The Green Room & Devi Collection

by Nag Mani

  It was he Zeenat had said, not she. He has come to take me. And it was a he Aditi had seen staring through the window.

  When Bhagvati came in, Manoj followed her into the room. He lowered his gaze and began to pull out something from a stack of files on the bed. He put on a grim, irritated appearance so that Aditi wouldn’t nag him about his transfer.

  “I saw this man that day. There was something unusual about him,” Aditi said, as if to herself, but she could not recollect the oddity.

  Manoj suddenly looked up, his face vivid with surprise. He might have said something had the pages not slipped from the open file in his hands. Instead, he quickly squatted on the floor to put them back in place. Bhagvati directed the heat of the diya towards Aditi before putting it back before the gods in the small niche. She didn’t say a word. There seemed nothing unusual about unusual men.

  “Didn’t Zeenat say he is coming to take me? He. A man.”

  This time Aditi had her attention. “What are you implying?”

  “Was it the Devi?”

  Bhagvati took her time to consider. “These things are beyond our understanding, my son. They call the forest haunted for a reason. There are spirits, evil spirits, ready to kill at the slightest provocation. And the Devi is their queen.”

  Aditi eyed her husband for his opinion. She knew that he would choose to remain quiet. And he almost did, ignoring her and leaving with the file. Then he turned at the door and said, “Don’t meddle with things. This is not our affair.”

  “Not our affair?” Aditi shouted back at him. “The poor girl just died the most horrific death. There is this bloody god-damned Devi who lurks in our house while you snore and fart! What do you know…”

  “I know things,” he cut her out. “I know many things. But I choose to ignore them. And that is how I spent one year here, without you, all alone.” His face hardened. He came closer. “There are these officers posted in the Seven Sisters, many in Arunachal Pradesh. Every now and then someone turns up at the bank and puts gun on their table. No, they don’t come to rob. They come to ask favours. They come to borrow the bank’s cars. They return it in a day or two. All washed and cleaned. They thank and shake hands and leave. Just like friends do when you help them with something. And do you know why they borrow these cars? They borrow it to kill or settle a score with someone who lives far away. I knew someone who refused. A week later, two men knocked at his door and shot him dead, in front of his to six-year-old son.”

  He paused to let her ponder. “I have been to places and I have seen things. Not just crimes… dark things. You think you know! You have been here less than two months and one woman to talk to and you know! The hundreds of men I deal with every day might not blabber as much as a woman, but the one thing I know for certain is not to meddle with local affairs, and no one will meddle with you. You do your work and you get out. That is the only thing you should know.” And then he left the room.

  The evening brought a fresh wave of rain. Aditi sat in the front veranda amid shreds of leaves the wind had deposited from farms. Zoya and Zeba were looking out from one of the windows on the first floor. Aditi waved her hands and called them. Of all the people, she pitied the two girls the most. Before their sister’s death they didn’t get along well. Zeba kept shouting at Zoya, hitting her, slapping her. Zoya took her revenge by complaining to their mother. When their mother failed to dispense justice, she would take matters into her own hands. This puerile revenge and re-revenge never ceased to stop, until…

  Now they stuck close to each other, as if the world around them was sinking and all they had but each other’s support to stay afloat. The adults were busy with their grieving and social customs, leaving the girls to mourn on their own. The two sisters hardly talked to each other, just stayed close together and watched whatever was happening around them.

  When Aditi saw the two girls hurrying down the path, she ran indoors to prepare snacks. She was sure Laila had instructed them not to visit her. She felt her face burn. What was it? Humiliation? She let the feeling pass. Bhagvati greeted the girls outside and ushered them into the bedroom. They sat on the bed, stiff and erect. Bhagvati lit a diya and a few incense-sticks and placed them in front of the gods. She closed her eyes and muttered some prayer. “These poor girls,” she said as she waved the diya in front of their faces. She made them hold their palms above the flame and rub the warmth on their faces. “What has befallen their family? What a sweet girl she was, your sister! But good people never last long here. This place is not meant for them.” She put the diya away and then circled the incense-sticks around their heads. “For they are soon called to heaven. And there is where Zeenat now is. With Allah. Looking down at us and smiling.”

