by Anita Nair
I was surprised and delighted. Why hadn’t anyone taken this house? I had by luck caught hold of a lovely woman when lovely women were hard to come by. I must hide her with a veil! This was the feeling the house evoked in me. I was excited. I ran about and got busy. I borrowed money. I paid two months’ advance rent and obtained the key. In short, I moved into the house. The same day I bought a new hurricane lamp.
I swept and cleaned all the rooms, the kitchen and the bathroom. There was plenty of rubbish all over. And a great deal of dust. I washed and cleaned the rooms once again. Then I took a bath. I felt contented. I went and sat on the wall of the well. I was happy. I could sit and dream. I could walk about in the compound. I had to plan a garden in the front yard. It would be mostly rose bushes; a few creepers of jasmine. I wondered whether to appoint a cook—no, that would be a bother. In the morning after I had taken a bath I could go to the tea shop with a thermos flask so that I could bring back tea. I would arrange with a hotel to give me lunch at noon. I could ask them to send me the evening meal. Then I must meet the postman and tell him that I had come to stay here. I must also ask him not to tell anyone that the house was no longer empty … Nights of lonely beauty, days of lonely beauty; I could write a great deal … Thinking of all this I looked into the well. I could not see whether it had water. There were plenty of bushes and undergrowth covering the surface. I picked up a stone and dropped it in the well. Ploom! There was a splash and an echo. There was water in the well.
It was eleven in the morning.
I had not slept a wink the previous night. I had settled my account with the hotel in the evening. After this I had met the house owner. I had folded and tied up my canvas bed. I had packed my gramophone and records. I had packed my trunk, my papers, my books, the easy chair, the bookshelf—all my worldly goods. At dawn I had set out with the things in two carts.
I shut the doors of my new house and locked the front door. I stepped onto the road and shut the gate. I put the key in my pocket and walked on with a sense of pride. I thought to myself, with whose song should I inaugurate my house-warming tonight? … I have with me more than a hundred gramophone records; they are in English, Arabic, Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, Bengali. There is nothing in Malayalam. There are some who sing well in Malayalam. One can buy records of their music; but the music score is bad. When will Malayalam have a good music director? Such as Pankaj Mullick or Dilip Kumar Roy? I asked myself, whose record shall I play first tonight? Pankaj Mullick, Dilip Kumar Roy, Saigal, Bing Crosby, Paul Robeson, Abdul Karim Khan, Kanan Devi, Kumari Majumdas Gupta, Khurshid, Juthika Ray, M.S. Subbulakshmi … I thought of ten or twenty names. Finally I decided. There’s a song which goes ‘Here comes the wanderer.’ Door desh ka rahnewala aya, it begins. Who sang that? A man or a woman? I couldn’t recall. I decided to look it up. I walked on.
First I met the postman and talked to him. When I told him of the house I had occupied he said with a touch of fear, ‘Ayya! Sir … in that house … a violent death took place there. No one stays there. That’s why that house has remained vacant all this time.’
A house where there had been a violent death? I was somewhat taken aback. I asked, ‘What kind of violent death?’
‘Isn’t there a well in the yard? … someone jumped into it. After that there has been no peace or quiet in that house. Many people stayed there. At night the doors would shut with a bang. The water taps would start running …’
Doors would shut with a bang! Water taps would run! Amazing, both the water taps had shackles and locks. The house owner had told me that people used to jump over the wall and have a bath there, so the taps had been kept locked! I should have asked him why the taps inside the closed bathroom had also been kept locked … I hadn’t thought of it then.
‘The ghost will hold you by the throat, strangle you! Didn’t anyone tell you this, sir!’
I thought to myself, splendid … and I have paid two months’ rent in advance! I told him, ‘Oh, that’s nothing serious. One magic incantation will take care of it. Anyhow, see that letters and so on reach me there.’
I said this bravely. I am neither courageous nor cowardly. I fear what most people are normally afraid of. So perhaps I should be considered a coward. What would you have done under such circumstances?
