Voting at Fosterganj Read online

  A quiet corner, where I could live like a recluse and write my stories—that was what I was looking for. And in Fosterganj I thought I’d found my retreat: a cluster of modest cottages, a straggling little bazaar, a post office, a crumbling castle (supposedly haunted), a mountain stream at the bottom of the hill, a winding footpath that took you either uphill or down. What more could one ask for? It reminded me a little of an English village, and indeed that was what it had once been; a tiny settlement on the outskirts of the larger hill station. But the British had long since gone, and the residents were now a fairly mixed lot, as we shall see.

  I forget what took me to Fosterganj in the first place. Destiny, perhaps; although I’m not sure why destiny would have bothered to guide an itinerant writer to an obscure hamlet in the hills. Chance would be a better word. For chance plays a great part in all our lives. And it was just by chance that I found myself in the Fosterganj bazaar one fine morning early in May. The oaks and maples were in new leaf; geraniums flourished on sunny balconies; a boy delivering milk whistled a catchy Dev Anand song; a mule train clattered down the street. The chill of winter had gone and there was warmth in the sunshine that played upon old walls.

  I sat in a tea shop, tested my teeth on an old bun, and washed it down with milky tea. The bun had been around for some time, but so had I, so we were quits. At the age of forty I could digest almost anything.

  The tea shop owner, Melaram, was a friendly sort, as are most tea shop owners. He told me that not many tourists made their way down to Fosterganj. The only attraction was the waterfall, and you had to be fairly fit in order to scramble down the steep and narrow path that led to the ravine where a little stream came tumbling over the rocks. I would visit it one day, I told him.

  ‘Then you should stay here a day or two,’ said Melaram. ‘Explore the stream. Walk down to Rajpur. You’ll need a good walking stick. Look, I have several in my shop. Cherry wood, walnut wood, oak.’ He saw me wavering. ‘You’ll also need one to climb the next hill—it’s called Pari Tibba.’ I was charmed by the name—Fairy Hill.

  I hadn’t planned on doing much walking that day—the walk down to Fosterganj from Mussoorie had already taken almost an hour—but I liked the look of a sturdy cherry-wood walking stick, and I bought one for two rupees. Those were the days of simple living. You don’t see two-rupee notes any more. You don’t see walking sticks either. Hardly anyone walks.

  I strolled down the small bazaar, without having to worry about passing cars and lorries or a crush of people. Two or three schoolchildren were sauntering home, burdened by their school bags bursting with homework. A cow and a couple of stray dogs examined the contents of an overflowing dustbin. A policeman sitting on a stool outside a tiny police outpost yawned, stretched, stood up, looked up and down the street in anticipation of crimes to come, scratched himself in the anal region and sank back upon his stool.

  A man in a crumpled shirt and threadbare trousers came up to me, looked me over with his watery grey eyes, and said, ‘Sir, would you like to buy some gladioli bulbs?’ He held up a basket full of bulbs which might have been onions. His chin was covered with a grey stubble, some of his teeth were missing, the remaining ones yellow with neglect.

  ‘No, thanks,’ I said. ‘I live in a tiny flat in Delhi. No room for flowers.’

  ‘A world without flowers,’ he shook his head. ‘That’s what it’s coming to.’

  ‘And where do you plant your bulbs?’

  ‘I grow gladioli, sir, and sell the bulbs to good people like you. My name’s Foster. I own the land all the way down to the waterfall.’

  For a landowner he did not look very prosperous. But his Foster of Fosterganj name intrigued me. ‘Isn’t this area called Fosterganj?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s right. My grandfather was the first to settle here. He was a grandson of Bonnie Prince Charlie who fought the British at Bannockburn. I’m the last Foster of Fosterganj. Are you sure you won’t buy my daffodil bulbs?’

  ‘I thought you said they were gladioli.’

  ‘Some gladioli, some daffodils.’

  They looked like onions to me, but to make him happy I parted with two rupees (which seemed the going rate in Fosterganj) and relieved him of his basket of bulbs. Foster shuffled off, looking a bit like Chaplin’s tramp but not half as dapper. He clearly needed the two rupees. Which made me feel less foolish about spending money that I should have held on to. Writers were poor in those days. Though I didn’t feel poor.

