In my mind

Lacking my love, I go from place to place,
Like a young fawn that late hath lost the hind;
And seek eachwhere, where last I saw her face,
Whose image yet I carry fresh in mind.

I seek the fields with her late footing signed;
I seek her bower with her late presence decked;
Yet nor in field nor bower I her can find,
Yet field and bower are full of her aspect.

But when mine eyes I thereunto direct,
They idly back return to me again;
And when I hope to see their true object;
I find myself but fed with fancies vain.

Cease then, mine eyes, to seek herself to see;
And let my thoughts behold herself in me.

- Edmund Spencer

They tied her on to the makeshift stretcher of bamboos, so that she didn’t fall off while they carry her to the crematorium. But what they tied up on to the stretcher wasn’t a person. She had long gone, leaving just the body. Gone to look at us from above and silently hope we would get on with our lives instead of wasting time moaning for her.

I could see her now, sitting on her easy-chair, with her legs stretched in front of her, looking at me and waiting impatiently. I looked at her, then looked at the body, and then again at her. I could feel the tears forming in my eyes. But I was afraid of my grandmother seeing it. She would become uneasy, shift around in her chair and say, ‘What nonsense is this? No need for those unnecessary tears. There are so many people in your house, go and make some tea or something for them. Be a good host.’ But I couldn’t move; I just stared at her. By this time, they had lifted the body on to their shoulders and begun walking out. There was no reason for me to stand there any longer so I ran back in to the house. I locked myself and cried my heart out.

Where is she? Is she already taking another shape to enter in to this world again? Or is she waiting for us to live out our lives, so that she can look over us?

‘You let me go.’ She said.

‘What do you mean?’ I replied.

‘I was waiting for you, to come and smile at me once before I went. You hadn’t come to see me in a while and I was beginning to miss you.’ She paused. ‘I hated not being able to speak. I wanted to say so many things. It took me almost a year and a half to accept that I will no longer be able to tell all of you, what to do and how, anymore.' She grinned and then went on, 'I had decided its time I leave and take the burden off you all. I had become quite a liability by the end.’

‘No!’ I yelled, ‘Nobody ever said you were a liability. We never complained. How could you think we didn’t want you any longer?’

‘There will never be a time that you wouldn’t want me. Even when you had to care for me like an infant, you never complained. But I had to take the decision because I realized just how much you did for me, and I was thankful for it.’

‘But I don’t want you to go. I don’t want to live without seeing you everyday.’

‘Then why did you sing?’

I could not answer that. Tears ran down my cheek, unnoticed, as I stared at the floor. My heart felt like a heavy lump that was stuck in the middle of a tornado. I felt the walls pressing against my ears. Before I could comprehend what was happening to me, I fell on to my bed, scarcely breathing. The voice wasn’t mine when it spoke, ‘I sang because I wanted your pain to go away. So that you stopped struggling for air and feel calm.’ I sat up and felt my senses coming back. ‘You used to say that singing made your headache go away. So I thought if I sang, your suffering would go away.’ This made sense. ‘So that you would stop struggling,’ I realized what had happened, ‘so that you go in peace.’

I tried to recollect what I had sung to her. But I couldn’t remember. I remembered my uncle trying to find her vein so that he can give her saline. I remembered wiping her forehead as she heaved again and again trying to breathe in some air. I remembered holding her hand, kissing her forehead, trying to look brave and strong. I remembered the tension and fear I saw in the others’ eyes. It was then that I realized there was nothing anybody could do to make her any more comfortable. I noticed my uncle giving up hope with the saline. Then I looked at her and a tune burst out of my mouth. I do not know where it came from or how I could sing at such a time. There was nothing I could do to stop it, so I continued humming the tune. It wasn’t a song or anything I knew but I saw the change on her face almost immediately. I saw her relaxing a little. She stopped trying as hard as she was before. I felt a strange kind of relief. I saw my uncle shaking his head, I knew what that meant. But it did not bother me so much. I looked at her again. She was still trying to breathe but it was as if she had lost interest. I did not stop singing; not until I thought she had stopped trying. I thought it was over then. But I saw her move again. And I felt a little balloon blow up inside me when I saw her breathe her last. The balloon seemed to float inside me, it made me relax but I felt uneasy. Someone in the room said into their phone, ‘It’s over.’ The words echoed in my mind and the balloon burst so suddenly, that for a moment I was disoriented. When I did get a grip on myself, I saw all around me a lot of disoriented minds, pretending to be calm and composed. I joined in.

