A story
Scenes from Chivalrous Times
Monday, September 30, 2024
Saturday, August 31, 2024
My Aunt's Haunted House
The problem
with having a head full of ideas is that it takes time to find a true diamond–
the one idea that fits the bill of the world, the winner in the haystack, the
eye of the bull, as they say. While I was struggling to find such an idea in
the stack in my head, it was becoming tough to meet the comforts that suited my
taste. There was a struggle to consume coffee when needed and it was a pinch to
buy movie tickets at will.
Aunt
Vyjanti, my guardian and a mini-bank of sorts, figured out my woes. One lazy
Sunday, as I was lost in a movie magazine, learning about the wonderful lives
of those glitzy superstars, she simply snatched the publication out of my hand.
“What good
is this going to do?” she asked with an irritation that was so unsuited to a
rich woman with a loaded portfolio. “You can never be like these actors unless
you put some effort into being something.”
“I am
something, Aunt Vyjanti. A strategist, if you have heard of those people. Just
got to put the wheels into motion and one of these days, I’m going to strike
gold,” I said as I rose off the couch and began walking towards the kitchen. A
tired brain needs more fuel on Sundays, I feel.
“Stop right
there. No more of this strategy and wheels that refuse to move. You are to pack
your bags and go to Sapnapur,” she said with a needless weight of drama, what
with one hand outstretched and all.
“And what
am I to do in Sapnapur?” I asked as I opened the jar of cookies on the dining
table and took a bite. They’ve began adding too much salt in these, I realised.
“I have a
flat there. And it needs a caretaker. You can try to be useful there,” she said
while giving me a note. I saw that it was an address of one Hilly Heights
Apartments.
“Then you
must hire a caretaker. I have a degree in business, not in housekeeping,” I
tried to return the piece of paper.
“Consider
it a business of housekeeping then. Pack your bags. I will pay an amount
sufficient to manage the house every month starting today,” she began walking
off.
“On top of
my monthly allowance, you mean?” These things better be in writing but I
trusted Aunt Vyjanti.
“For now,
your monthly allowance includes the house. I will decide later whether you get
an additional sum or not. Do not disappoint me this time,” she walked off to
her room without caring to listen what a massive pinch this arrangement
was.
To float in
this world’s woes, one must grab on to any supporting straw. So, I pocketed the
flat’s address, packed my bags, and began towards Sapnapur. Of course, Aunt
Vyjanti wouldn’t need that film magazine and jar of cookies so off they went
into my hand bag.
I had been
to Sapnapur a few times as a kid. It was a sleepy little town with farms in the
vicinity. Over the years, people had sold their land to house office spaces for
the IT crowd. That meant upcoming malls and multiplexes. The Sapnapur flat
suited Aunt Vyjanti just fine. It was, what they call, a two-storeyed duplex
occupying the top floors of the thirteen-floored Hilly Heights Apartments. But
like everything Aunt Vyjanti’s persona, it was in shambles - dusty floors, worn
out carpet, and suffocating. So, I clicked a few pictures and sent them to Jaya
- “Too much damage. Needs urgent attention. Send immediate help.” Jaya was Aunt
Vyjanti’s assistant and my vending machine that rarely worked. Aunt Vyjanti was
too unbothered to carry her own phone and so Jaya was my go-to when it came to
distant talks. She immediately saw the message and after some time replied with
a thumbs-down emoji. Communication from Jaya was either the ka-ching sound of
money hitting my bank account (e.g. “Need bail money for friend and self.
Arrested for a street brawl.”) or a thumbs-down (e.g. this case). Once, I had
tried to bribe Jaya with a percentage of my earnings but she had sent a string
of angry face emojis. Like boss like assistant. So, Aunt Vyjanti’s advance was
to cover cleaning up this mess. Not a great start.
I talked to
the neighbours, gathered some workers, and made the place habitable. And then…
well, then I had no clue what to do. Two weeks of relaxation zoomed by. My top
floor machinery was well-greased and running. Hadn’t Aunt Vyjanti called this a
business? And so, I decided to make it one.
I
absolutely hated clickety-clacketing my laptop but that was what the hour
needed. A man needs his movies and coffees, doesn’t he? Researching upon how to
run the business of online house renting, I learned that spaces like these
might attract bigger coins if they’re designed for leisure. That meant picking
a theme and offering a certain experience.
