An extract from 'Tales of Fosterganj'

Tales of Fosterganj

RUSKIN BOND

The rain ceases, and a bird’s clear song suddenly announces the difference between Heaven and hell.

—Thomas Merton

~

A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small parcel.

—John Ruskin

Foster of Fosterganj .....................................................................................................

Straddling a spur of the Mussoorie range, as it dips into the Doon valley, Fosterganj came into existence some two hundred years ago and was almost immediately forgotten. And today it is not very different from what it was in 1961, when I lived there briefly.

A quiet corner, where I could live like a recluse and write my stories—that was what I was looking for. And in Fosterganj I thought I’d found my retreat: a cluster of modest cottages, a straggling little bazaar, a post office, a crumbling castle (supposedly haunted), a mountain stream at the bottom of the hill, a winding footpath that took you either uphill or down. What more could one ask for? It reminded me a little of an English village, and indeed that was what it had once been; a tiny settlement on the outskirts of the larger hill station. But the British had long since gone, and the residents were now a fairly mixed lot, as we shall see.

I forget what took me to Fosterganj in the first place.

Destiny, perhaps; although I’m not sure why destiny would have bothered to guide an itinerant writer to an obscure hamlet in the hills. Chance would be a better word. For

chance plays a great part in all our lives. And it was just by chance that I found myself in the Fosterganj bazaar one fine morning early in May. The oaks and maples were in new leaf; geraniums flourished on sunny balconies; a boy delivering milk whistled a catchy Dev Anand song; a mule train clattered down the street. The chill of winter had gone and there was warmth in the sunshine that played upon old walls.

I sat in a teashop, tested my teeth on an old bun, and washed it down with milky tea. The bun had been around for some time, but so had I, so we were quits. At the age of forty I could digest almost anything.

The teashop owner, Melaram, was a friendly sort, as are most teashop owners. He told me that not many tourists made their way down to Fosterganj. The only attraction was the waterfall, and you had to be fairly fit in order to scramble down the steep and narrow path that led to the ravine where a little stream came tumbling over the rocks. I would visit it one day, I told him.

‘Then you should stay here a day or two,’ said Melaram.

‘Explore the stream. Walk down to Rajpur. You’ll need a good walking stick. Look, I have several in my shop. Cherry wood, walnut wood, oak.’ He saw me wavering. ‘You’ll also need one to climb the next hill—it’s called Pari Tibba.’ I was charmed by the name—Fairy Hill.

I hadn’t planned on doing much walking that day—the walk down to Fosterganj from Mussoorie had already taken almost an hour—but I liked the look of a sturdy cherry-wood 2

Tales of Fosterganj

walking stick, and I bought one for two rupees. Those were the days of simple living. You don’t see two-rupee notes any more. You don’t see walking sticks either. Hardly anyone walks.

I strolled down the small bazaar, without having to worry about passing cars and lorries or a crush of people. Two or three schoolchildren were sauntering home, burdened by their school bags bursting with homework. A cow and a couple of stray dogs examined the contents of an overflowing dustbin. A policeman sitting on a stool outside a tiny police outpost yawned, stretched, stood up, looked up and down the street in anticipation of crimes to come, scratched himself in the anal region and sank back upon his stool.

A man in a crumpled shirt and threadbare trousers came up to me, looked me over with his watery grey eyes, and said, ‘Sir, would you like to buy some gladioli bulbs?’ He held up a basket full of bulbs which might have been onions. His chin was covered with a grey stubble, some of his teeth were missing, the remaining ones yellow with neglect.

‘No, thanks,’ I said. ‘I live in a tiny flat in Delhi. No room for flowers.’

‘A world without flowers,’ he shook his head. ‘That’s what it’s coming to.’

‘And where do you plant your bulbs?’

‘I grow gladioli, sir, and sell the bulbs to good people like you. My name’s Foster. I own the lands all the way down to the waterfall.’

For a landowner he did not look very prosperous. But his Foster of Fosterganj

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name intrigued me. ‘Isn’t this area called Fosterganj?’ I asked.

‘That’s right. My grandfather was the first to settle here.

He was a grandson of Bonnie Prince Charlie who fought the British at Bannockburn. I’m the last Foster of Fosterganj.

Are you sure you won’t buy my daffodil bulbs?’

‘I thought you said they were gladioli.’

‘Some gladioli, some daffodils.’

They looked like onions to me, but to make him happy I parted with two rupees (which seemed the going rate in Fosterganj) and relieved him of his basket of bulbs. Foster shuffled off, looking a bit like Chaplin’s tramp but not half as dapper. He clearly needed the two rupees. Which made me feel less foolish about spending money that I should have held on to. Writers were poor in those days. Though I didn’t feel poor.

Back at the teashop I asked Melaram if Foster really owned a lot of land.

‘He has a broken-down cottage and the right-of-way. He charges people who pass through his property. Spends all the money on booze. No one owns the hillside, it’s government land. Reserved forest. But everyone builds on it.’

Just as well, I thought, as I returned to town with my basket of onions. Who wanted another noisy hill station?

One Mall Road was more than enough. Back in my hotel room, I was about to throw the bulbs away, but on second thoughts decided to keep them. After all, even an onion makes a handsome plant.

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Tales of Fosterganj