Classic Ruskin Bond
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Authors: Ruskin Bond
Ruskin BondClassic Ruskin Bond
Complete and Unabridged
PENGUIN BOOKSAbout the Author
Ruskin Bond’s first novel,
The Room on the Roof
, written when he was seventeen, won the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize in 1957. Since then he has written several novellas (including
Vagrants in the Valley
,
A Flight of Pigeons
and
Delhi Is Not Far
), essays, poems and children’s books, many of which have been published by Penguin India. He has also written over 500 short stories and articles that have appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies. He received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1993 and the Padma Shri in 1999.
Ruskin Bond was born in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh, and grew up in Jamnagar, Dehradun, Delhi and Shimla. As a young man, he spent four years in the Channel Islands and London. He returned to India in 1955 and has never left the country since. He now lives in Landour, Mussoorie, with his adopted family.
By the Same Author
ALSO BY RUSKIN BOND
Fiction
The Room on the Roof & Vagrants in the Valley
The Night Train at Deoli and Other Stories
Time Stops at Shamli and Other Stories
Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra
A Season of Ghosts
When Darkness Falls and Other Stories
A Flight of Pigeons
Delhi Is Not Far
A Face in the Dark and Other Hauntings
The Sensualist
A Handful of Nuts
Non-fiction
Rain in the Mountains
Scenes from a Writer’s Life
The Lamp Is Lit
The Little Book of Comfort
Landour Days
Notes from a Small Room
Anthologies
Dust on the Mountain: Collected Stories
The Best of Ruskin Bond
Friends in Small Places
Indian Ghost Stories (ed.)
Indian Railway Stories (ed.)
Classical Indian Love Stories and Lyrics (ed.)
Tales of the Open Road
Ruskin Bond’s Book of Nature
Ruskin Bond’s Book of Humour
A Town Called Dehra
Poetry
Ruskin Bond’s Book of Verse
The Room on the Roof
Chapter One
T
HE LIGHT SPRING RAIN
rode on the wind, into the trees, down the road; it brought an exhilarating freshness to the air, a smell of earth, a scent of flowers; it brought a smile to the eyes of the boy on the road.
The long road wound round the hills, rose and fell and twisted down to Dehra; the road came from the mountains and passed through the jungle and valley and, after passing through Dehra, ended somewhere in the bazaar. But just where it ended no one knew, for the bazaar was a baffling place, where roads were easily lost.
The boy was three miles out of Dehra. The further he could get from Dehra, the happier he was likely to be. Just now he was only three miles out of Dehra, so he was not very happy; and, what was worse, he was walking homewards.
He was a pale boy, with blue-grey eyes and fair hair; his face was rough and marked, and the lower lip hung loose and heavy. He had his hands in his pockets and his head down, which was the way he always walked, and which gave him a deceptively tired appearance. He was a lazy but not a tired person.
He liked the rain as it flecked his face, he liked the smell and the freshness; he did not look at his surroundings or notice them—his mind, as usual, was very far away—but he felt their atmosphere, and he smiled.
His mind was so very far away that it was a few minutes before he noticed the swish of bicycle wheels beside him. The cyclist did not pass the boy, but rode beside him, studying him,
taking in every visible detail, the bare head, the open-necked shirt, the flannel trousers, the sandals, the thick hide belt round his waist. A European boy was no longer a common sight in Dehra, and Somi, the cyclist, was interested.
‘Hullo,’ said Somi, giving his bell a tinkle. The boy looked up and saw a young, friendly face wrapped untidily in a turban.
‘Hullo,’ said Somi, ‘would you like me to ride you into town? If you are going to town?’
‘No, I’m all right,’ said the boy, without slackening his pace, ‘I like to walk.’
‘So do I, but it’s raining.’
And to support Somi’s argument, the rain fell harder.
‘I like to walk in the rain,’ said the boy. ‘And I don’t live in the town, I live outside it.’
Nice people didn’t live
in
the town . . .
‘Well, I can pass your way,’ persisted Somi, determined to help the stranger.
The boy looked again at Somi, who was dressed like him except for short pants and a turban. Somi’s legs were long and athletic, his colour was an unusually rich gold, his features were fine, his mouth broke easily into friendliness. It was impossible to resist the warmth of his nature.
The boy pulled himself up on the cross-bar, in front of Somi, and they moved off.
They rode slowly, gliding round the low hills, and soon the jungle on either side of the road began to give way to open fields and tea-gardens and then to orchards and one or two houses.
‘Tell me when you reach your place,’ said Somi. ‘You stay with your parents?’
The boy considered the question too familiar for a stranger to ask, and made no reply.
‘Do you like Dehra?’ asked Somi.
‘Not much,’ said the boy with pleasure.
‘Well, after England it must seem dull . . .’
There was a pause and then the boy said, ‘I haven’t been to England. I was born here. I’ve never been anywhere else except Delhi.’