I walked on slowly. I wondered what I should do. I never create situations just for the sake of the experience. But when an experience comes your way uninvited what can be done then?
I stepped into a hotel and drank tea. I didn’t feel like having a meal. It was as if my belly was on fire. I talked to the hotelkeeper about my food being sent to the house. When he heard the location of the house he too said, ‘I’ll send you food there during the day, but at night …! The boys will not go there. A woman jumped into that well and drowned. She’ll be somewhere around the place! Sir, aren’t you afraid of ghosts?’
A good half of my fear left me. It was a woman, was it? I said, ‘Oh, that’s nothing serious. And I have the right magic incantation!’
I did not know any magic incantation. But then it was a woman and, as I said, half my fear was gone. From there I went to a bank nearby. I had two or three friends who were clerks there. I told them the news. They were angry with me. ‘You did a foolish thing. That house is haunted by a ghost. It harms men especially.’
So the ghost hated men. That was nice!
One of them said, ‘Couldn’t you have talked to one of us before you leased the house?’
I said, ‘Who knew about all this then? Let me ask you one thing. Why did that woman jump into the well and kill herself?’
‘Love,’ another friend replied. ‘Her name was Bhargavi. Age twenty-one. She passed her B.A. Even before that she was in love with a chap—deeply in love. But he married another girl. On the night of the wedding Bhargavi jumped into the well and killed herself!’
Most of my fear left me. So, was that the reason for her enmity towards men?
I said, ‘Bhargavi won’t harm me.’
‘Why not?’
I said, ‘I know a magic incantation!’
‘Ah, let’s see … You’ll shout and cry in the night!’
I said nothing to that.
I returned to my house. I opened the doors and windows. Then I went down and stood near the well.
‘Bhargavi Kutty!’ I called out in a low voice. ‘We have not met. I have come to stay here. In my opinion I’m a good man; a confirmed bachelor. I’ve heard a number of complaints about you, Bhargavi. It seems you do not let people stay here. You open the water taps at night. You bang the doors shut. You hold men by the throat and try to strangle them … These are the kinds of things I hear. What should I do now? I’ve paid two months rent in advance. And I like this place very much.
‘I want to sit and work here. That is to say, I want to write some stories. Incidentally, let me ask you something. Bhargavi Kutty, do you like stories? If you do I can read out all my stories to you, Bhargavi Kutty. Shall I? … I’ve no quarrel with you, Bhargavi Kutty. The reason being that nothing has happened between us … I dropped a stone into the well thoughtlessly. Nothing like that will happen again. Forgive me. Do you hear me, Bhargavi Kutty! I have with me a very good gramophone. And some two hundred excellent songs. Are you fond of music?’
Having said this much, I kept quiet. To whom was I talking? … to an open-mouthed well ready to swallow anything?—To the trees, the house, the atmosphere, the earth, the sky … to whom? Was I talking to my disturbed mind? I said to myself, I am talking to a creature of my mind. Bhargavi. I had not seen her. A young woman who had been twenty-one years old. She had loved a man deeply. She had wanted to live as the wife of this man, as his life-long companion. She had dreamt of her life with him. But that dream … yes, it remained just a dream. She became disillusioned, felt unwanted …
‘Bhargavi Kutty!’ I said, ‘you should not have acted that way. Don’t think I am blaming you. The man you cared for did not love you enough. He loved another woman more. He married her.
So life became bitter to you. Quite so. But life is not full of such bitterness. Let that go. As far as you are concerned history will not repeat itself.
‘Bhargavi Kutty, don’t think I am blaming you. Did you really die for love? Love is the dawn of an eternal life. Silly girl that you were, you knew nothing about life. That is what this enmity of yours to men proves. You knew just one man. Let us agree that the particular man harmed you. But was it right for you to look at all men through tinted glasses? If you had not committed suicide but had lived on you would have realized that your attitude was wrong. There would have been men who would have called you a goddess and worshipped you. But as I said, in your case history will not repeat itself.