  Back at the tea shop I asked Melaram if Foster really owned a lot of land.

  ‘He has a broken-down cottage and the right-of-way. He charges people who pass through his property. Spends all the money on booze. No one owns the hillside, it’s government land. Reserved forest. But everyone builds on it.’

  Just as well, I thought, as I returned to town with my basket of onions. Who wanted another noisy hill station? One Mall Road was more than enough. Back in my hotel room, I was about to throw the bulbs away, but on second thoughts decided to keep them. After all, even an onion makes a handsome plant.

  A Magic Oil

  A day or two later I was in the bank, run by Vishaal (manager), Negi (cashier), and Suresh (peon). I was sitting opposite Vishaal, who was at his desk, taken up by two handsome paperweights but no papers. Suresh had brought me a cup of tea from the tea shop across the road. There was just one customer in the bank, Hassan, who was making a deposit. A cosy summer morning in Fosterganj: not much happening, but life going on just the same.

  In walked Foster. He’d made an attempt at shaving, but appeared to have given up at a crucial stage, because now he looked like a wasted cricketer finally on his way out. The effect was enhanced by the fact that he was wearing flannel trousers that had once been white but were now greenish yellow; the previous monsoon was to blame. He had found an old tie, and this was strung round his neck, or rather his unbuttoned shirt collar. The said shirt had seen many summers and winters in Fosterganj, and was frayed at the cuffs. Even so, Foster looked quite spry, as compared to when I had last seen him.

  ‘Come in, come in!’ said Vishaal, always polite to his customers, even those who had no savings. ‘How is your gladioli farm?’

  ‘Coming up nicely,’ said Foster. ‘I’m growing potatoes too.’

  ‘Very nice. But watch out for the porcupines, they love potatoes.’

  ‘Shot one last night. Cut my hands getting the quills out. But porcupine meat is great. I’ll send you some the next time I shoot one.’

  ‘Well, keep some ammunition for the leopard. We’ve got to get it before it kills someone else.’

  ‘It won’t be around for two or three weeks. They keep moving, those leopards. He’ll circle the mountain, then be back in these parts. But that’s not what I came to see you about, Mr Vishaal. I was hoping for a small loan.’

  ‘Small loan, big loan, that’s what we are here for. In what way can we help you, sir?’

  ‘I want to start a chicken farm.’

  ‘Most original.’

  ‘There’s a great shortage of eggs in Mussoorie. The hotels want eggs, the schools want eggs, the restaurants want eggs. And they have to get them from Rajpur or Dehradun.’

  ‘Hassan has a few hens,’ I put in.

  ‘Only enough for home consumption. I’m thinking in terms of hundreds of eggs—and broiler chickens for the table. I want to make Fosterganj the chicken capital of India. It will be like old times, when my ancestor planted the first potatoes here, brought all the way from Scotland!’

  ‘I thought they came from Ireland,’ I said. ‘Captain Young, up at Landour.’

  ‘Oh well, we brought other things. Like Scotch whisky.’

  ‘Actually, Irish whisky got here first. Captain Kennedy, up in Simla.’ I wasn’t Irish, but I was in a combative frame of mind, which is the same as being Irish.

  To mollify Foster, I said, ‘You did bring the bagpipe.’ And when he perked up, I added: ‘But the Gurkha is better at playing it.’

 
This contretemps over, Vishaal got Foster to sign a couple of forms and told him that the loan would be processed in due course and that we’d all celebrate over a bottle of Scotch whisky. Foster left the room with something of a swagger. The prospect of some money coming in—even if it is someone else’s—will put any man in an optimistic frame of mind. And for Foster the prospect of losing it was as yet far distant.

  I wanted to make a phone call to my bank in Delhi, so that I could have some of my savings sent to me, and Vishaal kindly allowed me to use his phone.

  There were only four phones in all of Fosterganj, and there didn’t seem to be any necessity for more. The bank had one. So did Dr Bisht. So did Brigadier Bakshi, retired. And there was one in the police station, but it was usually out of order.