‘You let me go.’ The voice shook me out of my reverie. ‘I didn’t want you to suffer.’ I replied.

‘Well, you succeeded in pulling me out of my miseries.’ She said. 'Don’t ever stop singing.’

Just as she said that, something cold hit my face. ‘Will I ever see you again?’ I asked, but there was no reply. I didn’t need a reply. The tears kept coming but the grief had passed. The tornado inside me that held my heart captive was calming down. It was only then that I heard the knocking on the door. When I opened the door, my mother stood outside, looking at me with concern dripping down her eyes. ‘Are you ok?’ she asked. ‘Almost.’ I said and hugged her tight.

‘I will be soon.’

A month later, I sat at my desk staring at the stack of books, diaries and papers in front of me. I picked a diary up and flipped through its pages. Everything was written in Malayalam and I could barely understand it. But I knew what was written. I knew what every page contained. I knew the story that each page could tell. I stopped at one page, in which I found my hand-writing. It was a Malayalam song that I had written in Hindi.

“I met this man at the Narayaneeyam yesterday; very chatty and rather irritating. But he had so many songs and poems and he sang pretty well.” She just couldn’t stop, could she?

“What song did he give you?”

She laughed as she stretched herself on the easy-chair. “It’s a beautiful song. I want you to sing it at the temple for the Onam celebrations.” She noticed I was going to protest. “Don’t worry it is very easy. It won’t even take you a day to learn it. I wont ask you to come practice or anything either. Just learn the tune and practice it at home. That’s all. It’s a really nice song and I really want it sung in the temple.”

I looked at her and her eyes confirmed that she does not mean to take a ‘no’ for an answer. There was no way I could conquer her determination. “What song is it?”

And she began singing the song and describing every word and making sure I understood it perfectly well. I spent two hours learning the song and singing it along with her. By the time she was done with me, I was exhausted and she was satisfied.

Suddenly, something struck her. “Have you eaten anything?” She asked. “You just came from your tuitions. You must not have had anything.” Before I could say anything, she was already on her way to the kitchen. “Let me make some dosas. I made a different kind of chutney in the morning. Taste it and tell me how it is. Do you want tea? I haven’t had any tea since morning. I’ll make some for you as well.”

Outcast

When you graduate from high school to junior college, life gives you a chance to make right all the wrongs you have done. You have now learnt from your mistakes and you are ready to face a whole new world. You can choose the people you want to stay in touch with and stay clear of all the people you don’t want to stay in touch with. Sometimes a whole new life with a whole lot of new people and a completely different atmosphere is just what you need.

When I came to Mithibai I had all the hopes of making lifelong friends. I dreamt of all the wonderful times I would have that my older cousins kept boasting of. I imagined myself in the famous canteen surrounded by people I would call my friends discussing unimportant things and laughing at just about anything and having a good time. It is strange how everything you dream of never happens. What you dream of is almost always the opposite of what actually happens. I have had this experience several times and yet its one of those mistakes that one shall never learn from. Well, my point, in short is that my first few days of college life were not exactly what I thought they would be.

The first day I entered my classroom (that was going to be the place I would see the least in college), there were only two girls in the room. They were in deep conversation and didn’t seem like they would appreciate company. So I sat down on a bench away from them. They threw me a glance but before they could see I was smiling, they had returned to their conversation. It seemed one of the girls had recently been through something traumatic and the other girl was trying to console her. I believe that judging people by their attire is highly prejudicial and I generally try to be least prejudicial at all times. By the ensemble of these two girls I could tell that they suffered from the Freedom From School-Uniform Syndrome and had planned on attracting as much attention to their brightly clad torso and scantily clad legs as possible. I waited for some more people to enter.

