The Very Best of Ruskin Bond, the Writer on the Hill: Selected Fiction and Non-Fiction (23 page)

‘And when all the wars are done,’ I said, ‘a butterfly will still be beautiful.’

‘Did you read that somewhere?’

‘No, it just came into my head.’

‘Already you’re a writer.’

‘No, I want to play hockey for India or football for Arsenal. Only winning teams!’

‘You can’t win forever. Better to be a writer.’

When the monsoon rains arrived, the tunnel was flooded, the drain choked with rubble. We were allowed out to the cinema to see Lawrence Olivier’s
Hamlet
, a film that did nothing to raise our spirits on a wet and gloomy afternoon—but it was our last picture that year, because communal riots suddenly broke out in Simla’s Lower Bazaar, an area that was still much as Kipling had described it—‘a man who knows his way there can defy all the police of India’s summer capital’—and we were confined to school indefinitely.

One morning after chapel, the headmaster announced that the Muslim boys—those who had their homes in what was now Pakistan—would have to be evacuated, sent to their homes across the border with an armed convoy.

The tunnel no longer provided an escape for us. The bazaar was out of bounds. The flooded playing field was deserted. Omar and I sat on a damp wooden bench and talked about the future in vaguely hopeful terms; but we didn’t solve any problems. Mountbatten and Nehru and Jinnah were doing all the solving.

It was soon time for Omar to leave—he along with some fifty other boys from Lahore, Pindi and Peshawar. The rest of us—Hindus, Christians, Parsis—helped them load their luggage into the waiting trucks. A couple of boys broke down and wept. So did our departing school captain, a Pathan who had been known for his stoic and unemotional demeanour. Omar waved cheerfully to me and I waved back. We had vowed to meet again some day.

The convoy got through safely enough. There was only one casualty—the school cook, who had strayed into an off-limits area in the foothill town of Kalka and been set upon by a mob. He wasn’t seen again.

Towards the end of the school year, just as we were all getting ready to leave for the school holidays, I received a letter from Omar. He told me something about his new school and how he missed my company and our games and our tunnel to freedom. I replied and gave him my home address, but I did not hear from him again. The land, though divided, was still a big one, and we were very small.

Some seventeen or eighteen years later I did get news of Omar, but in an entirely different context. India and Pakistan were at war and in a bombing raid over Ambala, not far from Simla, a Pakistani plane was shot down. Its crew died in the crash. One of them, I learnt later, was Omar.

Did he, I wonder, get a glimpse of the playing fields we knew so well as boys?

Perhaps memories of his schooldays flooded back as he flew over the foothills. Perhaps he remembered the tunnel through which we were able to make our little escape to freedom.

But there are no tunnels in the sky.

J
AJALI WAS A
famous ascetic—one who practised extreme self-discipline. He had a thorough knowledge of the Vedas, most ancient of sacred books, and attended to the sacrificial fires. He observed long fasts. During the rainy season he slept under the open sky by night and lay in water by day.

In the hot weather Jajali did not seek protection from either the burning sun or the scorching wind. He slept in the most uncomfortable places, and smeared his body and long, unkempt hair with filth and mud. If he wore any clothes at all, they were made of rags and skins. He travelled over the whole earth, and dwelt in forests, mountains, or by the shores of the ocean. Once, when he was beside the ocean, he decided to conceal himself beneath its waters. He was able to do so by means of the great self-discipline which he had learnt. He could also project his mind in every direction and make himself aware of all that was happening in different parts of the world.

As Jajali lay one day at the bottom of the ocean, thinking of how his mind could travel everywhere, pride filled his heart, and he told himself that there was nobody quite like him in all the world. As he made this boast, a voice spoke in his ear. It was the voice of a spirit who had been watching him.

‘You should not have made that boast, most noble Brahmin. There is a shopkeeper I know, a very virtuous man, who lives in Benares and earns a living by buying and selling perfumes. Some say he is the most virtuous of men, but I don’t think he would boast about it!’

‘A shopkeeper!’ said the ascetic. ‘I should like to see this wonderful shopkeeper. Tell me where he lives, and how to get there.’

