Musings III

I

Ghost in my Backyard

Our home in Tezpur was located at one extreme end of a dilapidated cantonment. Beyond our building of four flats, a vast piece of wild land stretched out for almost five hundred metres before the highway took over. This land was overrun with the famous elephant grass of Assam mingled with thorny lantana bushes and amongst other plants I did not recognise, a shrub with purple powdery flowers and a strong minty smell. I’ve read descriptions of this plant in Ruskin Bonds writings and I think it’s called Ageratum. 

This was 2007 when Other Half decided to see the world and flew off to beautiful Lebanon, leaving me to queen over the house with its termite infested cupboards, cracked mosaic flooring, moss grown walls, peeling plaster and of course, Kuttush and Khushi the two Labradors. Both were about three that time, in the prime of youth and to tell the truth, having made a few dear friends of ages ranging from eight to fifty, all three of us had had a lovely time at Tezpur.

Except for that episode of the Ghost in the backyard.

I had employed a maid, a local Assamese woman who couldn’t speak a word of Hindi. She had been, as I could gather from her garbled words, deserted by her husband who was Bengali and now lived with her mother and two young kids just across the highway. I liked her for she was a simple woman, a good worker and a reasonably decent cook. She stayed in the tiny servant’s quarter attached to our flat with her son, the daughter still living with her mother in their own home. 

But strangely, when we returned from an absence of more than four months, we found her gone, her room locked and no one having any idea of her whereabouts. I summoned her Mom who was clueless and devastated with grief and could give me no useful input. I had her room broken open but except for a small tin of sindoor spilt on the floor and a bottle of half empty rum on the shelf, there was no sign of the woman. I got an FIR filed, handed over the few belongings she had to her mother and considered the case closed. But major misgivings remained in my mind which I conveniently thrust right to the very back of my mind.

Then Other Half pushed off to Lebanon and I was alone for about seven months. I never considered being alone a problem till Kuttush began behaving a trifle strangely. Winters nights can be chilly in Tezpur and I got into the habit of retiring to the bedroom at around seven after an early dinner and watching endless TV snuggled in my quilt. Kuttush would sit in the corner of the room, before the AC while Khushi would sleep on the bed curling around my legs. One day as I was engrossed in a particularly interesting American soap when I noticed Kuttush staring with a contemplative look at the space just above my head. Reflexively, I turned to look up but there was nothing, not even a spider. Thinking it an aberration, I promptly forgot about it. Till he took to  doing this peculiar ‘staring into space’ thing every evening post dinner while sitting in his spot before the switched off AC. Then when he began shifting his gaze across the room from his right to left as if following something that was moving a few feet up in the air, I got really spooked. I kept asking him what is was but he kept silent, his eyes turning contemplative.

I began sleeping with both the lights switched on and the and the Tv on full volume.

The funny part was that Khushi, my female Labrador acted as if nothing was happening. She would sleep contentedly half in and half out of the blanket, emitting a ladylike snore now and then, completely unaffected by all the ghostly happenings that Kuttush seemed to be tracking. Prosaic, practical, logical and fearless, Khushi was my pillar of support. I took her with me whenever I had to leave my bedroom after eight pm and she always strode ahead of me, confident, powerful and totally no-nonsense.

One day,when I returned in the evening after a hectic day in office, the gentleman living in the flat above mine, craned his neck out of the window and informed me, rather gleefully I thought, “Maam, aapke garden mein laash nikla hai!”

“What?” I was rooted with forboding.

It seems the Cantt authorities, in the process of erecting a concrete fence around the Cantt, had dug up my entire rear garden in one single day. “Garden” was of course just a polite way of describing the jungle that existed in my backyard. I had planted a few herbal plants like patchouli, pippali, mint, bramhi, citronella, etc but other than these, the entire backyard was overgrown with weeds.  Apparently the daily labourers engaged in the task had come across a set of bones during their digging and had gossiped about it.

