The Night Train at Deoli and Other Stories - Ruskin Bond

1 Ruskin BONDThe Night Train at Deoliand Other StoriesPENGUIN BOOKSPENGUIN BOOKSTHE Night Train AT Deoli AND Other STORIESR uskin Bond was born in Kasauli in 1934. He has written several novels, shortstories and books for children in the course of a long writing career. The Room onthe Roof (also published by Penguin), written when the author was only 17, won theJohn Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize in Bond lives in D thanks for the memoryIntroductionGentle Reader,I use the old-fashioned term to address you, because I like it and because I know thatonly the more gentle kind of person is likely to care much for my have never been any good at the more lurid sort of writing. Psychopathic killers,impotent war-heroes, self-tortured film stars, and seedy espionage agents must existin this world, but strangely enough, I do not come across them, and I prefer to writeabout the people and places I have known and the lives of those whose paths I havecrossed.

2 This crossing of paths makes for Stories rather than novels, and although Ihave worked in both mediums, I am happier being a short-story writer than there is too much of me in my Stories , and at times this book may readlike an autobiography. It is a weakness, I know. It can t be helped; I am that kind of awriter, that kind of a back over the thirty years that I have been writing, I find to my surprisethat I have written a number of love Stories ; or perhaps they are all love Stories , ofone kind or another. In fact, I can t really write unless I am in love with my weakness, according to those who make up the rules for literature. But Ihave never gone by the rules. Romance brought up the nine-fifteen, wrote Kipling, and I find that in the storiesI wrote in the 1950 s (when I was in my teens and in my twenties) there is a gooddeal of romance, often associated with trains.

3 People are always travelling in themand going all over the place, but just occasionally two people meet, their pathscross, and though they may part again quite soon (as in The Woman on Platform 8 and The Eyes Have It ), their lives have been changed in some indefinable the hero (if I may use such a term) tries to prevent that moment frompassing (as in The Night Train at Deoli ), but it is only the very strong among uswho can alter events, change trains so to speak, and very often cause a derailment. The Night Train at Deoli is a favourite with many of my younger readers; thatlonging for something, someone, just out of reach, is familiar to is a representative collection of my Stories selected by David Davidar fromwhat I have written over the years.

4 The early ones were written in Dehra Dun, when Iwas a young man struggling to make a living as a freelance writer. In the 1960 s,after a spell of office work in Delhi, I moved to the hill-station of Mussoorie, andmany of the Stories written in this period were, in fact, character studies of people Ihad known, although occasionally, as in Bus Stop, Pipalnagar, I went back to theyears of struggle and youthful we grow older, despair and disillusion assail many of us. Our early hopes anddreams have been trodden in the dust. But I have always sought to buoy myself up bythe sentiments embodied in an old-fashioned verse passed on me by my father*:The pure, the bright, the beautiful,That stirred our hearts in youth,The impulse to a wordless prayer,The dreams of love and truth;The longings after something lost,The spirit s yearning cry,The striving after better hopes.

5 These things can never longings after something lost. Perhaps that is the dominant theme in my is a longing that has been experienced by all of us at various times in our livesunless one has become desensitized by power and longing, the yearning, is there in the early Stories and it is there in the laterstories. In the 1970 s, when I found myself being weighed down by both personaland professional problems, I turned to writing for children, and this helped me tofind a way out of my difficulties. Sita and the River became Angry River and alsoended up in several European languages; so did Panther s Moon and a number ofstories that are not included here because this is not a children s collection. Inwriting for children one has to adopt a less subjective approach; things musthappen, for boys and girls have no time for mood pieces.

6 So this kind of writingdoes help me to get away from myself. At the same time, because I have so strongan empathy with children, I can enter into their minds when I am writing about children we are all individualists; it is only as we grow older that we acquire acertain grey similarity to each I still return to the old themes from time to time. A Love of Long Ago waswritten even as this book was being prepared for the press. Some of the old longinghad returned. When I had finished the story, I thought, Well that s it. I am fifty-fournow. No more love Stories , and no more falling in love .. But then, on my wayhome in the twilight, walking through the streets I had known as a boy I met this girlwith the most beautiful smile in the world.

7 She was trying to find a bus toYamunanagar. But I ll tell you about it another March 1988 Ruskin BondThe Woman on Platform 8It was my second year at boarding-school, and I was sitting on platform no. 8 atAmbala station, waiting for the northern bound Train . I think I was about twelve atthe time. My parents considered me old enough to travel alone, and I had arrived bybus at Ambala early in the evening: now there was a wait till midnight before mytrain arrived. Most of the time I had been pacing up and down the platform,browsing at the book-stall, or feeding broken biscuits to stray dogs; trains came andwent, and the platform would be quiet for a while and then, when a Train arrived, itwould be an inferno of heaving, shouting, agitated human bodies.

8 As the carriagedoors opened, a tide of people would sweep down upon the nervous little ticket-collector at the gate; and every time this happened I would be caught in the rush andswept outside the station. Now tired of this game and of ambling about the platform,I sat down on my suitcase and gazed dismally across the rolled past me, and I was conscious of the cries of the various vendors the men who sold curds and lemon, the sweet-meat-seller, the newspaper boy but I had lost interest in all that went on along the busy platform, and continued tostare across the railway-tracks, feeling bored and a little lonely. Are you all alone, my son? asked a soft voice close behind looked up and saw a woman standing near me. She was leaning over, and I saw apale face, and dark kind eyes.

9 She wore no jewels, and was dressed very simply in awhite sari. Yes, I am going to school, I said, and stood up respectfully; she seemed poor,but there was a dignity about her that commanded respect. I have been watching you for some time, she said. Didn t your parents come tosee you off? I don t live here, I said. I had to change trains. Anyway, I can travel alone. I am sure you can, she said, and I liked her for saying that, and I also liked herfor the simplicity of her dress, and for her deep, soft voice and the serenity of herface. Tell me, what is your name? she asked. Arun, I said. And how long do you have to wait for your Train ? About an hour, I think. It comes at twelve o clock. Then come with me and have something to eat.

10 I was going to refuse, out of shyness and suspicion, but she took me by the hand,and then I felt it would be silly to pull my hand away. She told a coolie to look aftermy suitcase, and then she led me away down the platform. Her hand was gentle, andshe held mine neither too firmly nor too lightly. I looked up at her again. She wasnot young. And she was not old. She must have been over thirty but, had she beenfifty, I think she would have looked much the took me into the station dining-room, ordered tea and samosas and jalebies,and at once I began to thaw and take a new interest in this kind woman. The strangeencounter had little effect on my appetite. I was a hungry school boy, and I ate asmuch as I could in as polite a manner as possible.