The Best of Ruskin Bond Part 18

She showed Nina how to use ring makeup and what colours looked best at night. She was nimble-fingered and made costumes and coronets for the girl, and taught her grace in the ring. Once she made a blue and silver outfit. The first night Nina wore it, she performed solely for her friend, although the circus tent was crowded and appreciative.

The circus was kind to Nina, and she grew used to its ways. It was the outside world that puzzled her sometimes. What did her audiences think, she wondered. Did they see more than a winged stranger, green and gold and blue, hovering above them? Did they know that once she returned to the solitary square of her small dressing-room, she often crept outside the tent to hear the wind singing in the trees? Did they know that she wrote poetry?

Whenever she glanced at a map of India, the towns were not merely dots with names. They were familiar to her because the circus had been there, and she called each name softly. They sprang alive, clothed in the mood in which she had committed them to her memory. She loved the smaller towns and villages, she liked the dusty roads and the damp smell of the fields, the tall swaying stalks of sugar cane, the bright yellow carpets of mustard.

As the rain streams down outside, she sits at the window of her small hotel room, remembering all these things, bringing them to life for me. The room has bright green walls and cobwebs in the corners. The open window frames the sky and solitary peepul tree, and she is grateful for both. At twilight the birds come to roost.

There is an old bedraggled crow that comes faithfully to perch on the parapet opposite the window. He has seen a good deal of life, this crow, for his feathers have long since lost their gloss. He c.o.c.ks his head to one side and regards the girl intently.

'h.e.l.lo, old crow,' she says. At the sound of her voice he grows uneasy, spreads his wings and dives into the rain with his scrawny neck stretched taut. Nina, too, is restless. She is longing for the high, bright, private world above the circus ring.

The ring, she tells me, has a way of welcoming its people back. And the tent, faded and old, drenched as it is at present, is a better home than a lonely room in a shabby hotel.

Pedestrian In Peril.

I think it was really my love of walking that first took me to the hills, and then kept me there for two decades. It had become increasingly difficult for me to walk about in Delhi, and I resented this, because I had been walking about Delhi before most of my readers were born. As a youth I walked from Connaught Place to Humayun's tomb, and from Paharganj to Pusa, and although as the years pa.s.sed I still covered these distances occasionally, it was so longer a pleasurable activity. Rather it became an obstacle race, an exercise in survival.

Now whenever I visit Delhi, I do not even try covering long distances. Even crossing a road is something of a feat for me. Usually I wedge myself between two well-built women-and cross over in their company. No Maruti owner would risk damage to his car by colliding with us.

But being a compulsive walker, I stay out of Delhi as much as possible and do most of my walking in the hills. Even hill-stations are congested these days, but as I live on the outskirts of one, I have no difficulty in marching off for a few miles with only myself and a circling eagle for company. Here too, motor roads have multiplied. But it is possible to leave them at will, taking any old path that leads through fields of maize or mustard, or through oak and rhododendron forest, until a village is reached.

Here there is always hospitality if you are not the arrogant or fastidious sort. And occasionally you might come across a mountain stream where you can rest on a bed of ferns. And if there is no stream, you will eventually find a spring, perhaps a mere trickle of water but welcome all the same. Some springs dried up last year when the rains failed. Let us hope for the sake of bird and beast and thirsty trekker that it rains this winter.

Although I have given up walking in Delhi, it is still possible to do so in some of the smaller towns in the plains. But only just. When growing up in Dehra Dun, I walked all over that town, and all around it, and I tried again last week but it wasn't the same.

My maternal grandfather once taught me the art of zigzagging. If you take a zigzag walk, he said, you will see more of a place and also have some interesting encounters. Distrust the straight and narrow, that was his philosophy.

In those days one zigzagged from choice; now one does so out of necessity. One zigzags between scooters, tempos, buses, trucks, cars, bicycles, bullock-cacts and various forms of locomotion. When a town of forty thousand people has, over a period of forty years, become a city of over a hundred thousand, the resultant traffic congestion may well be imagined. And even as you struggle to make your way along one of those overburdened roads, you are helped along by the stench from overflowing drains and piles of refuse that seems never to shrink or go away.

One cannot really blame anyone. It must happen when a small town acquires the population of a large city. And no one seems to mind. Perhaps it was all part of what Swami Vivekananda once called our 'kitchen mentality', the att.i.tude that as long as the kitchen is clean, what happens on the road is none of our business.