  The police station, a one-room affair, was manned by a Daroga and a constable. If the Daroga felt like a nap, the constable took charge. And if the constable took the afternoon off, the Daroga would run the place. This worked quite well, as there wasn’t much crime in Fosterganj—if you didn’t count Foster’s illicit still at the bottom of the hill (Scottish hooch, he called the stuff he distilled); or a charming young delinquent called Sunil, who picked pockets for a living (though not in Fosterganj); or the barber who supplemented his income by supplying charas to his agents at some of the boarding schools; or the man who sold the secretions of certain lizards, said to increase sexual potency—except that it was only linseed oil, used for oiling cricket bats.

  I found the last mentioned, a man called Rattan Lal, sitting on a stool outside my door when I returned from the bank.

  ‘Saande-ka-tel,’ he declared abruptly, holding up a small bottle containing a vitreous yellow fluid. ‘Just one application, Sahib, and the size and strength of your valuable member will increase dramatically. It will break down doors, should doors be shut against you. No chains will hold it down. You will be like a stallion, rampant in a field full of fillies. Sahib, you will rule the roost! MemSahibs and beautiful women will fall at your feet.’

  ‘It will get me into trouble, for certain,’ I demurred. ‘It’s great stuff, I’m sure. But wasted here in Fosterganj.’

  Rattan Lal would not be deterred. ‘Sahib, every time you try it, you will notice an increase in dimensions, guaranteed!’

  ‘Like Pinocchio’s nose,’ I said in English. He looked puzzled. He understood the word ‘nose’, but had no idea what I meant.

  ‘Naak?’ he said. ‘No, Sahib, you don’t rub it on your nose. Here, down between the legs,’ and he made as if to give a demonstration. I held a hand up to restrain him.

  ‘There was a boy named Pinocchio in a far-off country,’ I explained, switching back to Hindi. ‘His nose grew longer every time he told a lie.’

  ‘I tell no lies, Sahib. Look, my nose is normal. Rest is very big. You want to see?’

  ‘Another day,’ I said.

  ‘Only ten rupees.’

  ‘The bottle or the rest of you?’

  ‘You joke, Sahib,’ and he thrust a bottle into my unwilling hands and removed a ten rupee note from my shirt pocket; all done very simply.

  ‘I will come after a month and check up,’ he said. ‘Next time I will bring the saanda itself ! You are in the prime of your life, it will make you a bull among men.’ And away he went.

  ♦

  The little bottle of oil stood unopened on the bathroom shelf for weeks. I was too scared to use it. It was like the bottle in Alice in Wonderland with the label DRINK ME. Alice drank it, and shot up to the ceiling. I wasn’t sure I wanted to grow that high.

  I did wonder what would happen if I applied some of it to my scalp. Would it stimulate hair growth? Would it stimulate my thought processes? Put an end to writer’s block?

  Well, I never did find out. One afternoon I heard a clatter in the bathroom and looked in to see a large and sheepish looking monkey jump out of the window with the bottle.

  But to return to Rattan Lal—some hours after I had been sold the aphrodisiac, I was walking up to town to get a newspaper when I met him on his way down.

  ‘Any luck with the magic oil?’ I asked.

  ‘All sold out!’ he said, beaming with pleasure. ‘Ten bottles sold at the Savoy, and six at Hakman’s. What a night it’s going to be for them.’ And he rubbed his hands at the prospect.

  ‘A very busy night,’ I said. ‘Either that, or they’ll be looking for you to get their money back.’

  ‘I will come next month. If you are still here, I’ll keep another bottle for you. Look there!’ He took me by the arm and pointed at a large rock lizard that was sunning itself on the parapet. ‘You catch me some of those, and I’ll pay you for them. Be my partner. Bring me lizards—not small ones, only big fellows—and I will buy!’

  ‘How do you extract the tel?’ I asked.

  ‘Ah, that’s a trade secret. But I will show you when you bring me some saandas. Now I must go. My good wife waits for me with impatience.’

  And off he went, down the bridle path to Rajpur.

  The rock lizard was still on the wall, enjoying its afternoon siesta.

  It did occur to me that I might make a living from breeding rock lizards. Perhaps Vishaal would give me a loan. I wasn’t making much as a writer.

  The Garlands on His Brow

  Fame has but a fleeting hold

  On the reins in our fast-paced society;

  So many of yesterday’s heroes crumble.