‘Anyhow, you must not harm me. This is not a challenge. This is a request. If you strangle me to death tonight there will be no one to ask you why—not that one can take revenge on you. There will be no one to do it for I have no one.
‘Bhargavi Kutty, do you understand my situation? We are both staying here. That is to say, I intend staying here. The well and the house belong to me by right. Let that be. You may use the four rooms on the ground floor and the well and we shall share equally the kitchen and the bathroom. Do you like this arrangement?’
I was satisfied. Nothing happened.
It was night. I went to eat my meal and returned with the thermos flask full of tea. I switched on my electric torch and lit the hurricane lamp. The room was steeped in yellow light.
I went downstairs with my torch. I stood still in the darkness for some time. My object was to lock the water taps. I opened all the windows. Then I went near the well and the kitchen. I decided that the water taps should not be locked.
I shut the doors and secured them and went upstairs. I drank some tea. I lit a beedi and sat on the chair for a little while. I was about to start writing when I felt as though someone stood behind my chair … Bhargavi!
I said, ‘I dislike anyone looking on when I am writing.’
I turned round … wasn’t anyone there?
Somehow I did not have the inclination to continue writing. I got up and paced back and forth across the two rooms. There was no breeze. Outside, even the leaves on the trees did not stir. When I looked out through the window … there was a light!
I could not make out whether the light was blue or red or yellow … I saw it only for an instant.
Oh, that’s an illusion, I told myself. I could not swear that I had seen the light or that I had not seen it. But then, if I had not seen it, how could I have imagined it?
I paced up and down for a long time. I stood near the window for a while. I saw nothing different. I tried to read but I could not concentrate. I thought I might as well sleep early and made my bed. I put out the lamp. I suddenly felt like listening to some records.
I lit the lamp again. I opened up the gramophone. I fixed a new needle to the sound box. I wound up the machine.
Whose song should I play? The world was silent. But there was a hum all round. The humming resounded through my ears. I did not feel afraid. But there was a thrill, a vibration, which went through me. There hung suspended in the air a frightening silence which I wanted to shatter into a hundred thousand bits. Whose song would do that? I searched among the records and finally picked up one by the black American singer Paul Robeson. He sang through the machine. The sweet, sonorous, manly voice sang, ‘Joshua fought the battle of Jericho.’
That was followed by Pankaj Mullick: ‘Tu dar na Surabhi …’ (Surabhi, you have nothing to fear …)
After that the soft, melodious, feminine voice of M.S. Subbulakshmi: ‘Katinile varum geetam …’ (The song wafted by in the breeze …)
M.S. Subbulakshmi’s song came to an end.
After the three songs I felt a sense of peace. I sat in the stillness for some time. Then I decided to call on the great Saigal. He sang in that low voice full of sweetness and pathos. ‘Soja Rajkumari …’ (Sleep, Princess).
That song too came to an end.
‘That’s all; we will resume tomorrow,’ I said, and closed the gramophone. I put out the lamp, lit a beedi and lay down. Next to me was the electric torch and my watch.
I had closed the door to the balcony before I lay down. It must have been about ten o’clock. I lay listening.
I could hear nothing but the soft tik-tik of the watch. The minutes and hours moved on. There was no fear. What I felt in my mind was a cool … a cool alertness. This was nothing new for me. In my twenty years of solitary life I have had many experiences, the meaning of which I have not been able to fathom. And so my attention shuttled between the past and the present. In between I listened … for knocks on the door … the noise of running water from the pipes. Would I feel the pressure of being strangled? I listened till three o’clock.
I heard nothing. I experienced nothing. Absolute calm. I slept. I had no dreams. I got up the next morning at nine.
Nothing had happened!
‘Bhargavi Kutty, many thanks … I understand one thing now. People are finding fault with you, Bhargavi Kutty, for no reason at all! Let them say what they like, don’t you think so?’