‘Do you like Delhi?’
‘Not much.’
They rode on in silence. The rain still fell, but the cycle moved smoothly over the wet road, making a soft, swishing sound.
Presently a man came in sight—no, it was not a man, it was a youth, but he had the appearance, the build of a man—walking towards town.
‘Hey, Ranbir,’ shouted Somi, as they neared the burly figure, ‘want a lift?’
Ranbir ran into the road and slipped on to the carrier, behind Somi. The cycle wobbled a bit, but soon controlled itself and moved on, a little faster now.
Somi spoke into the boy’s ear, ‘Meet my friend Ranbir. He is the best wrestler in the bazaar.’
‘Hullo, mister,’ said Ranbir, before the boy could open his mouth.
‘Hullo, mister,’ said the boy.
Then Ranbir and Somi began a swift conversation in Punjabi, and the boy felt very lost; even, for some strange reason, jealous of the newcomer.
Now someone was standing in the middle of the road, frantically waving his arms and shouting incomprehensibly.
‘It is Suri,’ said Somi.
It was Suri.
Bespectacled and owlish to behold, Suri possessed an almost criminal cunning, and was both respected and despised by all who knew him. It was strange to find him out of town, for his interests were confined to people and their privacies; which privacies, when known to Suri, were soon made public.
He was a pale, bony, sickly boy, but he would probably live longer than Ranbir.
‘Hey, give me a lift!’ he shouted.
‘Too many already,’ said Somi.
‘Oh, come on Somi, I’m nearly drowned.’
‘It’s stopped raining.’
‘Oh, come on . . .’
So Suri climbed on to the handlebar, which rather obscured Somi’s view of the road and caused the cycle to wobble all over the place. Ranbir kept slipping on and off the carrier, and the boy found the cross-bar exceedingly uncomfortable. The cycle had barely been controlled when Suri started to complain.
‘It hurts,’ he whimpered.
‘I haven’t got a cushion,’ said Somi.
‘It is a cycle,’ said Ranbir bitingly, ‘not a Rolls Royce.’
Suddenly the road fell steeply, and the cycle gathered speed.
‘Take it easy, now,’ said Suri, ‘or I’ll fly off!’
‘Hold tight,’ warned Somi. ‘It’s downhill nearly all the way. We will have to go fast because the brakes aren’t very good.’
‘Oh, Mummy!’ wailed Suri.
‘Shut up!’ said Ranbir.
The wind hit them with a sudden force, and their clothes blew up like balloons, almost tearing them from the machine. The boy forgot his discomfort and clung desperately to the cross-bar, too nervous to say a word. Suri howled and Ranbir kept telling him to shut up, but Somi was enjoying the ride. He laughed merrily, a clear, ringing laugh, a laugh that bore no malice and no derision but only enjoyment, fun . . .
‘It’s all right for you to laugh,’ said Suri. ‘If anything happens,
I’ll
get hurt!’
‘If anything happens,’ said Somi, ‘we
all
get hurt!’
‘That’s right,’ shouted Ranbir from behind.
The boy closed his eyes and put his trust in God and Somi—but mainly Somi . . .
‘Oh, Mummy!’ wailed Suri.
‘Shut up!’ said Ranbir.
The road twisted and turned as much as it could, and rose a little only to fall more steeply the other side. But eventually it began to even out, for they were nearing the town and almost in the residential area.
‘The run is over,’ said Somi, a little regretfully.
‘Oh, Mummy!’
‘Shut up.’
The boy said, ‘I must get off now, I live very near.’ Somi skidded the cycle to a standstill, and Suri shot off the handlebar into a muddy side-track. The boy slipped off, but Somi and Ranbir remained on their seats, Ranbir steadying the cycle with his feet on the ground.
‘Well, thank you,’ said the boy.
Somi said, ‘Why don’t you come and have your meal with us, there is not much further to go.’
The boy’s shyness would not fall away.
‘I’ve got to go home,’ he said. ‘I’m expected. Thanks very much.’
‘Well, come and see us some time,’ said Somi. ‘If you come to the chaat shop in the bazaar, you are sure to find one of us. You know the bazaar?’
‘Well, I have passed through it—in a car.’
‘Oh.’
The boy began walking away, his hands once more in his pockets.
‘Hey!’ shouted Somi. ‘You didn’t tell us your name!’
The boy turned and hesitated and then said, ‘Rusty . . .’
‘See you soon, Rusty,’ said Somi, and the cycle pushed off.
The boy watched the cycle receding down the road, and Suri’s shrill voice came to him on the wind. It had stopped raining, but the boy was unaware of this; he was almost home, and that was a miserable thought. To his surprise and disgust, he found himself wishing he had gone into Dehra with Somi.
He stood in the side-track and stared down the empty road; and, to his surprise and disgust, he felt immeasurably lonely.