It seemed there had been some sort of procedure whereby people had chosen the person or persons they wanted to enter the class with; an arrangement they had forgotten to inform me of. I say this because within 10 minutes of my arrival into the classroom, it was full and all had entered in twos and threes deep in conversation with each other as if they had known each other all their lives. I looked around at the people surrounding me to find the group that would be least hostile by my intrusion and people who I would like to hang out with. But before I got too far a teacher entered and I decided to postpone my mission. In class I answered a couple of questions; this endeared the first-benchers towards me. During the break one of them came up to me and asked me my name and if I would like to join them in the canteen. To be frank, they did not seem like the kind of people who liked to have a lot of fun but I was getting desperate for company and so I went with them. What I did not realise at that time was that this little mistake of mine would cost me my popularity in class. When we went back to class after break, I excused myself and looked for place elsewhere but it seemed every seat was taken for people who hadn’t come as yet. So I found myself sitting next to the nerds. The next day, I promised myself I will find a place farthest away from them.And thus I sat at the last bench the next day.
Having taken up Arts, is sometimes like taking admission into a girls college. There are rarely any boys and the few that are present are treated with great care. But if the boy is even slightly good looking, he would be treated with utmost reverence. I honestly had not planned on sitting on the same bench as Rohit Gala. It was pure coincidence that the seat next to mine was the only one empty and that Rohit Gala came late that day (like all other days after that, when he did attend lectures). I will not waste time describing him because I would go on for pages describing his perfect face and unbelievably attractive physique. As you might have already guessed, Rohit Gala was the Greek god as far as FYJC girls were concerned. We did not have much of a conversation except when he asked for a pen. He did not come to class for a few days after that, during which time I became the girl who sat next to Rohit Gala, although it did not endear anymore people to me. I did manage to have a few random conversations with people here and there. One particular group of girls came to me on that very day and asked me if I was from their school. But when I said I was not, they quickly left. They seemed nice people to hang out with. They seemed to have quite a lot of fun as I had noticed the previous day, but they made it quite clear that I was unwelcome and so I did not impose myself on them.

As I came into college the next day, I saw a notice for a dance audition to be held that day after lecture hours. I was quite good at dancing and so decided to go. The auditions went quite well. Even Rohit Gala was present. I was selected (and so was Rohit Gala). We were to start practice next morning itself. I was more than happy as it meant bunking lectures. Dance rehearsals were fun. All the people around were quite cordial and fun to be with. Soon they became my closest friends in college. We did almost everything together, including getting yelled at by our teachers for not having attended lectures. Unlike some of our seniors I tried to attend some lectures but, let’s just say, when man is given a choice, he will almost never choose wisely.

I have had some of my best times going to various college festivals, going for dance rehearsals, organising various events of our own, simply hanging out in the coffee shop when we are exhausted after all the work done.

But i learnt an important lesson through the ordeal of making friends.
A lesson that I have learnt in the past five years of my college life is that, there is always a category of people that you fall into whether you like it or not. As for Rohit, he was one among the several Greek gods we came across.

Smile

The queue for the railway ticket at Andheri station was as long as the train on Platform No. 1... I was in no particular hurry to reach my destination and so my mind was left idle to wander. This was not the first time that I had been to the station. In fact, I am such a frequent visitor to the juice-wala at the corner of the booking office that he recognizes me by face and often awaits my arrival with one kokum juice ready for me. But I had never bothered to notice the whitewashed walls which had turned cream on top and a bright brown and maroon on the lower areas or the number of pamphlets stuck on the walls (hiding the creamness), calling for young talented actors and actresses of all age or the vacancy for a paying guest who ‘must be single male’. I had barely noticed the stench of dirt mixed with dried spit and betel juice that permeated the place and least of all the beggar children right under the counter. We usually turn our face in the opposite direction when we see one of these children coming our way begging for alms and completely ignore the existence of the ones that don’t obstruct our way. But this one child had my rapt attention for the 15 minutes that I waited in the queue.

The girl must have been barely 10 years old and had a little infant of probably 5 or 6 months in her hand. She wore a ragged frock with frills. Her dirty brown hair was tied in a bun at the back of her head and her complexion was the testimony to the fact that she had spent all her life on the street. But her face seemed to have a strange sort of serenity; A silent radiance of a child who has been trusted with responsibility and is ably doing it. She walked past the long queues silently making sure a torn little blanket covered the infant sufficiently. When she reached the counter she spread another little rag on the floor with one hand and carefully lowered herself over it. She placed the baby on her lap and made sure it was comfortable. She then looked at the numerous people around her. I sensed a feeling of longing in her eyes as she passed her eyes over the people. She then looked down at the baby and looked up again. But as she looked up this time, her face was contorted in to a frown and her mouth was wide open, as she droned on a rehearsed set of lines and looked up at the men and women passing by, with impassive eyes and outstretched hand.