The spirit gave him the necessary directions, and Jajali left his watery bed and set out for Benares.

On the way he came to a forest, where he decided to spend some time practising fresh austerities. For many days he stood absolutely still. He never moved a muscle, and to all appearances was more like a pillar of stone than a man, with his great mass of filthy, dishevelled hair on top.

It was not long before two birds, in search of a place to build their nest, decided that there was no better spot than the ascetic’s head. And so they built their nest in his hair, making use of leaves and grass.

In due course the nest contained a full clutch of eggs, but Jajali never moved. Pity would have prevented him from doing so. Eventually the eggs were hatched, the young birds emerged. Days passed, and their feathers grew. As more days passed, they learned to fly. Then they would go off with their parents for a few hours at a time, in search of food. By now the ascetic had really fulfilled his obligations to the welfare of his guests; but still he did not move! Once they were absent for a week, but he waited until they returned. Finally, he waited for a month, and when they did not come back he decided that they had abandoned the nest forever, and that he was free to move.

Unfortunately, Jajali felt very proud of himself when he thought of his noble conduct.

‘There is nobody like me in all the wide world,’ he said to himself. ‘I must have acquired a great store of merit by this unselfish act.’

He felt so pleased with himself that he slapped his arms and shouted out loud, ‘There is nobody my equal anywhere!’

And once more he heard a voice—a voice as it seemed from heaven: ‘Jajali! Don’t say that. You are not as good a man as the shopkeeper in Benares, and
he
would not boast as you have done.’

Jajali’s heart was filled with anger, and he decided that he would go to Benares without further delay and see this wonderful shopkeeper.

When he arrived in Benares, one of the first persons he saw was the shopkeeper busily engaged in his shop, buying and selling herbs and perfumes. The shopkeeper saw him and called out a welcome: ‘I have been expecting you, most noble Brahmin, for a long time. I have heard of your great asceticism, of how you lived immersed in the ocean, and of all that you have done since, even allowing the birds to build a nest in your hair. I know, too, of how proud you were of that, and of how a voice from heaven rebuked you. You were angry, and that is why you came here. Tell me what you want. I shall do my best to help you.’

The Brahmin replied: ‘You are a shopkeeper, my friend, and the son of a shopkeeper. How does a person like you, who spends all his time buying and selling, acquire so much knowledge and so much wisdom? Where did you get it?’

‘My knowledge and wisdom consist in nothing but this,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘I follow and obey that ancient teaching which everybody knows and which consists of universal friendliness and kindness to man and beast. I earn my livelihood by trade, but my scales are always just. I never cheat anyone, and I never injure anyone in thought, word or deed. I quarrel with no one, fear no one, hate no one, praise no one, abuse no one. And I am convinced that the life I live is the life that secures both prosperity and heaven just as surely as the life that is devoted to penance and sacrifice.’

As he proceeded, the shopkeeper became more assertive, more critical, even a little boastful! Not only did he condemn the killing of animals, he also expressed his disapproval of agriculture, because the plough gives pain to the earth and causes death of many tiny creatures living in the soil—apart from the forced labour it took from bullocks and slaves! As for animal sacrifices, he said they had been started by greedy priests. The true sacrifice was the sacrifice performed by the mind, and if there had to be sacrifices at all, people should use herbs and fruits and balls of rice. Nor did he believe in pilgrimages. There was no need to wander all over the land, visiting sacred rivers and mountains. There was no place so holy as the soul itself.

Jajali was indignant. He told the holder of the scales, as he called him, that he was an atheist! How were men to live if they did not plough the ground? Where would they get food? And as for sacrifices, the world would come to an end if we gave them up.

The shopkeeper declared that if only men would go back to the real teaching of the Vedas, they would find that there was no need to plough the ground. In ancient days the earth yielded all that was required. Herbs and plants grew of themselves.

Despite the strength of the shopkeeper’s arguments, the ascetic was not convinced. We are told that both he and the shopkeeper died not long afterwards, and that each went to his own particular heaven—their heavens being as different as were their ways of life.