Hilly
Heights was around forty years old. Though it was in a decent neighbourhood,
the area wasn’t in the prime of the city. The front street was poorly lit and
the apartment itself was hardly occupied. Dogs barking aimlessly at night gave
the setting a final touch of sadness. And so, I decided upon the theme of a
haunted house. More rap-tapping on the laptop and I knew what the house needed
– a few old dolls stuffed in one room, a hidden switch that triggered the sound
of a baby crying, creaking doors, I got it all in. I gathered a few members of
the staff who readily agreed to stay in the house and give the guests some
hibbies here and a few jibbies there. Nothing too scary – one religious dude in
the living room summoning the devil, a tarot card reader lady in the dining
room foreboding someone’s ghastly death, and a few more unsettling settlers.
Once listed
on the internet, “My Aunt’s Haunted House” (ha!) found guests crawling in for
the thrills. Acting as the manager, I got them to sign a document that got rid
of my obligations – you never know how a person would act in a scary setting.
After a few days, my bank account began to look livelier, coffee began to flow
freely, and movies were not a thing of the past. The stocks of the venture were
skyrocketing.
One
evening, my phone chimed with Jaya’s five-word horror text, “She’s reaching
tonight at 8,” stared back at me. A string of question marks popped up in my
head but there was no point in countering the inevitable. All I could do before
Aunt Vyjanti’s arrival was to get rid of the board on the door. And then, the
wheels in my head turned. Unlike those guests, Aunt Vyjanti was not going to be
aware about the hauntedness of this house. That ought to take care of her.
I left a
“Terrible tummy ache. Off to sleep early. House helpers to assist,” note stuck
on the door for Aunt Vyjanti. The house staff began catering to her right from
the moment she stepped in. Even from my room, I imagined how she would have
reacted to the entire show. She would have let out a little scream when a man
with a melting face (mask!) picked her bag. When he offered her our welcome
drink of “Fresh blood from a sacrificed wolf,” (cranberry juice!) she would
have struggled her urge to throw up. The shock of receiving blood (beetroot
juice!) from the tap would have made her shudder. The red light in her room
highlighting the big cobweb with a bat hanging next to it would have made it
difficult for her to sleep. So she would decide to leave right away.
As I kept
thinking about the sequence unfolding, the front door thud shut. So, she had
fled! And with much merriment and excessive excitement, I rushed out of my
room. The welcome drink glass lay spilled on the carpet with the cobweb looking
sad and diminished next to it. And there stood Aunt Vyjanti.
“Get rid of
these toys and idiots at once!” she yelled.
I looked
questioningly at the tarot card reader lady standing next to Aunt Vyjanti. “She
slapped the melting face guy and threw him out,” she said in an apologetic
tone. That explained the sound of the door shutting.
The house felt truly haunted now – occupied by the ghosts of my dead coffee desires and movie trips.
Wednesday, July 31, 2024
Self-defence
Another
headache, another middle-of-the-night awakening. 3:15 AM. Jeevi looked at her
clock with a tired feeling. When will she get a sleep without waking up before
sunrise, without a headache? This was the second instance of a headache within
the last ten days. In no mood to bear the headache any longer, she got off her
bed, turned the light bulb on, and gulped down the paracetamol tablet from her
side-table. Jeevi managed to get a decent two-hour sleep while listening to the
odd melody of the jungle’s night creatures mixed with the light rain.
Jeevi was
still tired when she reached the safari office at 5:30 AM. As a jungle safari
guide, she had to make sure that her tourists’ papers were in order and the
jeep was ready before the tour started half an hour later. The papers told her
that today’s visitors were a young couple. That meant that the husband would
try to showoff his knowledge about the jungle while the wife would act amazed
at every trivial detail. She kept the papers in her backpack and walked towards
her assigned jeep – thankfully, her safari was assigned to the newly employed
and reticent, Nitesh.
“Nitesh
bhai, ready?” she asked with a false cheer in her voice.
“Yes, but
they are late,” he pointed at the jeep’s empty back seats.
Jeevi was
about to hurl an expletive when a man and a woman approached the jeep.
“Sorry for
the delay,” the woman said. “We were caught in the paperwork.”
They both
climbed the jeep and Jeevi couldn’t help but observe that the man was talking
to the woman in sign language.
“Yes, I’ll
tell them where to take us. Bukhara
den first?” the woman asked Jeevi.
Jeevi felt
slightly sorry for being judgemental about the man, climbed into the jeep and
asked Nitesh to drive.
“Sorry,
ma’am, we can’t go to the Bukhara side. It’s still monsoon and that area is
forbidden,” Jeevi told the lady.
“Oh, right. The season’s prohibitions just
slipped my mind,” the tourist said with a hint of disappointment. “I guess we
won’t be seeing any tigers today,” she looked towards her husband who mirrored
her sadness.
