DUST ON MOUNTAIN: COLLECTED STORIES (67 page)

‘Was she charged with murder?’

‘No, it was all hushed up. Charlotte was sent to the asylum at Ranchi. We never heard of her again. May was buried here. If you visit the old cemetery you’ll find her grave on the second tier, third from the left.’

‘I’ll look it up some time. It must have been an awful shock for those of you who knew the sisters.’

‘Yes, I was quite upset about it. I was very fond of May. And then, of course, the chickens were sold and I had to buy my eggs elsewhere and they were never so good. Still, those were the days, the good old days—when eggs were six annas a dozen and gin only two rupees a bottle!’

T
he peace and quiet of the Maplewood hillside disappeared forever one winter. The powers that be decided to build another new road into the mountains, and the PWD saw fit to take it right past the cottage, about six feet from the large window which had overlooked the forest.

In my journal I wrote:

Already they have felled most of the trees. The walnut was one of the first to go. A tree I had lived with for over ten years, watching it grow just as I had watched Prem’s little son, Rakesh, grow up … Looking forward to its new leafbuds, the broad, green leaves of summer turning to spears of gold in September when the walnuts were ripe and ready to fall. I knew this tree better than the others. It was just below the window, where a buttress for the road is going up.

Another tree I’ll miss is the young deodar, the only one growing in this stretch of the woods. Some years back it was stunted from lack of sunlight. The oaks covered it with their shaggy branches. So I cut away some of the overhanging branches and after that the deodar grew much faster. It was just coming into its own this year; now cut down in its prime like my young brother on the road to Delhi last month: both victims of the roads; the tree killed by the PWD, my brother by a truck.

Twenty oaks have been felled. Just in this small stretch near the cottage. By the time this bypass reaches Jabarkhet, about six miles from here, over a thousand oaks will have been slaughtered, besides many other fine trees—maples, deodars and pines—most of them unnecessarily, as they grow some fifty to sixty yards from the roadside.

The trouble is, hardly anyone (with the exception of the contractor who buys the felled trees) really believes that trees and shrubs are necessary. They get in the way so much, don’t they? According to my milkman, the only useful tree is one which can be picked clean of its leaves for fodder! And a young man remarked to me: ‘You should come to Pauri. The view is terrific, there are no trees in the way!’

Well, he can stay here now, and enjoy the view of the ravaged hillside. But as the oaks have gone, the milkman will have to look further afield for his fodder.

Rakesh calls the maples the butterfly trees because when the winged seeds fall they flutter like butterflies in the breeze. No maples now. No bright red leaves to flame against the sky. No birds!

That is to say, no birds near the house. No longer will it be possible for me to open the window and watch the scarlet minivets flitting through the dark green foliage of the oaks; the long-tailed magpies gliding through the trees; the barbet calling insistently from his perch on top of the deodar. Forest birds, all of them, they will now be in search of some other stretch of surviving forest. The only visitors will be the crows, who have learnt to live with, and off, humans and seem to multiply along with roads, houses and people. And even when all the people have gone, the crows will still be around.

Other things to look forward to: trucks thundering past in the night; perhaps a tea and pakora shop round the corner; the grinding of gears, the music of motor horns. Will the whistling thrush be heard above them? The explosions that continually shatter the silence of the mountains—as thousand-year-old rocks are dynamited—have frightened away all but the most intrepid of birds and animals. Even the bold langoors haven’t shown their faces for over a fortnight.

Somehow, I don’t think we shall wait for the tea shop to arrive. There must be some other quiet corner, possibly on the next mountain, where new roads have yet to come into being. No doubt this is a negative attitude, and if I had any sense I’d open my own tea shop. To retreat is to be a loser. But the trees are losers too; and when they fall, they do so with a certain dignity.

Never mind. Men come and go; the mountains remain.

March 1, 1975

Beer in the sun. High in the spruce tree the barbet calls, heralding summer. A few puffy clouds drift lazily over the mountains. Is this the great escape?

I could sit here all day soaking up beer and sunshine, but at some time during the day I must wipe the dust from my typewriter and produce something readable. There’s only eight hundred rupees in the bank, book sales are falling off, and magazines are turning away from fiction.

