so much the sight of the rocks bursting asunder, as the trees being flung aside and destroyed. He thought of the trees at home — the walnut, the chestnuts, the pines — and wondered if one day they would suffer the same fate, and whether the mountains would all become a desert like this particular range. No trees, no grass, no water — only the choking dust of mines and quarries.

  Pritam pressed hard on his horn again, to let the people at the site know that he was approaching. He parked outside a small shed where the contractor and the foreman were sipping cups of tea. A short distance away, some labourers, Chittru among them, were hammering at chunks of rock, breaking them up into manageable pieces. A pile of stones stood ready for loading, while the rock that had just been blasted lay scattered about the hillside.

  "Come and have a cup of tea," called out the contractor.

  "I can't hang about all day," said Pritam. "There's another trip to make — and the days ar
e getting shorter. I don't want to be driving by night."

  But he sat down on a bench and ordered two cups of tea from the stall. The foreman strolled over to the group of labourers and told them to start loading. Bisnu let down the grid at the back of the truck. Then, to keep himself warm, he began helping Chittru and the men with the loading.

  "Don't expect to be paid for helping," said the contractor, for whom every rupee spent was a rupee off his profits.

  "Don't worry," said Bisnu. "I don't work for contractors, I work for friends."

  "That's right," called out Pritam. "Mind what you say to Bisnu — he's no one's servant!"

  The contractor wasn't happy until there was no space left for a single stone. Then Bisnu had his cup of tea and three of the men climbed on the pile of stones in the open truck.

  "All right, let's go!" said Pritam. "I want to finish early today— Bisnu and I are having a big dinner!"

  Bisnu jumped in beside Pritam, banging the door shut. It never closed properly unless it was slammed really hard. But it opened at a touch.

  "This truck is held together with sticking plaster," joked Pritam. He was in good spirits. He started the engine, and blew his horn just as he passed the foreman and the contractor.

  "They are deaf in one ear from the blasting," said Pritam. "I'll make them deaf in the other ear!"

  The labourers were singing as the truck swung round the sharp bends of the winding road. The door beside Bisnu rattled on its hinges. He was feeling quite dizzy.

  "Not too fast," he said.

  "Oh," said Pritam. "And since when did you become nervous about my driving?"

  "It's just today," said Bisnu uneasily. "It's a feeling, that's all."

  'You're getting old," said Pritam. "That's your trouble."

  "I suppose so," said Bisnu.

  Pritam was feeling young. He drove faster.

  As they swung round a bend, Bisnu looked out of his window. All he saw was the sky above and the valley below. They were very near the edge; but here it was usually like that on this narrow mountain road.