The Best of Ruskin Bond Part 39

7.

'Not death, but a summing-up of life,'

Said the village patriarch, as we watched him

Treasure a patch of winter sunshine

On his string cot in the courtyard.

I remember his wisdom.

And I remember faces.

For it's faces I remember best.

The people were poor, and the patriarch said:

'I have heard it told that the sun

Sets in splendour in Himalaya-

But who can eat sunsets?'

The patriarch was old in years,

But some grew old at their mother's b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Perhaps, if I'd stayed longer,

I would have yearned for creature comforts.

We were hungry sometimes, eating wild berries

Or slyly milking another's goat,

Or catching small fish in the river. . . .

But I did not long for home.

Could I have grown up a village boy,

Grazing sheep and cattle, while the Collected Works

Of W. Shakespeare lay gathering dust

In Dehra? Who knows? But it was nice

Of my stepfather to send his office manager

Into the mountains to bring me home!

Manohar.

He called goodbye and waved

As I looked back from the bend in the road.

Bright boy on the mountainside,

Waving to me, calling, and I've loved you

All these years and looked for you everywhere,

In the mountains, in crowds at distant places,