Suddenly all the serenity and radiance was gone from her face. She became just another beggar girl who is intolerably loud and screechy. I could still not take my eyes off her. Barely anyone heeded her pleas for alms. But it did not matter. She went on with her pleas and I continued looking at her. She would stop every 2 minutes for breath and in those 2 minutes her face would return to the serenity that first attracted my attention. I was amazed at the change in her facial features as her face moved from serene calm to contortion and back. Begging for alms was a daily job that she did without passion, for the sake of survival. There was no fun in it or any skill or talent required, but it did not matter. This was what she has been conditioned to do since the time she was born. Fun and play were words that found no place in her dictionary. I did not realize it but there was a look of concern on my face. The child noticed me and glared at me as though she was offended by the attention. I quickly looked away but my eyes returned to her as she returned to her pleas for alms.

I was only 4 passengers away from the counter, when an older girl of about 16 stomped her way to the little girl, scolded in a language I did not understand and forcefully snatched the baby from her and walked away. The little girl just sat there and screamed and tried to call the other girl back. But to no avail. She curled up against the wall, hugged her knees and began to sob quietly. I looked around for the other girl and found her sitting at the opposite corner nursing the baby. I presumed the older girl was its mother. I looked back at the girl who was still sulking like her favorite toy was snatched away from her. It was not as if she will never see the baby again but the grief of having something so dear being snatched away from a person is deep. There could have been several explanations to what had just happened. But it did not matter.

About half a minute later, the child looked up and wiped her tears. I was now only one person away from the counter. The girl looked around her, the feeling of longing again in her eyes. Her eyes locked with mine and I was transfixed. The thread was broken when the man behind urged me to buy my ticket fast. I bought my ticket and began to walk back. Suddenly I remembered there was a bar of chocolate inside my bag. I looked back to find the child still looking at me. I took the chocolate out and gave it to her and smiled. There was nothing she could do but to take the chocolate. She then looked at it and the ends of her mouth curled upwards in to the most fascinating smile I have ever seen.

Space

Steal every moment that you get
For cherished or not that is all you have
Not silent not hidden not covered
It is open. Blatant. Naked
For everyone to see and everyone to know
But you steal it; You hide it; You won’t let it show

Why bother having a private life.
Why hide what cannot be hidden
Why scare the few who may be true
By stealing something they have already given.

In the Sabbatical

After a sabbatical of three months, I write on this blog again. Nothing much to say... but here's what I've been upto...





An inspiration away is a world,
Where I tamed the sun,
And now the wolrd is mine.

Have I the courage, the grit,
The motivation to drive on?
Survival is a a thin string.

Crossroads

It was still dark inside the house, when Kalyani opened her eyes. She groped on the window-sill next to her bed for the small table clock. It was 5:30 am. She looked around to see what had woken her up. The room she shared with her grandmother looked orderly. Everything seemed exceptionally quiet. Her grandmother, as usual, was outside on the veranda chanting her morning prayers and there was a cricket crying somewhere among the tiny bushes in the small courtyard outside, but these sounds only seemed to add to the silence. Kalyani looked out at the veranda. Everything was in shades of blue and black. The courtyard of dried cow dung looked disturbingly peaceful. She fell back on to her bed, still feeling groggy from sleep and thought about what had happened yesterday.

A cab driver from Dubai! Everyone was so excited. ‘I will see my Kalyani well settled before I close my eyes.’ Her grandmother’s voice rang in her ears. There was such a sparkle in her eyes when she said it. Mother was skeptical at first but as soon as she was told that he has never touched alcohol in his life, she was thrilled. Her own experiences had taught her enough about alcoholics. She would have chosen a pauper over an alcoholic for her daughter. Kalyani wasn’t excited about leaving her mother and grandmother alone and going to a strange country with a stranger, but then again she must get married and go someday, might as well be now with a person well capable of fending for her. Everyone said such a connection is hard to come by. The sun was up now and she must finish taking a bath and washing the clothes before 7.30. Her mother did not like it if she was late for breakfast.