I was petrified, having put three and three together immediately i.e. my maid’s disappearance, the unseen entity that Kuttush followed with his eyes every evening and those bones in the backyard. Thinking that I had to do something about it, I made  a formal official appeal to the Seurity-in-Charge who helpfully dismissed my story with one, “Kya Madam! Aap bhi na!”

But because I kept insisting that he do something about the bones, he sent two hospital staff the same evening to investigate the matter. These two gentlemen arrived in full regalia armed with torches and sticks and together we ventured behind. In the darkness nothing much was visible but they were a spirited bunch. They scrambled around in the undergrowth for about twenty minutes and then emerged jubilant, one brandishing victoriously a female human femur and another a skull that I was quite sure, female.

When I asked them, “Police bulanyege?” the senior gentleman retorted, “Kislye Madam? Purana hoga. Kya karna gade murde ukharkar (literally)!”

“Toh iska kya karenge?” I ventured, pointing to the bones.

In response, he promptly threw the femur and the skull across the barbed wire fencing onto the highway and looked at me, laughing, “Kiska????”

I had nothing more to say and retreated inside.

After the discovery of these bones, nothing really changed in our household. Kuttush continued his space staring, I still slept with the lights and the TV on and Khushi kept snoring peacefully through the entire night.

Then Other Half returned from his vacation in Lebanon and we shifted base to the holy city of Amritsar. Kuttush stopped his ghost seeing ways and life began anew at Amritsar, sans ghosts and spirits.

I have a hyperactive imagination and am non-logical. But even applying all the logic I can garner, for the life of me I cannot come up with a suitable explanation of why Kuttush did what he did and of what he saw.

They say dogs can see spirits. So perhaps, it was after all, just that. 

A ghost in my backyard.

SCENT OF A GHOST

I was n the throes of the last agonising phase of my MD. This was 2004, in Pune. I was staying n the first floor of a co-ed hostel in the heart of Pune, a very ‘unghostly’ place. I occupied the outer room of a two room set, the inner one belonging to a very dear and sweet friend of mine, Tall and Pretty. Tall and Pretty had gone home on a short leave and at that time I was alone. 

One night I woke up very suddenly to the very strong smell of perfume. At first I was a little confused since I had woken up from a really deep dreamless sleep. Then slowly I realised that I had been woken up by a smell, a smell of very strong perfume. I glanced at the steel alarm clock kept on the study table saw that it was quarter to three. The smell was still there, strong and piercing and it was stinging my nose. I was curious and a little scared too. I opened the balcony door and walked out. It was a silent city night, few stars, one or two dogs and the night watch man curled up in his sentry post fast asleep. There was nothing out of the ordinary and no smell outside. Not even a whiff.

I closed the door and returned inside. I checked Tall and Pretty’s dressing table, thinking that maybe one of her perfumes bottles had overturned. Then I remembered. She was allergic to perfumes and so did not use any. The two bottles that belonged to me were standing intact in their place. And anyway, the smell was not of any perfume that I would ever use, even at gun point. It was a very tapori kind of a perfume, the kind a mujra watching, gajra wielding, pan chewing Mumbaiyya don would wear, not my snooty understated Chanel No 5 kinds.

I looked around the room. The door was latched securely, the windows looked out onto the balcony which was odourless and there did not seem a place from where a real life Tapori would fling perfume over a sleeping me. I even gathered courage and opened the door that led to the corridor. But it was empty and fragrance free.

Now I was scared. I picked up the phone and at 3:10 am rang up Other Half stationed in faraway Mumbai. Thankfully he picked up at the first three rings. It was a relief to hear his deep sane voice. Of course I didn’t tell him  why I had called him at this unearthly hour. I just muttered some silly explanation and quickly saying bye, hung up. In his sleepy state, I don’t think he even registered that I had called, let alone recall it next morning. Thank God for that.

I, of course kept the light switched on the remaining part of the night till dawn broke and the chattering birds announced the safety of day.

The smell faded in the morning light without a trace and the Tapori Ghost never returned to haunt me again with his perfume from beyond.

And as for a logical explanation, just like in the previous episode, I have none to offer.