Prem spoils me, giving me rice and kofta curry for lunch, which means that I sleep till four when Miss Bun arrives with patties and samosas.

Miss Bun is the baker’s daughter.

Of course that’s not her real name. Her real name is very long and beautiful, but I won’t give it here for obvious reasons and also because her brother is big and ugly.

I am seeing Miss Bun after two months. She’s been with relatives in Bareilly.

She sits at the foot of my bed, absolutely radiant. Her raven-black hair lies loose on her shoulders, her eyelashes have been trimmed and blackened and so have her eyes, with kajal. Her eyes, so large and innocent—and calculating!

There are pretty glass bangles on her wrists and she wears a pair of new slippers. Her kameez is new too—green silk, with gold-embroidered sleeves.

‘You must have a rich lover,’ I remark, taking her hand and gently pulling her towards me. ‘Who gave you all this finery?’

‘You did. Don’t you remember? Before I went away, you gave me a hundred rupees.’

‘That was for the train and bus fares, I thought.’

‘Oh, my uncle paid the fares. So I bought myself these things. Are they nice?’

‘Very pretty. And so are you. If you were ten years older and I ten years younger, we’d make a good pair. But I’d have been broke long before this!’

She giggles and drops a paper bag full of samosas on the bedside table. I hate samosas and patties, but I keep ordering them because it gives Miss Bun a pretext for visiting me. It’s all in the way of helping the bakery get by. When she goes, I give the lot to Bijju and Binya or whoever might be passing.

‘You’ve been away a long time,’ I complain. ‘What if I’d got married while you were away?’

‘Then you’d stop ordering samosas.’

‘Or get them from that old man Bashir, who makes much better ones, and cheaper!’

She drops her head on my shoulder. Her hair is heavily scented with jasmine hair oil, and I nearly pass out. They should use it instead of anaesthesia.

‘You smell very nice,’ I lie. ‘Do I get a kiss?’

She gives me a long kiss, as though to make up for her long absence. Her kisses always have a nice wholesome flavour, as you would expect from someone who lives in a bakery.

‘That was an expensive kiss.’

‘I want to buy some face cream.’

‘You don’t need face cream. Your complexion is perfect. It must be the good quality flour you use in the bakery.’

‘I don’t put flour on my face. Anyway, I want the cream for my elder sister. She has pockmarks.’

I surrender and give her two fives, quickly putting away my wallet.

‘And when will you pay for the samosas?’

‘Next week.’

‘I’ll bring you something nice next week,’ she says, pausing in the doorway.

‘Well, thanks, I was getting tired of samosas.’

She was gone in a twinkling.

I’ll say this for Miss Bun—she doesn’t trouble to hide her intentions.

March 4

My policeman calls on me this morning. Ghanshyam, the constable attached to the Barlowganj outpost.

He is not very tall for a policeman, and he has a round, cheerful countenance, which is unusual in his profession. He looks smart in his uniform. Most constables prefer to hang around in their pyjamas most of the time.

Nothing alarming about Ghanshyam’s visit. He comes to see me about once a week, and has been doing so ever since I spent a night in the police station last year.

It happened when I punched a Muzzaffarnagar businessman in the eye for bullying a rickshaw coolie. The fat slob very naturally lodged a complaint against me, and that same evening a sub-inspector called and asked me to accompany him to the thana. It was too late to arrange anything and in any case I had only been taken in for questioning, so I had to spend the night at the police post. The sub-inspector went home and left me in the charge of a constable. A wooden bench and a charpoy were the only items of furniture in my cell, if you could call it that. The charpoy was meant for the night-duty constable, but he very generously offered it to me.

‘But where will you sleep?’ I asked.

‘Oh, I don’t feel like sleeping. Usually I go to the night show at the Picture Palace, but I suppose I’ll have to stay here because of you.’

He looked rather sulky. Obviously I’d ruined his plans for the night.

‘You don’t have to stay because of me,’ I said. ‘I won’t tell the SHO. You go to the Picture Palace, I’ll look after the thana.’

He brightened up considerably, but still looked a bit doubtful.

‘You can trust me,’ I said encouragingly. ‘My grandfather was a private soldier who became a Buddhist.’