Days and nights passed thus. Most nights when I was tired of writing I would put on records. Before each song I would announce the name of the singer and the meaning of the song. I would say, ‘The next song is by the Bengali singer Pankaj Mullick. It is a sad song which evokes memories of days gone by. Listen to it carefully. ‘Guzar gaya woh zamana kaise … kaise …’ (How those days have gone by … vanished …)
Or else I would say, ‘The next song is by Bing Crosby, “In the moonlight”, which means—you’re a graduate, excuse me.’
I would say all these things to myself. Two and a half months passed thus. I nurtured and brought into being a garden. Whenever flowers bloomed I would announce that they were for Bhargavi Kutty. During this time I wrote a short novel. Many of my friends visited me. Many of them stayed the night with me. Before they went to sleep I would quietly go down and speak in a low tone into the darkness. ‘Look Bhargavi Kutty, some of my friends are staying here tonight. Please don’t strangle them to death. If anything like that happens the police will catch me. Please be careful … good night!’
Ordinarily, before I left the house I would say, ‘Bhargavi Kutty, look after the house. If any thief comes you can strangle him to death. But don’t leave the dead body here. You must take the corpse some three miles away! Otherwise we will be in trouble.’
At night when I returned after the late cinema show I would call out: ‘It’s me.’
All this was during the first few months of my stay. As time passed I tended to forget Bhargavi. That is to say, I did not talk to her much. I would occasionally remember her, that was all.
On this earth … since the beginning of man in this world … countless, hundreds of thousands of men and women have died. They have become one with the earth, with the dust of the earth. We all know this. Bhargavi survived as a memory of them all; that is how I thought of her.
Then something happened one night.
It must have been about ten o’clock. I had been writing a story since nine. It was a highly emotional piece. I was writing feverishly. I felt that the light was gradually dimming.
I took up the lamp and shook it. There was no kerosene at all, even then I thought I could write one more page. This was not a clearly thought-out intention. My entire attention was on the story I was writing. When the light dimmed what would one’s natural reaction be? To find out if there was enough oil, as I had done. Then I turned up the wick. I went on writing. Again the light became dimmer. Again I turned up the wick. I continued writing. Again the light dimmed. Again I turned up the wick. As this went on the wick of the lamp became a glowing object four inches long and half an inch wide.
I switched on the electric torch and lowered the wick of the lantern completely. I need hardly say that the lamp went out.
I asked myself, ‘How does one get a light?’
I needed to get kerosene. I rememb
ered that I could go to the bank. Those clerks stayed in a portion of the building. I could borrow some kerosene from their stove. I picked up the torch and the empty kerosene bottle, locked the door, went downstairs and closed the front door. I stepped outside, closed the gate and walked along the road. There was a misty moonlight. The sky was overcast.
I walked fast.
I reached the front of the bank building, looked up and called one of the clerks by name. After I had called twice or thrice, one of them came down and opened the side gate. We walked along the side of the building and climbed up the back stairs. Here I found that the three of them had been playing cards.
When I told them about the kerosene one of them laughed and asked me, ‘Couldn’t you have asked that Bhargavi to fetch you kerosene?’
I said nothing though I too laughed. While one of them was taking some kerosene out of the stove it started raining.
I said, ‘You must give me an umbrella also.’
They said, ‘Never mind an umbrella, we don’t even have a bare stick to make up one. Let’s play cards. You can go when the rain stops.’
And so I played cards. My partner and I lost three rounds which was mainly because I could not concentrate. My mind was on the story I was writing. It stopped raining at about one o’clock. I picked up the torch and the bottle of kerosene. The clerks got ready to go to bed. When I went down the stairs and reached the road they switched off the light.
There was no movement on the road, nor any light. I walked on. There was no light anywhere. I turned the corner and approached my house. In the dim moonlight the whole world appeared steeped in misty wonder. I do not know what thoughts passed through my mind. Perhaps I thought of nothing in particular. I walked along the deserted and silent road with the torch switched on.