Anyway, I need to walk in order to live, and although I have been defeated by Delhi, I am not going to let Dehra do the same. If I walk to the old cemetery, I might enjoy a reasonably quiet stroll. My maternal grandfather, he who taught me to zigzag, is buried there, and it would be nice to locate his grave. But it is thirty years since I last visited the cemetery. Will I find it without difficulty?

It took me the better part of the morning. Two of the busiest roads had to be crossed, and there were no Amazons to get between. As I stood on the kerb, wondering how I was going to get across, a partially blind man carrying a stick tapped me on the arm and asked me if I could take him across. This put me in a quandary. It would have been churlish of me to refuse, but I was hardly the best choice for the task.

'I don't see too well myself,' I said, which was perfectly true. 'But I will see what I can do.' A frail old lady now approached us, I knew she was going to ask me to take her across the road, so I got in first. 'Could you lead two blind men across the road, madam?' I asked. Well, she got us safely across, and then looked back and asked me, 'Where is the second blind man?'

'Don't worry,' I said, 'he probably changed his mind.'

When I did get to the cemetery, I found it was no longer the quiet place of yore. A line of motor workshops had sprung up in front, while a slum colony had spread along one of the boundary walls. Once reputed to be the most beautiful cemetery in northern India, it still had its trees, but of the garden only traces remained. Quite obviously, funds were lacking.

I did not think I would find my grandfather's grave in the wilderness of worn and weathered tombs. Many had lost their inscriptions. They represented the presence in the Doon Valley of well over a thousand Europeans, from the first soldiers and settlers of the early nineteenth century to the more recent few who 'stayed on'-and pa.s.sed on. Strangely enough, I had barely begun my search when I found myself before my grandfather's grave. The inscription, placed there by my grandmother, stood out more clearly than most. 'In memory of my beloved husband, William Dudley Clerke, died 9th January 1935'.

And this was the 9th of January, too. It was becoming a day of coincidences. Or had something more than coincidence led me here on the anniversary of my grandfather's death? And if so, why? Perhaps the coming months will give me the answer.

Escape To Nowhere.

By the end of August, the hill-dweller has got the monsoon blues. Heartily sick of cloud and fog, drizzle and downpour, he longs for a little sunshine, some dryness in the air.

Forsaking my jammed typewriter, and mildewed books and files, I set out for Dehradun in the valley. It was damp there too, and sultry, but at least there were occasional bursts of sunshine. I took a room in a small hotel and lay beneath a whirring fan, waiting for the cool of the evening.

Evening walks in Dehra are not what they used to be. Speeding vehicles stop for no one, and you take your life in your hands every time you cross a road. Most of the roads came into existence over a hundred years ago, and were originally meant for pedestrians and pony-drawn tongas. Now, neither pedestrians nor ponies have any rights.

Wait until dark and the hazards are even greater, for street lights do not exist on the smaller roads, while open ditches and other obstacles are there in abundance, just waiting to trap you. Returning to my room muddied and dishevelled, I was consoled by the old man who brought me a cup of tea. Things were much worse in Agra, he told me.

'And what were you doing in Agra?' I asked.

'I was in the madhouse, the pagalkhana, for ten years. Then one day, when no one was looking, I slipped away.'

He burst into laughter, and naturally I had to join in.

'Inside or outside, there's no difference,' he added. 'The roads are full of pagals these days.'

Next day, going out in search of a little sanity, I decided I'd call on Nergis Dalai, a fellow writer whom I hadn't seen for some years.

As I approached the Dilawar Bazaar, the area where she lived, I noticed that the traffic on the main road had come to a standstill and that smoke was issuing from a couple of small shops. A crowd had gathered and now, as a police van arrived, people began to scatter, most of them running in my direction. I always seem to be standing in the way of advancing hordes.

Looking for some avenue of escape, I found a gap in a wall, leading into an old orchard of lichi trees. I sat beneath a lichi tree, recalling the days when Dehra was famous for its lichis. Now only a few gardens remain, for owners find it more profitable to sell their land for buildings. Will lichis vanish forever? They don't grow anywhere else.

When the main road seemed normal again, I left the protection of the trees and took another chance with my fellow humans. Two boys were discussing the recent incident. One said the shop had been burnt down because it had been selling brown sugar. The other said it had been burnt down because it had refused to sell brown sugar.

My own blood-sugar level was by now distinctly low, so I hurried along to Nergis Dalal's flat, knowing she would give me sustenance. Hadn't she written half-a-dozen cookery books?

Nor was I disappointed. Pullau rice, kofta curry, and a chocolate souffle awaited me. I was on the right track again!

When I got back to my hotel, I found Mr Arora of the Green Bookshop waiting for me in the veranda. He had a surprise for me, he said. He wouldn't tell me what it was until I got into his car.