She had just finished sweeping the floor and dusting the scanty furniture around the house, when she noticed a visitor at the door. ‘Radha!’ she yelled and sprinted to the door. They hugged and Kalyani pulled the visitor in to the kitchen. ‘When did you come? Has your college closed for the vacation? My god you have grown so thin. Don’t you city girls ever eat?’ Radha was the daughter of one of the richest men in the village and she had been Kalyani’s playmate since childhood, much to the disapproval of their parents. She was doing her first year of MBBS in a city down south. She stayed in the college hostel and it had been more than 6 months since she had visited Chenur in the onam vacations. They were of the same age but Kalyani had given up studies after tenth standard. Her family was neither as rich as Radha’s nor were they as enthusiastic about girls being more educated than their prospective husbands. And unlike her friend, she was hardly interested in academics, so she felt no remorse for discontinuing her studies.

‘I came in the evening yesterday. We have three days of leave because of a strike. Let that be. What am I hearing, you are getting married!’ Radha hardly sounded excited. Kalyani giggled at her shock.

‘Don’t get so excited. The wedding is not tomorrow. The proposal came through my uncle… you know the one who is a match maker? He told grandmother about it and they spoke to the other family. They are going to come and see me tomorrow.’ She went on to tell Radha all about the proposed groom.

‘Are you happy?’
‘Yes, of course. Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘You mean you really want to get married so soon?’
‘What do you mean ‘soon’? I’m almost 17. Maalathi got married at the age of 15. She is 18 years old and a proud mother of two healthy boys. I also want to have my own family.’
‘But there is so much more to do in life before you get married.’
Kalyani laughed out loud at this. ‘Now you have started speaking like a city girl. You are studying and are going to become a doctor. What do I have to do? I’m the daughter of your house-maid.’
Before Radha could react to this, Kalyani’s mother entered the kitchen. Her face did not encourage amity. But at seeing Radha, she immediately changed her tone and graciously offered her tea or something to eat. She yelled at Kalyani for having made her sit on the rickety chair in the small kitchen. ‘I don’t know why you like to spend time inside this pile of mud and brick.’ She said to Radha. As she scanned through the kitchen, her eyes reached the sink were the vessels lay unwashed. Her mood immediately changed again and she caught Kalyani by the ear and pulled her toward the sink, ‘you haven’t even finished washing the vessels. What have you been doing? Is this how you are going to behave at your in-laws’ as well? Are you going to make me listen to insults from them? Why do you make life so difficult for me?’
Radha tried to defend Kalyani but to no avail. When the initial storm was over and her mother went out mumbling to herself, Kalyani said almost to herself, ‘May be it will be better for me to go after all.’
‘She will never get over the trauma of losing your father to that tramp.’
Kalyani let out a bitter laugh. ‘Ha! Losing my father? I never had a father. She never had a husband. He was jus a man who forced himself upon us, stole our money and went out with others like him, come home drunk and beat us as if we were pieces of iron in his workshop. The only good he ever did to us was to go away.’
Radha knew being in the house would only make Kalyani bitterer. They decided to go out and walk around in the woods. On their way, they met Maalathi with her son in her arms. They shared pleasantries and spoke for a little while and moved on.