A
LONG TIME
ago, when animals could talk, there lived in a forest four wise creatures—a hare, a jackal, an otter and a monkey.

They were good friends, and every evening they would sit together in a forest glade to discuss the events of the day, exchange advice, and make good resolutions. The hare was the noblest and wisest of the four. He believed in the superiority of men and women, and was always telling his friends tales of human goodness and wisdom.

One evening, when the moon rose in the sky—and in those days the moon’s face was clear and unmarked—the hare looked up at it carefully and said: ‘Tomorrow good men will observe a fast, for I can see that it will be the middle of the month. They will eat no food before sunset, and during the day they will give alms to any beggar or holy man who may meet them. Let us promise to do the same. In that way, we can come a little closer to human beings in dignity and wisdom.’

The others agreed, and then went their different ways.

Next day, the otter got up, stretched himself, and was preparing to get his breakfast when he remembered the vow he had taken with his friends.

If I keep my word, how hungry I shall be by evening! he thought. I’d better make sure that there’s plenty to eat once the fast is over. He set off towards the river.

A fisherman had caught several large fish early that morning, and had buried them in the sand, planning to return for them later. The otter soon smelt them out.

‘A supper all ready for me!’ he said to himself. ‘But since it’s a holy day, I mustn’t steal.’ Instead he called out: ‘Does anyone own this fish?’

There being no answer, the otter carried the fish off to his home, setting it aside for his evening meal. Then he locked his front door and slept all through the day, undisturbed by beggars or holy men asking for alms.

Both the monkey and the jackal felt much the same way when they got up that morning. They remembered their vows but thought it best to have something put by for the evening. The jackal found some stale meat in someone’s back yard. Ah, that should improve with age, he thought, and took it home for his evening meal. And the monkey climbed a mango tree and picked a bunch of mangoes. Like the otter, they decided to sleep through the day.

The hare woke early. Shaking his long ears, he came out of his burrow and sniffed the dew-drenched grass.

When evening comes, I can have my fill of grass, he thought. But if a beggar or holy man comes my way, what can I give him? I cannot offer him grass, and I have nothing else to give. I shall have to offer myself. Most men seem to relish the flesh of the hare. We’re good to eat, I’m told. And pleased with this solution to the problem, he scampered off.

Now the God Sakka had been resting on a cloud not far away, and he had heard the hare speaking aloud.

‘I will test him,’ said the god. ‘Surely no hare can be so noble and unselfish.’

Towards evening, God Sakka descended from his cloud, and assuming the form of an old priest, he sat down near the hare’s burrow. When the animal came home from his romp, he said: ‘Good evening, little hare. Can you give me something to eat? I have been fasting all day, and am so hungry that I cannot pray.’

The hare, remembering his vow, said: ‘Is it true that men enjoy eating the flesh of the hare?’

‘Quite true,’ said the priest.

‘In that case,’ said the hare, ‘since I have no other food to offer you, you can make a meal of me.’

‘But I am a holy man, and this is a holy day, and I may not kill any living creature with my own hands.’

‘Then collect some dry sticks and set them alight. I will leap into the flames myself, and when I am roasted you can eat me.’

God Sakka marvelled at these words, but he was still not quite convinced, so he caused a fire to spring up from the earth. The hare, without any hesitation, jumped into the flames.

‘What’s happening?’ called the hare after a while. ‘The fire surrounds me, but not a hair of my coat is singed. In fact, I’m feeling quite cold!’

As the hare spoke, the fire died down, and he found himself sitting on the cool sweet grass. Instead of the old priest, there stood before him the God Sakka in all his radiance.

‘I am God Sakka, little hare, and having heard your vow, I wanted to test your sincerity. Such unselfishness of yours deserves immortality. It must be known throughout the world.’

God Sakka then stretched out his hand towards the mountain, and drew from it some of the essence which ran in its veins. This he threw towards the moon, which had just risen, and instantly the outline of the hare appeared on the moon’s surface.

Then leaving the hare in a bed of sweet grass, he said: ‘For ever and ever, little hare, you shall look down from the moon upon the world, to remind men of the old truth, “Give to others, and the gods will give to you.’’’