1. It was Somi's idea that we meet at the pool in ten years time. “When we are men, we must come back to this place, ten years from today,” he said. “Rusty, at midday on 5 April 1964, we must return to the pool, no matter where we are, or what we are doing. Promise?” It was a school boy's pledge, and made in deadly earnest. As boys, we usually mean the things we say. . And so we shook hands on it and dived back into the water.
2. The pool had been discovered by me a few months earlier. I remember that it was going to rain... I could see the rain moving across the foothills, and I could smell it on the breeze. But instead of turning homewards, I pushed my way through the leaves and brambles that grew across the forest path. I had heard the murmur of water and I wanted to see and touch it. Sliding down the rockface into a small ravine, I found a stream running over a bed of shingle. Water trickled down from the hillside, from amongst ferns and grasses and wild primroses. The rocks beside the stream were smooth, and some of them were grey and some yellow. A small waterfall came down the rocks and formed a deep pool of apple-green water.
3. When I saw the pool, I ran back to town to tell the others. Anil and Somi were my closest friends. Anil lived in a crowded lane of the Dilaram Bazaar. He was wild and a little dangerous, subject to moods and impulses. Somi was sensitive and gentle in his ways, but common with Anil he had a sense of fun and an instinct for adventure. The pool was my own discovery, and I was proud of it. "We'll call it Rusty pool", said Somi.