‘She is happily married, isn’t she? You can see it on her face.’
‘Oh, her husband is a very nice man. He is very hard working and sincere and takes care of his family. He is hardly 25 but I hear he earns quite well in the city. I hope I will be like Maalathi one day.’
‘And you are hoping a cab driver is going to keep you happy. Don’t you have any ambition in life?’
‘You don’t understand. This is life for me. This is what I have to look forward to. The only ambition I’m allowed is to hope my husband doesn’t start fancying other women. What I don’t understand is why you have to waste so many years reading and learning and racking your brains when one fine day you will also get married.’
‘Because getting married is not the end of the world for me. I will work even after marriage. I will work and have children and manage a family and a professional life together, like most women do these days.’
‘And what do you get after doing so much, money? But you already have so much.’
‘No! It’s not the money. It’s the satisfaction of having done something in life, the fact that I can be independent.’
‘You have turned in to a city girl. I always knew there will come a time when we will not understand each other. We come from different worlds. Our priorities, our goals, everything is different. To you the world is full of endless opportunities and prospects. To me the world is my mother, grandmother and this little village where everything goes according to a plan; a plan that has never changed and has hardly any scope of changing: the men will work and earn money for the family. The women will take care of the children and the house and teach her children to become men and women.’
‘May be you are just scared of trying out new avenues. The world is changing and you need to change with it. That’s the only way to survive. Or else you get out-dated.’
‘But I don’t want the kind of change I see in you. I don’t want to gain so much knowledge. I don’t want to earn a living. I don’t want to worry about the entire world and forget about my family and friends. It’s true once you become a doctor, you will only have time for your patients. You will have to beg for time with your family. And even the time you get you will be worried about your patients. I’m sure you will handle it very well but I want peace of mind. I’d like my world to remain small. It reduces worries and makes life much more meaningful.’
‘So you will accept the proposal tomorrow.’
‘I don’t know. What if he isn’t such a good person as people say he is?’
‘But if he is, you will marry him?’
‘I’m still worried about my mother and grandmother. When I go they will be left alone here.’
‘May be you should leave them here and start your own life. May be you should get married.’
Kalyani looked at her friend with a knowing smile. Radha returned the smile. Then they both stared at the mud road that lay ahead of them. A little way ahead it split. One goes on further, up a little bridge over the river to join the main road that goes to town, while the other leads to the river. The river runs parallel to the main road. The two mud roads never meet.

