Part 7 (1/2)
Sunder Singh stood inside the tunnel, tr.i.m.m.i.n.g his lamp. The night sounds were familiar to him and he did not give them much thought; but something else-a padded footfall, a rustle of dry leaves-made him stand still for a few seconds, peering into the darkness. Then, humming softly to himself, he returned to where Suraj was waiting. Ten minutes remained for the night mail to arrive.
As Sunder Singh sat down on the cot beside Suraj, a new sound reached both of them quite distinctly-a rhythmic sawing sound, as of someone cutting through the branch of a tree.
'What's that?' whispered Suraj.
'It's the leopard,' said Sunder Singh. 'I think it's in the tunnel.'
'The train will soon be here,' said Suraj.
'Yes, my friend. And if we don't drive the leopard out of the tunnel, it will be run over and killed. I can't let that happen.'
'But won't it attack us if we try to drive it out?' asked Suraj, beginning to share the watchman's concern.
'Not this leopard. It knows me well. We have seen each other many times. It has a weakness for goats and stray dogs, but it will not harm us. Even so, I'll take my axe with me. You stay here, Suraj.'
'No, I'm coming with you. It will be better than sitting here alone in the dark!'
'All right, but stay close behind me. And remember, there is nothing to fear.'
Raising his lamp, Sunder Singh advanced into the tunnel, shouting at the top of his voice to try and scare away the animal. Suraj followed close behind; but he found he was unable to do any shouting. His throat was quite dry.
They had gone about twenty paces into the tunnel when the light from the lamp fell upon the leopard. It was crouching between the tracks, only five metres away from them. It was not a very big leopard, but it looked lithe and sinewy. Baring its teeth and snarling, it went down on its belly, tail twitching.
Suraj and Sunder Singh both shouted together. Their voices rang through the tunnel. And the leopard, uncertain as to how many terrifying humans were there in the tunnel with him, turned swiftly and disappeared into the darkness.
To make sure that it had gone, Sunder Singh and Suraj walked the length of the tunnel. When they returned to the entrance, the rails were beginning to hum. They knew the train was coming.
Suraj put his hand to one of the rails and felt its tremor. He heard the distant rumble of the train. And then the engine came round the bend, hissing at them, scattering sparks into the darkness, defying the jungle as it roared through the steep sides of the cutting. It charged straight at the tunnel, and into it, thundering past Suraj like the beautiful dragon of his dreams.
And when it had gone, the silence returned and the forest seemed to breathe, to live again. Only the rails still trembled with the pa.s.sing of the train.
They trembled again to the pa.s.sing of the same train, almost a week later, when Suraj and his father were both travelling in it.
Suraj's father was scribbling in a notebook, doing his accounts. Suraj sat at an open window staring out at the darkness. His father was going to Delhi on a business trip and had decided to take the boy along. ('I don't know where he gets to, most of the time,' he'd complained. 'I think it's time he learnt something about my business.') The night mail rushed through the forest with its hundreds of pa.s.sengers. The carriage wheels beat out a steady rhythm on the rails. Tiny flickering lights came and went, as they pa.s.sed small villages on the fringe of the jungle.
Suraj heard the rumble as the train pa.s.sed over a small bridge. It was too dark to see the hut near the cutting, but he knew they must be approaching the tunnel. He strained his eyes looking out into the night; and then, just as the engine let out a shrill whistle, Suraj saw the lamp.
He couldn't see Sunder Singh, but he saw the lamp, and he knew that his friend was out there.
The train went into the tunnel and out again; it left the jungle behind and thundered across the endless plains.
Suraj stared out at the darkness, thinking of the lonely cutting in the forest and the watchman with the lamp who would always remain a firefly for those travelling thousands as he lit up the darkness for steam engines and leopards.
The Kitemaker.
THERE WAS BUT one tree in the street known as Gali Ram Nath-an ancient banyan that had grown through the cracks of an abandoned mosque-and little Ali's kite was caught in its branches. The boy, barefoot and clad only in a torn s.h.i.+rt, ran along the cobbled stones of the narrow street to where his grandfather sat nodding dreamily in the suns.h.i.+ne in their back courtyard.
'Grandfather,' shouted the boy. 'My kite has gone!'
The old man woke from his daydream with a start and, raising his head, displayed a beard that would have been white had it not been dyed red with mehendi leaves.
'Did the twine break?' he asked. 'I know that kite twine is not what it used to be.'
'No, Grandfather, the kite is stuck in the banyan tree.'
The old man chuckled. 'You have yet to learn how to fly a kite properly, my child. And I am too old to teach you, that's the pity of it. But you shall have another.'
He had just finished making a new kite from bamboo, paper and thin silk, and it lay in the sun, firming up. It was a pale pink kite, with a small green tail. The old man handed it to Ali, and the boy raised himself on his toes and kissed his grandfather's hollowed-out cheek.
'I will not lose this one,' he said. 'This kite will fly like a bird.' And he turned on his heels and skipped out of the courtyard.