‘Then I can trust you as far as your grandfather.’ He was quite cheerful now, and sent for two cups of tea from the shop across the road. It came gratis, of course. A little later he left me, and I settled down on the cot and slept fitfully. The constable came back during the early hours and went to sleep on the bench. Next morning I was allowed to go home. The Muzzaffarnagar businessman had got into another fight and was lodged in the main thana. I did not hear about the matter again.

Ghanshyam, the constable, having struck up a friendship with me, was to visit me from time to time.

And here he is today, boots shining, teeth gleaming, cheeks almost glowing, far too charming a person to be a policeman.

‘Hello, Ghanshyam bhai,’ I welcome him. ‘Sit down and have some tea.’

‘No, I can’t stop for long,’ he says, but sits down beside me on the veranda steps. ‘Can you do me a favour?’

‘Sure. What is it?’

‘I’m fed up with Barlowganj. I want to get a transfer.’

‘And how can I help you? I don’t know any
netas
or bigwigs.’

‘No, but our SP will be here next week and he can have me transferred. Will you speak to him?’

‘But why should he listen to me?’

‘Well, you see, he has a weakness …’

‘We all have our weaknesses. Does your SP have a weakness similar to mine? Do we proceed to blackmail him?’

‘Yes. You see, he writes poetry. And you are a
kavi
, a poet, aren’t you?’

‘At times,’ I concede. ‘And I have to admit it’s a weakness, especially as no one cares to read my poetry.’

‘No one reads the SP’s poetry, either. Although we have to listen to it sometimes. When he has finished reading out one of his poems, we salute and say “
Shabash
!”’

‘A captive audience. I wish I had one.’

Ignoring my sarcasm, Ghanshyam continues: ‘The trouble is, he can’t get anyone to publish his poems. This makes him bad-tempered and unsympathetic to applications for transfer. Can you help?’

‘I am not a publisher. I can only salute like the rest of you.’

‘But you know publishers, don’t you? If you can get some of his poems published, he’d be very grateful. To you. To me. To both of us!’

‘You really are an optimist.’

‘Just one or two poems. You see, I’ve already told him about you. How you spent all night in the lock-up writing verses. He thinks you are a famous writer. He’s depending on me now. If his poems get published he will give me a transfer. I’m sick of Barlowganj!’ He gives me a hug and pinches me on the cheek.

Before he can go any further, I say: ‘Well, I’ll do my best’—I am thinking of a little magazine published in Bhopal where most of my rejects find a home. ‘For your sake, I’ll try. But first I must see the poems.’

‘You shall even see the SP,’ he promises. ‘I’ll bring him here next week. You can give him a cup of tea.’

He gets up, gives me a smart salute and goes up the path with a spring in his step. The sort of man who knows how to get his transfers and promotions in a perfectly honest manner.

March 7

It gets warmer day by day.

This morning I decided to sunbathe—quite modestly, of course. Retaining my old khaki shorts but removing all other clothing, I stretched out on a mattress in the garden. Almost immediately I was disturbed by the baker (Miss Bun’s father for a change), who presented me with two loaves of bread and half a dozen chocolate pastries, ordered the previous day. Then Prem’s small son, Raki, turned up, demanding a pastry, and I gave him two. He insisted on joining me on the mattress, where he proceeded to drop crumbs in my hair and on my chest. ‘Good morning, Mr Bond!’ came the dulcet tones of Mrs Biggs, leaning over the gate. Forgetting that she was short-sighted, I jumped to my feet, and at the same time my shorts slipped down over my knees. As I grabbed for them, Mrs Biggs’s effusiveness reached greater heights. ‘Why, what a lovely
agapanthus
you’ve got!’ she exclaimed, referring no doubt to the solitary lily in the garden. I must confess I blushed. Then, recovering myself, I returned her greeting, remarking on the freshness of the morning.

Mrs Biggs, at eighty, was a little deaf as well, and replied, ‘I’m very well, thank you, Mr Bond. Is that a child you’re carrying?’

‘Yes, Prem’s small son.’

‘Prem is your son? I didn’t know you had a family.’

At this point Raki decided to pluck the spectacles off Mrs Biggs’s nose, and after I had recovered them for her, she beat a hasty retreat. Later, the Rev. Mr Biggs came over to borrow a book.