The Ghost Within

Meenaxi never had a dull moment; running around in her grand house, frolicking from one spacious luxurious room to another, climbing up and jumping down the narrow wooden stairs and playing catch-and-cook around the coconut trees and in the rice fields with her brothers. She was loved by everyone. There wasn’t a human in the little village of Telishery who could resist her adorable five-year-old giggles. Everyone loved to see little Meenaxi in her white petticoat with long curly jet black tresses bobbing up and down with her as she dances around the river side. And then she was lost........
“Meenu! Where are you?” It was lunch time and Meenu couldn’t be found anywhere. In and out of the numerous rooms Meenu’s mother and her two elder brothers searched frantically, but Meenu could not be found. “MEENU.....” the voice rang in the extensive grounds around their house but to no avail. Mr. Nair, Meenu’s father, who was the collector of the district, was called and told to come as soon as possible. The neighbours were asked if they had seen Meenu but nobody had. Some of them volunteered to help look for her. They went to every nook and corner of the village but in vain. Meenu was to be found nowhere.
While walking by the river side, Appu heard the men calling out to somebody. He went closer to them to find out who they were looking for. When he realized they were looking for Meenu he immediately ran towards them. Looking at the boy running towards them, the men thought he might know something. “Have you seen Meenu around here lately?” The boy nodded. He pointed to the west and said, “She was going towards the cottage in the afternoon. But after that I haven’t seen her.” This sent a chill down everyone’s spine.
“Why would she go towards the cottage.”
“There is nothing there but some trees and the cottage. She wouldn’t dare go into the cottage.”
Set amidst a bunch of mango trees which never bore any fruit, the cottage was a small structure of clay with a thatched roof a little away from all the other houses. It belonged to Ramanunni, the lunatic who had disappeared from the village many years ago. It was said he could speak to the dead and used to bring back messages for them. He would often go into a trance and tell a person that he had a message for him from the dead and for the message he would charge money. That was his living. Everyone used to be scared of Ramanunni, for he rarely brought good news. He never spoke to anyone unless he had a message for someone. He would roam around the village all day long and keep muttering to himself. Children would run away at the sight of him. And then suddenly, Ramanunni stopped coming to the village. Some said he must have taken ill and died, some said he must have abandoned his cottage and gone off to another village but nobody knew for sure what had happened to him. No one ever had the courage to go and look into his cottage. And hence his whereabouts remained a mystery.
Mr. Nair was reminded, now, about the number of times Meenu had asked him about Ramanunni. Meenu’s brothers had told her about Ramanunni one day, as a game to scare her. But instead of getting frightened she seemed to feel sorry for Ramanunni and wanted to know more and more about him. “It is quite possible that Meenu did go to the cottage”, thought Mr. Nair.
They set out immediately towards the cottage hoping to find her on the way or somewhere in the trees around the cottage. It was dusk by the time they reached the wooded area a little beyond the village. The trees hid the last rays of the sun. Although the men had carried electric torches, the atmosphere around them was eerie. The three men felt a knot of fear in their stomach, walking through the lonely path with the sounds of the cricket surrounding them. ‘Poor Meenu must be terrified all alone in this ghastly place.’ thought her father. The men proceeded slowly observing every movement, listening to every sound around them. The crunching of dried leaves under their feet, a solo whoosh of breeze that ruffled up the leaves in the bushes. Did that sound like someone’s in the bushes a little way ahead or was it just the wind? Is that moaning or just the dog howling?
Back home Mrs. Nair was in a terrible shape. She had been crying for hours together. She was sitting in the veranda and refused to move. But as the hours stretched on, there was no sign of either her husband or her daughter. The eldest son tried to persuade his mother to go in and eat something, but she refused. She refused to budge from her position. The neighbours’ wives came and tried to calm her but nothing anyone said had any effect.
In the woods, the men were quite close to the cottage. The woods had thinned down and they could see a shadowy structure ahead of them. About fifty feet away from the cottage they decided to go around it and call out to Meenu. Half an hour later there was still no sign of Meenu. “We have no other choice. We must go in.” said Meenu’s father.
“Are you insane? Go inside the house where Ramanunni lived? I will not do it.”
“Yes, you never know. This place is too scary for a man to live all alone unless he is practicing the dark arts.”
Although Mr. Nair found the idea ridiculous, he was also queasy about going inside the house. They decided to go a little nearer the house. As they walked closer and closer to the cottage they noticed a small dim light coming through the window. “He still lives there.” whispered one of them. As they got a little closer to the cottage, they heard a low moan coming from the cottage. It sounded as if someone was hurt badly. Fear gripped them. Shivers ran down their spine and spread throughout their body. What could it be? Who could it be? It was a continuous monotonous moan as if someone was chanting something incomprehensible and taking breaks in between for breath. Then suddenly the voice rose in a loud crescendo and then again went down to its regular pitch. All three men were rooted in their positions. They could not move an inch further. Sweat beads covered their faces. The electric torches now lay unattended on the ground at their owners’ feet.
Finally, Mr. Nair got back his bearings and mustering all the courage left in him, moved a little further ahead just enough to peep through the window. It was too dark inside the cottage to see anything but he could see a hooded figure resting against the wall. And next to the hooded figure he could make out a bundle covered with a white cloth. The moans seemed to be coming from the hooded figure. The source of the dim light was a candle which was almost extinguishing, kept right below the window. He could not make out anything but the hooded figure and the bundle next to it. He picked up his torch and pointed it to the window.
“Oh my God......”
Mr. Nair ran to the window to get a closer look. The small white bundle next to the hooded figure had legs emerging out of it.
“MEENU...” her father screamed and ran to the door. On hearing him scream, the other men also joined him at the door. The door was latched from inside but two hard kicks and the door gave away. The sight made all three men swear. The cottage did not have any furniture apart from a bed with a broken leg. In one corner of the room there were a few utensils lying scattered. The entire place had a dirty stench. The hooded figure lay there in the corner of the room opposite the window. And, yes, the little bundle next to the figure was Meenu, lying motionless on the floor. Her father ran to her and picked her up. “What have you done to my poor child...........?”
The hooded man lay there without a care in the world. He seemed absolutely unaffected by the whole scene. Meenu stirred as soon as her father picked her up. “I’m fine, papa. I was just sleeping.” Hearing his daughter speak, he had tears of relief in his eyes. “I must have fallen asleep. I was so tired after I came here. Please don’t be mad at me, papa. I will not ever come here again. I promise. But Ramanunni is not well, papa. He is very sick. All he does all day is moan and cough. He says he is going to die soon. What does that mean papa?”
While the child was speaking Mr. Nair had gone up to the man and taken off the blanket from his face. Ramanunni was never a healthy man. But now all that was left of him was skin and bone. The chanting they had heard were a sick man’s painful moans. “Meenu is right. He is very ill. We must take him to town as soon as possible. He needs to be hospitalized. Come. Help me pick him up.”
On their way back home, the men wondered if these were the same woods they passed just a while ago. The wind rustled to ease their fears and the leaves crunched under their feet to urge them to move on. In a sudden moment, the cottage lost all its eeriness and the woods around it looked serene.
The ghost was laid to rest.