Ten minutes later we drove in at the gates of Welhem Girls' School. And within minutes I found myself trapped in a cla.s.sroom, surrounded by some two hundred girls, their ages ranging from fourteen to eighteen. And I was expected to talk to them! Usually tongue-tied in front of one girl, how was I to converse with two hundred? Jules Verne had a similar problem, I believe. No wonder he preferred to be 20,000 leagues under the sea-which was where I wanted to be just then!

Bright-eyed and eager they were, waiting for words of wisdom to flow from my lips. I had none to impart! I looked around the sea of faces. Here was beauty and intelligence combined! I was struck dumb.

Their princ.i.p.al, Mrs Verma, came to my rescue and said nice things about my writing. I answered a few questions, trying to be witty if not wise. The girls were kind and indulgent.

When it was all over, I found myself back in my hotel room. A smart young Gurkha brought me a cup of tea.

'Where's the old man?' I asked.

'One of his sons came for him,' he said. 'They've taken him back to Agra.'

So that was the end of his great escape. Was it the end of mine?

In The Garden Of My Dreams.

The cosmos has all the genius of simplicity. The plant stands tall and erect; its foliage is uncomplicated; its inflorescences are bold, fresh, cheerful. Any flower, from a rose to a rhododendron, can be complicated. The cosmos is splendidly simple.

No wonder it takes its name from the Greek cosmos, meaning the universe as an ordered whole-the sum total of experience! For this unpretentious flower does seem to sum it all up: perfection without apparent striving for it, the artistry of the South American footballer! Needless to say, it came from tropical America.

And growing it is no trouble. A handful of seed thrown in a waste patch or on a gra.s.sy hill slope, and a few months later there they are, en ma.s.se, doing their samba in the sunshine. They are almost wild, but not quite. They need very little attention, but if you take them too much for granted they will go away the following year. Simple they may be, but not insensitive. They need plenty of s.p.a.ce. And as my own small apartment cannot accommodate them, they definitely belong to my dream garden.

My respect for the cosmos goes back to my childhood when I wandered into what seemed like a forest of these flowers, all twice my height (I must have been five at the time) but looking down on me in the friendliest way, their fine feathery foliage giving off a faint aroma. Now when I find them flowering on the hillsides in mellow October sunshine, they are like old friends and I greet them accordingly, pressing my face to their petals.

Not everyone likes the cosmos. I have met some upper-cla.s.s ladies (golf club members) who complain that it gives them hay fever, and they use this as an excuse to root out all cosmos from their gardens. I expect they are just being sn.o.bbish. There are other flowers which give off just as much pollen dust.

I have noticed the same sn.o.bbishness in regard to marigolds, especially the smaller Indian variety. 'Cultivated' people won't cultivate these humble but attractive flowers. Is it because they are used for making garlands? Or because they are not delicately scented? Or because they are so easily grown in the backyards of humble homes?

My grandparents once went to war with each other over the marigold. Grandfather had grown a few in one corner of the garden. Just as they began flowering, they vanished-Granny had removed them overnight! There was a row, and my grandparents did not speak to each other for several days. Then, by calling them 'French' marigolds, Grandfather managed to reintroduce them to the garden. Granny liked the idea of having something 'French' in her garden. Such is human nature!

Sometimes a wildflower can put its more spectacular garden cousins to shame. I am thinking now of the commelina, which I discover in secret places after the rains have pa.s.sed. Its bright sky-blue flowers take my breath away. It has a sort of unguarded innocence that is beyond corruption.

Wild roses give me more pleasure than the sophisticated domestic variety. On a walk in the Himalayan foothills I have encountered a number of these shrubs and climbers-the ineptly named dog rose, sparkling white in summer; the sweet briar with its deep pink petals and bright red rose-hips; the trailing rose, found in shady places; and the wild raspberry (the fruit more attractive than the flower) which belongs to the same family.

A sun-lover, I like plenty of yellow on the hillsides and in gardens-sunflowers, Californian poppies, winter jasmine, St. John's Wort, b.u.t.tercups, wild strawberries, mustard in bloom. . . . But if you live in a hot place, you might prefer cooling blues and soft purples-forget-me-nots, bluebells, cornflowers, lavender.

I'd go far for a sprig of sweetly-scented lavender. To many older people the word lavender is as good as a charm; it seems to recall the plaintive strain of once familiar music- Lavender's blue, dilly dilly.

Lavender's green.

When I am king, dilly dilly.

You'll be my queen.

