A Song for Lost Friends | Ruskin Bond | DeKoder

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:02]A song for lost friends. The past is always with us, for it feeds the present. As a boy, I stood on the edge of the railway cutting, outside the dark tunnel, my hands touching the hot rails, waiting for them to tremble at the coming of the noonday train. The whistle of the engine hung on the forest silence. Then, out of the tunnel, a green-gold dragon came plunging, thundering past, out of the tunnel, out of the grinning dark. And the train rolled on every day. Hundreds of people coming or going or running away.

[00:00:42]Goodbye, goodbye. I haven't seen you again, bright boy at the carriage window, waving to me, calling. But I've loved you all these years and looked for you everywhere, in cities and villages, beside the sea, in the mountains, [music] in crowds, in distant places, returning always to the forest silence, to watch the windows of some passing train. My father took me by the hand and led me among the ruins of old forts and palaces. We lived in a tent near the tomb of Humayun, among old trees. Now, multi-storied blocks rise from the plain, tomorrow's ruins. You can explore them, my son, when the trees take over again, and the thorn apple grows in empty windows. There were seven cities before. [music] Nothing my father said could bring my mother home. She had gone with another. He took me to the hills in a small train, the engine having palpitations as it toiled up the steep slopes [music] peopled with pines and rhododendrons, through tunnels to Simla, boarding school. He came to see me in the holidays. We caught butterflies together. Next year, he said, "When the war is over, we'll go to England." But wars are never over, and I have yet to go to England with my father. He died that year, and I was dispatched to my mother and stepfather, a long journey through a dark tunnel. No one met me at the station, so I wandered round Dehra in a tonga looking for a house with litchi trees. She'd written to say there were litchis in the garden, but in Dehra all the houses had litchi trees. The tonga driver charged five rupees for taking me back to the station. They were looking for me on the platform. We thought the train would be late as usual. It had arrived on time, upsetting everyone's schedule. In my new home, I found a new baby and a new pram. "Your little brother," they said, which made me a hundred. But he, too, was left behind with the servants when my mother and Mr. H went hunting or danced late at the casino, our only wartime nightclub.

[00:03:00]Lonely in the house with the servants and the child and books I'd read twice and my father's letters, treasured secretly in the small trunk beneath my bed. I wrote to him once but did not post the letter for fear it might come back, "Return to sender." One day I slipped into the guava orchard next door. It really belonged to Seth Hari Kishor, who'd gone to the Ganga on a pilgrimage. The guavas were ripe and ready for boys to steal, always sweeter [music] when stolen. And a bare leg thrust at me as I climbed. "There's only room for one," came a voice. I looked up at a boy who had blackberry eyes and guava juice on his chin. Grabbed at him, and we both tumbled out of the tree onto the ragged December grass. We rolled and fought, but not for long. A gardener came shouting, and we broke and ran over the gate and down the road and across the fields and a dry riverbed into the shades of afternoon. "Why didn't you run home?" he said. "Why didn't [music] you?" "There's no one there. My mother's out." "And mine's at home." His mother was Burmese, his father an English soldier killed in the war. They were waiting for it to be over. Every day beyond the gardens we loafed. Time was suspended for a time. On heavy wings, ringed pheasants rose at our approach.

[00:04:26]The fields were yellow with mustard.

[00:04:28]Parrots wheeled in the sunshine, dipped and disappeared into the morning mist on the foothills. We found a pool fed by a freshet of cold spring water. "One day when we are men," he said, "we'll meet here at the pool again. Promise?"

[00:04:44]"Promise," I said, and we took a pledge in blood, nicking our fingers on a penknife, and pressing them to each other's lips, sweet, salty kiss. Late evening, past cow dust time, we trudged home. He to his mother, I to my dinner.

[00:05:01]One winning, dancing night, I thought I'd stay out, too. We went to the pictures, Gone with the Wind, a crashing bore for boys, and it finished late, so I had dinner with them, and his mother said, "It's past 10. You'd better stay the night, but will they miss you?" I did not answer, but climbed into my friend's bed. I'd never slept with anyone before, except my father.

[00:05:26]And when it grew cold after midnight, he put his arms around me and looped a leg over mine, and it was nice that way.

[00:05:37]But I stayed awake with the niceness of it.

[00:05:41]My sleep stolen by his own deep slumber.

[00:05:46]What dreams were lost, I'll never know.

[00:05:51]But next morning, just as we'd started breakfast, a car drew up, and my parents, outraged, chastised [music] me for staying out and hustled me home.

[00:06:03]Breakfast unfinished, my friend unhappy, my pride wounded.

[00:06:09]We met sometimes, but a constraint had grown upon us.

[00:06:15]And the following month, I heard he'd gone to an orphanage in Kalimpong. [music] I remember you well, old banyan tree, as you stood there spreading quietly over the broken wall.

[00:06:31]While adults slept, I crept away down the broad veranda steps, around the outhouse and the melon ground.

[00:06:41]In that winter of long ago, >> [music] >> I roamed the faded garden of my mother's home.

[00:06:49]I must have known that giants have few friends. The great lurk shyly in their private dens.

[00:06:57]And found you hidden by a thick green wall of aerial roots.

[00:07:03]Intruder in your pillared den, I stood and shyly touched your old and wizened wood.

[00:07:12]And as my heart explored you, giant tree, [music] I heard you singing.

[00:07:19]The spirit of [music] the tree became my friend, took me to his silent, throbbing heart, and taught me the value of stillness.

[00:07:29]My first tutor, friend of the lonely.

[00:07:35]And the second was the tonga man whose pony cart came rattling along the road under the furthest arch of the banyan [music] tree.

[00:07:45]Looking up, he waved his whip at me and laughing called, "Who lives up there?"

[00:07:51]"I do." I said.

[00:07:54]And the next time he came along, he stopped the tonga and asked me if I felt lonely in the tree.

[00:08:01]"Only sometimes." I said.

[00:08:04]"When the tree is thinking."

[00:08:07]"I never think." [music] he said.

[00:08:09]"You won't feel lonely with me."

[00:08:11]And with a flick of the reins, he rattled away.

[00:08:14]With a promise he'd give me a ride someday.

[00:08:18]And from him I learned the value of promises kept.