  Shortly after my return from England, I was walking down the main road of my old hometown of Dehra, gazing at the shops and passers-by to see what changes, if any, had taken place during my absence. I had been away three years. Still a boy when I went abroad, I was twenty-one when I returned with some mediocre qualifications to flaunt in the faces of my envious friends. (I did not tell them of the loneliness of those years in exile; it would not have impressed them.) I was nearing the clock tower when I met a beggar coming from the opposite direction. In one respect, Dehra had not changed. The beggars were as numerous as ever, though I must admit they looked healthier.

  This beggar had a straggling beard, a hunch, a cavernous chest and unsteady legs on which a number of purple sores were festering. His shoulders looked as though they had once been powerful, and his hands thrusting a begging bowl at me, were still strong.

  He did not seem sufficiently decrepit to deserve my charity, and I was turning away when I thought I discerned a gleam of recognition in his eyes. There was something slightly familiar about the man; perhaps he was a beggar who remembered me from earlier years. He was even attempting a smile; showing me a few broken yellow fangs; and to get away from him, I produced a coin, dropped it in his bowl and hurried away.

  I had gone about a hundred yards when, with a rush of memory, I knew the identity of the beggar. He was the hero of my childhood, Hassan, the most magnificent wrestler in the entire district.

  I turned and retraced my steps, half hoping I wouldn’t be able to catch up with the man and he had indeed got lost in the bazaar crowd. Well, I would doubtless be confronted by him again in a day or two Leaving the road, I went into the municipal gardens and stretching myself out on the fresh green February grass, allowed my memory to journey back to the days when I was a boy of ten, full of health and optimism, when my wonder at the great game of living had yet to give way to disillusionment at its shabbiness.

  On those precious days when I played truant from school—and I would have learnt more had I played truant more often—I would sometimes make my way to the akhara at the corner of the gardens to watch the wrestling pit. My chin cupped in my hands, I would lean against a railing and gaze in awe at the rippling muscles, applauding with the other watchers whenever one of the wrestlers made a particularly clever move or pinned an opponent down on his back.

  Amongst these wrestlers the most impressive and engaging young man was Hassan, the son of a kitemaker. He had a magnificent build, with great wide shoulders and powerful legs, and what he lacked in skill he made up for in sheer animal strength
and vigour. The idol of all small boys, he was followed about by large numbers of us, and I was a particular favourite of his. He would offer to lift me on to his shoulders and carry me across the akhara to introduce me to his friends and fellow wrestlers.

  From being Dehra’s champion, Hassan soon became the outstanding representative of his art in the entire district. His technique improved, he began using his brain in addition to his brawn, and it was said by everyone that he had the makings of a national champion.

  It was during a large fair towards the end of the rains that destiny took a hand in the shaping of his life. The Rani of—was visiting the fair, and she stopped to watch the wrestling bouts. When she saw Hassan stripped and in the ring, she began to take more than a casual interest in him. It has been said that she was a woman of a passionate and amoral nature, who could not be satisfied by her weak and ailing husband. She was struck by Hassan’s perfect manhood, and through an official offered him the post of her personal bodyguard.

  The Rani was rich and, in spite of having passed her fortieth summer, was a warm and attractive woman. Hassan did not find it difficult to make love according to the bidding, and on the whole he was happy in her service. True, he did not wrestle as often as in the past; but when he did enter a competition, his reputation and his physique combined to overawe his opponents, and they did not put up much resistance. One or two well-known wrestlers were invited to the district. The Rani paid them liberally, and they permitted Hassan to throw them out of the ring. Life in the Rani’s house was comfortable and easy, and Hassan, a simple man, felt himself secure. And it is to the credit of the Rani (and also of Hassan) that she did not tire of him as quickly as she had of others.

  But ranis, like washerwomen, are mortal; and when a longstanding and neglected disease at last took its toll, robbing her at once of all her beauty, she no longer struggled against it, but allowed it to poison and consume her once magnificent body. It would be wrong to say that Hassan was heartbroken when she died. He was not a deeply emotional or sensitive person. Though he could attract the sympathy of others, he had difficulty in producing any of his own. His was of kind but not compassionate nature.