This tame-looking, blue-green, stiff, sticky, and immovable shrub holds as much poetry and romance in its wiry arms as would fill a large book. Most cultivated flowers were originally wild and many take their names from the botanists who first 'tamed' them. Thus, the dahlia is named after Mr Dahl, a Swede; the rudbeckia after Rudbeck, a Dutchman; the zinnia after Dr Zinn, a German; and the lobelia after Monsieur Lobel, a Flemish physician. They and others brought to Europe many of the flowers they found growing wild in tropical America, Asia and Africa.

But I am no botanist. I prefer to be the b.u.t.terfly, perfectly happy in going from flower to flower in search of nectar.

Owls In The Family.

One winter morning, my grandfather and I found a baby spotted owlet by the veranda steps of our home in Dehradun. When Grandfather picked it up the owlet hissed and clacked its bill but then, after a meal of raw meat and water, settled down under my bed.

Spotted owlets are small birds. A fully grown one is no larger than a thrush and they have none of the sinister appearance of large owls. I had once found a pair of them in our mango tree and by tapping on the tree trunk had persuaded one to show an enquiring face at the entrance to its hole. The owlet is not normally afraid of man nor is it strictly a night bird. But it prefers to stay at home during the day as it is sometimes attacked by other birds who consider all owls their enemies.

The little owlet was quite happy under my bed. The following day we found a second baby owlet in almost the same spot on the veranda and only then did we realize that where the rainwater pipe emerged through the roof, there was a rough sort of nest from which the birds had fallen. We took the second young owl to join the first and fed them both.

When I went to bed, they were on the window ledge just inside the mosquito netting and later in the night, their mother found them there. From outside, she crooned and gurgled for a long time and in the morning, I found she had left a mouse with its tail tucked through the netting. Obviously she put no great trust in me as a foster parent.

The young birds thrived and ten days later, Grandfather and I took them into the garden to release them. I had placed one on a branch of the mango tree and was stooping to pick up the other when I received a heavy blow on the back of the head. A second or two later, the mother owl swooped down on Grandfather but he was quite agile and ducked out of the way.

Quickly, I placed the second owl under the mango tree. Then from a safe distance we watched the mother fly down and lead her offspring into the long gra.s.s at the edge of the garden. We thought she would take her family away from our rather strange household but next morning I found the two owlets perched on the hatstand in the veranda.

I ran to tell Grandfather and when we came back we found the mother sitting on the birdbath a few metres away. She was evidently feeling sorry for her behaviour the previous day because she greeted us with a soft 'whoo-whoo'.

'Now there's an unselfish mother for you,' said Grandfather. 'It's obvious she wants us to keep an eye on them. They're probably getting too big for her to manage.'

So the owlets became regular members of our household and were among the few pets that Grandmother took a liking to. She objected to all snakes, most monkeys and some crows-we'd had all these pets from time to time-but she took quite a fancy to the owlets and frequently fed them spaghetti!

They loved to sit and splash in a shallow dish provided by Grandmother. They enjoyed it even more if cold water was poured over them from a jug while they were in the bath. They would get thoroughly wet, jump out and perch on a towel rack, shake themselves and return for a second splash and sometimes a third. During the day they dozed on a hatstand. After dark, they had the freedom of the house and their nightly occupation was catching beetles, the kitchen quarters being a happy hunting ground. With their razor sharp eyes and powerful beaks, they were excellent pest-destroyers.

Looking back on those childhood days, I carry in my mind a picture of Grandmother in her rocking chair with a contented owlet sprawled across her ap.r.o.ned lap. Once, on entering a room while she was taking an afternoon nap, I saw one of the owlets had crawled up her pillow till its head was snuggled under her ear.

Both Grandmother and the owlet were snoring.

Adventures In A Banyan Tree.

Though the house and grounds of our home in India were Grandfather's domain, the magnificent old banyan tree was mine-chiefly because Grandfather, at the age of sixty-five, could no longer climb it. Grandmother used to tease him about this, and would speak of a certain Countess of Desmond, an Englishwoman who lived to the age of 117, and would have lived longer if she hadn't fallen while climbing an apple tree. The spreading branches of the banyan tree, which curved to the ground and took root again, forming a maze of arches, gave me endless pleasure. The tree was older than the house, older than Grandfather, as old as the town of Dehra, nestling in a valley at the foot of the Himalayas.

My first friend and familiar was a small grey squirrel. Arching his back and sniffing into the air, he seemed at first to resent my invasion of his privacy. But, when he found that I did not arm myself with a catapult or air-gun, he became friendlier. And, when I started leaving him pieces of cake and biscuit, he grew bolder, and finally became familiar enough to take food from my hands.