  The girls didn’t stay for long.

  Aditi was in the backyard washing some utensils sometime near dusk when the screams began. The clouds were content with a slight drizzle. The ground was wet and slippery. And there, right in the centre was a wide hole Bachcha had dug while Aditi was attending the two girls. The mound of mud on its sides was slowly sinking into a compact mass.

  Aditi went to the front door and peeped out. A woman was wailing. Was it Laila? Aditi took uncertain steps towards their house. More men had come from far and near, some from the fields, still holding sickles, some from their naps, still tying their dhotis. The door opened. It was Salman. He was trembling. He held the door and, with a barely audible voice, managed to sputter, “Help us!”

  The men didn’t need explanation. They ran upstairs. Bhagvati too came running from the house. Then more women. The family members stood huddled outside a small room overcrowded with clothes. On a small bed in the middle of the room was Zeba, black streaks running across her pale face.

  “You,” Laila shouted at Aditi, “what are you doing here? One girl was not enough?”

  “Shut up, woman!” Razzak growled at her.

  “She has no child! So she goes around eating others’!”

  “Shut up!”

  Zeba kicked, then banged her head on the bed. Laila paid no heed. “I will not shut up! First ask this Madam what she asked for in the temple! Ask her what price she agreed to pay!”

  “I did not agree…”

  By then Razzak had had enough. A slap resonated across the room. Though he was thin and frail as compared to his wife, the impact sent her sprawling against a wall. Women rushed in to help her. Leaving them to deal with it, Razzak looked around, daring anyone to utter another word.

  “Abba?” Zeba slowly raised her hand. Her nails were black. Razzak took them in his hands and sat beside her. “I don’t want to die! Please save me!”

  “Nothing will happen to you. No one can harm you. Allah is with us!”

  “But he is here…he has come to take me!”

  “Who?” There was anger in Razzak’s voice, as if he would tear that entity apart even if it was Allah himself.

  “He…” she pointed towards one of the corners, right across the room. In the dim light of a lamp, the corner was nothing but flickering shadows.

  Razzak turned back to tell her that there was no one there. So did the others. Laila let herself fall to the floor and began sobbing. Like the previous time, she had accepted the fate of her child. “Take her to the temple, please,” she pleaded, “only the Devi can save her!” No one contradicted her this time.

  Not even Aditi, for she was busy staring at the corner where the shadows were dancing.

  There was a general murmur in the room. Quick instructions were given. Words were exchanged. Women rose urgently to do their part, men exchanged more words, planning and arranging for the quickest way to the temple.

  All that was brought to an abrupt halt when Aditi said, “There is someone there!”

  Silence fell in the room.

  It was a flickering shadow.

  Unlike the many shadows in the room, this one did not dance to the tune of the flame. It had a definite shape, though there was no object in the vicinity that could cast it. Now th
at Aditi had said it, it did not take long for others to notice. They withdrew from the corner. The shadow seemed to have sensed it, for it began to grow. It stood erect, a thin, translucent something with hands and legs and head, taller than anyone else in the room. Aditi retreated, the back of her knees hit the bed and she sat on the edge.

  The shadow could have been passed as an illusion, for it stood still for a long time…

  Then, it detached itself from the corner.

  Onlookers shrieked and scampered. Laila froze.

  The shadow took a step. Then another. Zeba was trembling, her eyes wide at the shadow, or its actual form only she could see. Then, like lightning, it jumped over the bed and disappeared. Zeba went into a fit. Her eyes began to roll. Her body arched upward to an uncanny extent, as if her back would snap any moment. Women screamed. Some ran out. And in that chaos of shrieking women and creaking bed, something happened in a blink of the eye. The shadow leapt out of the bed again. The curtains of the nearest window flung apart and then peace prevailed.