“There are
tigers in other areas too,” Jeevi said. “Besides, the jungle is more than just
tigers. There are so many beautiful trees, monkeys, deer…”
The man made a beak-shape with his hand and a chirping gesture.
"Yes, the birds are wonderful too," said Jeevi.
“Jeevi
madam will show you a tiger. She has a great record,” chipped in Nitesh.
Jeevi
looked at him in surprise. It was no secret that in just two years of being on
the job, she had helped tourists with the most tiger sightings but she hated the
rivalry among safari guides.
“Let’s see
if you brought some luck along,” said Jeevi.
After three
and a half hours of roaming around, the tourists seemed to have found
themselves unlucky. With just thirty minutes of the safari time left, they had
given up on all hopes.
“Doctor sa’ab,
you forgot to pack luck,” the lady teased the man.
A doctor… that got Jeevi thinking. If he could help her with her headaches.
“Nitesh
bhai, please follow my directions,” she said.
As the
driver slowed down, Jeevi made a twittering sound. The woman and the man looked
at each other in surprise.
“Are you
mimicking a nighthawk?” asked the lady.
Jeevi
continued making the twittering sound as she guided Nitesh towards a rather
secluded part of the jungle.
“It’s a nightjar.
I am surprised that you even know about nighthawks,” said Jeevi as she kept
looking at the trees.
The lady realized
that Jeevi was trying to listen to replies from other birds.
“It’s all
thanks to the doctor,” said the lady pointing at the man, “He is a vet and has
a special interest in birds. Are you actually talking to the
birds?”
Even as
Jeevi tried to listen to responses from the jungle and kept directing the jeep,
her face bore a shadow of disappointment. So, the man was not really a doctor. “Not talking but, yes, something like that,” she said.
Eventually,
they reached a dense area of the forest with a gentle brook running along.
Jeevi stood up on her seat and motioned the tourists to do the same. A tigress was
drinking water with her three cubs.
“Amazing!” whispered
the lady. The man, too, had a look of excitement on his face. After about ten
minutes, Jeevi said, “We need to leave. It’s closing hours.” She was
contemplating about asking the doctor for help for her headache. But would a
vet be of any help?
At the end
of the tour, the couple offered to pay Jeevi and Nitesh. While Nitesh shyly accepted
the reward, Jeevi said, “Madam, your husband is a doctor, isn’t he? May I ask him
for some help?”
“Sure! What
you did out there was splendid!” said the lady.
xxxx
During the
month that followed, Jeevi acted on the doctor’s advice and noted everything
that she did to track what triggered her headaches. She had still had
them thrice in that month, the last one on the previous night. She was
sitting at the desk in her room – writing her daily journal. She was thinking
about the stupidity of the whole idea – wasting a month bearing bad sleep
thanks to some silly advice from a vet. A commotion from the adjoining room
broke her chain of thought. John, the Park In-charge, was arguing with some
people.
“This is unacceptable.
You said there would be no lapses,” Jeevi heard him shout.
Though she tried
to listen in, she realized that they had lowered their voices. Jeevi had the
advantage of the night's approaching darkness. She stepped outside and stooped near the
window of John’s room.
“It’s even in
the papers now. Count me out if you are going to be so careless. Now please
leave,” John said.
What was in
the papers? Jeevi rushed to the office canteen. She ordered a cup of tea, took
the newspaper from the counter, and began looking for news about the jungle. It
didn’t take her long to spot a report about the arrest of poachers carrying
tiger skin and bones. She had heard faint murmurs of these incidents but could
have never imagined that the problem lay so close. How could John be doing
this?
As she was
about to leave the canteen in a hurry, she stopped at the sight of the stack of
old newspapers near the counter. She knew the exact dates that she was looking
for. And once she was done with those three newspapers, she realised – her headaches
had coincided with the dates of poaching incidents.
Later that
night, Jeevi stepped out of her room.
xxxx
A few days
later, she was assigned another safari with Nitesh.
“Jeevi madam!
I was looking forward to talking to you. It all happened in the room next to
yours. Didn’t you hear anything?” he asked.
“What can I
say, Nitesh bhai? Seems like I am a sound sleeper,” Jeevi replied plainly.
“But why would
a tiger kill John? And, that too, so brutally? We know they are swift, clean
killers. How did he even enter his room?” Nitesh kept on asking the questions
that were making the rounds within the jungle staff.
“Next time we meet a tiger, we will ask him, OK? Though, I'd call it self-defence,” Jeevi answered while smiling at the disappearance of her headaches.