The old man remained dreaming in the sun. His kite shop was gone, the premises long since sold to a junk dealer; but he still made kites, for his own amus.e.m.e.nt and for the benefit of his grandson, Ali. Not many people bought kites these days. Adults disdained them, and children preferred to spend their money at the cinema. Moreover, there were not many open s.p.a.ces left for the flying of kites. The city had swallowed up the open gra.s.sland that had stretched from the old fort's walls to the river bank.
But the old man remembered a time when grown men flew kites, and great battles were fought, the kites swerving and swooping in the sky, tangling with each other until the string of one was severed. Then the defeated but liberated kite would float away into the blue unknown. There was a good deal of betting, and money frequently changed hands.
Kite flying was then the sport of kings, and the old man remembered how the Nawab himself would come down to the riverside with his retinue to partic.i.p.ate in this n.o.ble pastime. There was time, then, to spend an idle hour with a gay, dancing strip of paper. Now everyone hurried, in a heat of hope, and delicate things like kites and daydreams were trampled underfoot.
He, Mehmood the kitemaker, had in the prime of his life been well known throughout the city. Some of his more elaborate kites once sold for as much as three or four rupees each.
At the request of the Nawab he had once made a very special kind of kite, unlike any that had been seen in the district. It consisted of a series of small, very light paper disks trailing on a thin bamboo frame. To the end of each disk he fixed a sprig of gra.s.s, forming a balance on both sides. The surface of the foremost disk was slightly convex, and a fantastic face was painted on it, having two eyes made of small mirrors. The disks, decreasing in size from head to tail, a.s.sumed an undulatory form and gave the kite the appearance of a crawling serpent. It required great skill to raise this c.u.mbersome device from the ground, and only Mehmood could manage it.
Everyone had heard of the 'Dragon Kite' that Mehmood had built, and word went round that it possessed supernatural powers. A large crowd a.s.sembled in the open to watch its first public launching in the presence of the Nawab.
At the first attempt it refused to leave the ground. The disks made a plaintive, protesting sound, and the sun was trapped in the little mirrors, making the kite a living, complaining creature. Then the wind came from the right direction, and the Dragon Kite soared into the sky, wriggling its way higher and higher, the sun still glinting in its devil eyes. And when it went very high, it pulled fiercely at the twine, and Mehmood's young sons had to help him with the reel. Still the kite pulled, determined to be free, to break loose, to live a life of its own. And eventually it did so.
The twine snapped, the kite leaped away towards the sun, sailing on heavenward until it was lost to view. It was never found again, and Mehmood wondered afterwards if he had made too vivid, too living a thing of the great kite. He did not make another like it. Instead he presented to the Nawab a musical kite, one that made a sound like a violin when it rose into the air.
Those were more leisurely, more s.p.a.cious days. But the Nawab had died years ago, and his descendants were almost as poor as Mehmood himself. Kitemakers, like poets, once had their patrons; but now no one knew Mehmood, simply because there were too many people in the Gali, and they could not be bothered with their neighbours.
When Mehmood was younger and had fallen sick, everyone in the neighbourhood had come to ask after his health; but now, when his days were drawing to a close, no one visited him. Most of his old friends were dead and his sons had grown up: one was working in a local garage and the other, who was in Pakistan at the time of the Part.i.tion, had not been able to rejoin his relatives.
The children who had bought kites from him ten years ago were now grown men, struggling for a living; they did not have time for the old man and his memories. They had grown up in a swiftly changing and compet.i.tive world, and they looked at the old kitemaker and the banyan tree with the same indifference.
Both were taken for granted-permanent fixtures that were of no concern to the raucous, sweating ma.s.s of humanity that surrounded them. No longer did people gather under the banyan tree to discuss their problems and their plans; only in the summer months did a few seek shelter from the fierce sun.
But there was the boy, his grandson. It was good that Mehmood's son worked close by, for it gladdened the old man's heart to watch the small boy at play in the winter suns.h.i.+ne, growing under his eyes like a young and well-nourished sapling putting forth new leaves each day. There is a great affinity between trees and men. We grow at much the same pace, if we are not hurt or starved or cut down. In our youth we are resplendent creatures, and in our declining years we stoop a little, we remember, we stretch our brittle limbs in the sun, and then, with a sigh, we shed our last leaves.
Mehmood was like the banyan, his hands gnarled and twisted like the roots of the ancient tree. Ali was like the young mimosa planted at the end of the courtyard. In two years, both he and the tree would acquire the strength and confidence of their early youth.
The voices in the street grew fainter, and Mehmood wondered if he was going to fall asleep and dream, as he so often did, of a kite so beautiful and powerful that it would resemble the great white bird of the Hindus-Garuda, G.o.d Vishnu's famous steed. He would like to make a wonderful new kite for little Ali. He had nothing else to leave the boy.
He heard Ali's voice in the distance, but did not realize that the boy was calling him. The voice seemed to come from very far away.
Ali was at the courtyard door, asking if his mother had as yet returned from the bazaar. When Mehmood did not answer, the boy came forward repeating his question. The sunlight was slanting across the old man's head, and a small white b.u.t.terfly rested on his flowing beard. Mehmood was silent; and when Ali put his small brown hand on the old man's shoulder, he met with no response. The boy heard a faint sound, like the rubbing of marbles in his pocket.