  The forest watched them through the square window, shimmering under a crescent moon peeping through the clouds. Zeba was still now. Her skin all black. Her mouth wide open, as if screaming in pain. Her eyes gazing across the room, through the villagers crowded near the door, at a little girl sobbing and shaking. And somehow, Zoya knew what her sister couldn’t say. That she was next.

  Aditi felt bile rush up her throat. She made for the door, but retched on numerous feet as they scattered away. She wiped her mouth. Her head began to spin. Hands held her for support. Hands carried her down the stairs. Hands made her lie down on a rug on the floor. Then hands left her.

  She couldn’t tell if Bhagvati came straight away, or hours later. Her brain felt swollen. Weak. Dysfunctional. She didn’t feel the drizzle falling on her as she was being carried back to her house. She didn’t see Bachcha as he trotted in front of her. She didn’t see the dream she was dreaming of. She was in a trance, and there was only this humming that emanated from the ground, growing louder and louder and louder and louder…

  CHAPTER 14

  THE NIGHT OF

  Aditi first noticed the ceiling fan. It was dead. Then the bed-sheet around her. It was cold. Then the clock in front of her. It was alive. And ticking. And told her it was half past six in the morning.

  There was no one in the room. She listened for any sound. No one in the house as well. Only Bachcha scratching himself diligently. In the veranda? No. This time in the bedroom itself.

  She didn’t mind.

  She felt a bump under the mattress and remembered that she had put a knife under it the first time Salman had come knocking at her door. She adjusted her head and settled her eyes on the fan.

  Zeba was dead. Killed. Gone. And she could only watch, as helpless as a baby. Like she had been when This-Boy was gone. That happened in 1992, in the second year of her college. Her mother, sisters and brother had gone to Gaya to attend a marriage. She stayed back because of her exams and her father stayed back because of her.

  There was love in the air that day, that was the only excuse she could give for what happened, that made her do what she did, or rather, make her not do what she ought to have done. That was where her life fell apart. That was the day she allowed This-Boy to come home. She just had to hand over a book. She just had to explain him a topic, something that rarely happened. It was just a friend helping another friend. It was just a Dalit entering a Brahmin’s home.

  Her father should not have been there. He should not have been entering the campus gate. He should not have seen him coming out of her room. But he did. He dragged her to a room and locked her. He asked This-Boy first his caste, then his name, then his father’s name, then his occupation. Aditi heard him answer in his bold and confident voice. He had to be bold if he was to ask for her hand when he became an IAS officer. Her father let him go.

  While a group of rowdy men were burning down a line of Dalit jhuggis by the ghats of the Ganga that night, no one bothered to inform the police. A young man was pulled out of his house, thrashed and beaten in front of his mother, father and sister. Then his father threatened. Slapped. Abused. His sister and mother insulted. Molested. Rape threats made. They were asked to leave the city, and to make sure they didn’t have any option to return, their hut was set on fire. Fire spreads. And so it did that faithful night. The newspaper reported a fire that gutted down a couple of huts. It didn’t mention what happened to the families that lived in them. It didn’t report the men who branded swords and axes and told the Dalits to keep away from their women.

  The principal of Bhagalpur Women College, Mamata Madam, was most sympathetic towards Aditi. Aditi was not the first girl to fall in trap set by those hideous ghat boys. When her father refrained her from attending college for over a month, Mamata Madam allowed Aditi to appear for her examinations from her own room and had the questions papers sent home to her. The principal of the boys’ college was not so considerate. He struck off his name. No certificates or mark sheets were given. The burnt patches where the huts had once stood were filled with newer huts, except one. It remained dark and scorched till new life sprung up from the ground and the world moved on.

  A red rose plant withered somewhere along the ghat, but no one seemed to notice.

  All that remained of that night was a letter that was delivered to Aditi by his best friend, Neeraj Mishra.

  First Zeenat. Then Zeba. Aditi was quivering. Her thighs ached. Her head throbbed. She heard men yelling not far away. Women wailing. Then anger rushed out like the bile the previous night, without warning. What did she want? What the fuck did she want? A child. Was that wish worth two lives? Struggling against her dizziness, she marched out into the backyard. The hole Bachcha had dug had filled up a little.

  “You fucking bitch!” she shouted at the closed room. It looked back at her. “You are nothing but an old used up whore no matter what you think of yourself to be. All I wanted was a child. If even that was too much for you, why don’t you fucking go back to the shit-hole whorehouse you came from? Two girls! You killed two innocent girls! What had they done? No wonder they chopped off your head and then let a mule drag you. They should have raped you first. Dragged you out for the entire village to see. Let each one have his turn. Striped you naked and marched you round and round your temple. Would that have been enough, bitch? My bitch! My fucking bitch…”

  The shouting took its toll. Her vision began to blur. She thought the window opened. But it didn’t. She staggered back. One leg fell in the hole in the middle of the yard. She lost her balance and fell with a shriek. Her ankle twisted. Something snapped. Her face slammed against the wet mud. Cries of pain escaped her lips, and continued to come out with every breath she took. She raised her sari and examined her ankle. She tried to rotate her foot. In spite of the pain, a relief swept over her. Her ankle was not broken at least. It was one of the many dried twigs of the guava tree that had snapped. Sickness began to engulf her again. She managed to get into a proper position to throw up. Then she let herself lie down on the mud.

  It was Arvind who found her in the backyard by the pool of her vomit. Her ankle had swollen. Somehow, in spite of the state she was in, she found his intrusion annoying. She wanted to lie there, facing the sky, and not move. Just watch the stars appear and disappear as the sky changed colours until they grew cold and died. She even managed to ask herself how he dared to come inside without her permission. That sick bastard with his big battera and small motives! Then the feeling passed. She stopped caring. She let him carry her to her bed. She didn’t even notice when he went to inform Sir and Bhagvati.

  There was no Volini in the house, so Bhagvati applied Vicks Vaporub on her ankle and wrapped it with cloth. “They have just the same effect,” she said. Then she massaged her feet and legs which had turned weirdly cold. Clouds were still camped in the sky. A mist was slowly descending upon the village. Aditi lay in her room and noticed the events unfold after the second death. Men were again
seated in her veranda. They had shooed Bachcha away and discussed the deaths with each other. Their importance in the society was marked by the three chairs Arvind had brought out from her house. The more important ones were always offered the chairs by the less important ones, who would then sit on the floor, or the stairs, whichever suited them.

  Aditi had kept the window that opened in the veranda slightly ajar, so that she could herself see from time to time what was happening outside. The men had the courtesy not to peep inside. The tides were changing. The first death could have been overlooked, but not the second one. People were talking now. The old narrated the horrors they had witnessed. The young embraced themselves for the horrors to come, for someone had unleashed those horrors on them. Aditi sank lower into her bed. Her name often surfaced in their conversations. She, the exotic wife of the revered Manager Sahib, the City Woman who could beat her husband, the Educated One who prayed in the haunted temple and asked for a secret wish.

  Women who couldn’t find a place in Laila’s house or were too exhausted to console the grieving family came to find shelter in Aditi’s hall. They paid their visit to the host and expressed their concerns over her health. By evening, Aditi had vomited over four times and had been inflicted with fever. When one of the older women began to openly express her anger over Manoj’s lack of care, he kick-started his blue Rajdoot and called a doctor in Purnia from the telephone in his bank. He had earlier refrained from this extra effort in the hope that her condition would improve. He hoped. Or rather, over-hoped. The only medicine shop in the village was shut. Manoj returned empty handed and sat down with the men. It was the older woman again who made an announcement and the owner of the shop turned out to be in the crowd that had gathered outside their house. He himself went to his shop on his Hercules cycle and brought the medicines.