2. DAY 1: Trouble invited!

So, it was the year 1960 in India. At that time we were living in a small village in Maharashtra called Dhamner. All those incomprehensible events happened with us in this village.

At that time, my father was working as a primary school teacher in a Taluka Place (town) called Shinkpur, which was near to Dhamner. He had got transferred to that school recently. We both the not-same-looking twins were of age 14 at that time. My brother Raaj who was two minutes small of my age. We would go to the school in Dhamner because travelling daily to Shinkpur for both of us was expensive and not affordable. Shinkpur was expensive and hence we were all living in Dhamner.

"Jay, haven’t finished your bathe yet? Hurry up! Raaj is waiting. Come out of the bathroom!" my mother (whom we would call Maai) shouted at me. It was 9 am. She was making Bhakri on an earthen stove.

"Hey! Finish early! You go inside the bathroom ahead of me and take a lot of time! That’s not done ha!" Raaj shouted on me.

I came out of the bathroom hurriedly by moving the curtain aside and wiping my body with towel. Raaj entered into bathroom teasing me.

"Maai, see! Daily he gets up late and goes to bathroom first!" Raaj told Maai.

Tatya, my father was listening to the radio while getting ready for his school. Hearing us fight, he switched off radio and came out with his usual attire of white kurta, Gandhi topi and dhoti. He yelled on us, "Shut up you two! Why you daily quarrel at bathing time?" and hit me on my head with his hand. I started crying.

Tatya started cleaning his cycle with a towel.

"Your tiffin is ready. Crushed baked green chili mixed with onion and bhakri is today’s menu! Also, I have given your favorite crushed salty Papad with chutney!" Maai said while giving Tatya the tiffin made of a cloth (viaticum).

"Children! Go to school and study! Don’t bother your Maai while I am away!" He sat on his cycle saying this.

Crying I said, "But, I get the beating even if we both quarrel equally!"

Tatya said, "Ok then, I will decide alternative days for you to get the beating!" and went away!

Raaj was teasing me from inside the bathroom calling me fire goblin, "See, how our coward fire goblin is crying!"

In the village, little children funnily call each other as fire goblin. They were not aware who it was but I would always become aghast at the mention of the name – fire goblin. On that day, while going to school, I was thinking only of the fire goblin.

Raaj would go to school in his group which was different from mine.

Me and my friend Bhanu were walking to school. It was a raw earthen pathway. No concrete roads. School was 4 kms away. We were passing by a rivulet. Bhanu asked me why I was so gloomy. I didn’t tell him the silly reason that I was scary of the fire goblin’s mention by my brother Raaj.

While discussing casually, a strange looking honey-bee started hovering over my head. I shoved her away but it started coming to me again and again and was about to bite me but again I shoved her away more strongly this time. Suddenly on the left side I noticed a hive. With a will to revenge, I picked a pebble from ground and threw it towards the hive. However, the pebble went near the hive, stopped in air and came back towards me with the same speed. I moved away in lightning speed otherwise one of my eyes would have cracked. Bhanu was watching all this in surprise.

While nothing happened to the honey-bees in the hive, they came together in air forming a big hollow sphere, as if they were whispering something in each other’s ears. This was not something usual.

Bhanu said, "Why are you troubling those small creatures? Leave it!"

 "No. I did it just like that!" I said embarrassingly and avoided to discuss further on that and said, "Let’s get out of here!"

I put that pebble in my pant pocket and we headed towards school.

At 4 pm in the afternoon, I came back home from school. There was a farm nearer to our house. A hamlet was seen close to the field. Two bulls were tied to a wooden pillar near the hamlet.

The asynchronous ringing sound of the bells tied around their neck of the bulls would always feel very melodious to my ears. In addition to such a natural music, a cool breeze would come on my face. I would always stare for hours to them listening to music and enjoying the breeze by sitting on a wooden bed kept in yard.

I hailed at Maai to inform her about my coming back from school. I took water from the big earthen water pot using an aluminum vessel and drank it. Yesterday night we brothers had helped Maai to make laddoos and had slept late. Hence I was feeling sleepy in this afternoon. Hence, I lied down on the wooden bed woven by ropes. Meanwhile Maai was cleaning the yard and went inside.

While lying on the bed, I noticed that the pebble in my pocket suddenly started becoming hot. Not being able to bear the hotness, I hurled the pebble high in the backside of our house. I wondered how it happened suddenly?

After some time when I was looking at the blue sky and the white random shaped clouds, a honey bee came to my ears and started humming. But the humming was unusual as if she was talking something into my ears. It was humming "gurr gunn gurr gunn". I shoved her away but it adamantly kept coming to me. I was feeling too lazy to apply my full force on her as I was feeling dizzy and sleepy. All of a sudden the size of the honey bee started growing. It grew bigger and bigger and started going up in the clouds. With her growing size, her humming sound got more and more amplified and became deafening.

The size now was so big that it occupied most of the sky above me and hence darkness started falling. She reached the big cloud finally and caught fire suddenly. And hence the cloud also started burning. And it started raining. Rain of flames! Rain of sparks! Big drops of flames started coming down from the cloud towards me.

The flames were coming to me. Closer and closer…

The brown-black indecent, detestable, tacky and glorified bee was beyond bearable to my senses and eyes. The deafening sound was equally unbearable to my ears…

The hundreds and thousands of flame droplets were coming towards me…

I screamed from the bottom of my heart and throat…

And got up and sat on the wooden bed with the wetness of sweating...

And the honey bees and the fire of droplets now didn’t seem to exist…

Even the clouds and the blue sky were serene… Still I had goosebumps. For a longer time.

Then I realized that I had a bad dream in day’s sleep. It was a nightmare in broad daylight. Was the dream a result of my fear out of hurling the pebble to the hive and its consequences or it was indicative of something else? A bad omen? I chose not to tell about this to mother as I knew she wouldn’t have bothered about it.

Tatya came home in the evening. After homework and playing, we all gathered in courtyard and had dinner of Khichadi and pickle. There was also cucumber salad included.

Yet we didn’t have electricity in our house. We couldn’t afford it. We would pass the days and nights with lantern only. Post dinner, we put wooden bed in courtyard and spread our beds over it. Blowing off the lantern, we all got asleep.

It must be around 10 pm in night but I hadn’t slept yet. Looking at sky while lying on my wooden bed, I recalled the afternoon’s dream and I shivered with fear. And because of that, the usual melodious sound of the bells tied around the bullocks’ neck felt mysterious to me. And slowly sleep took me over…

Two honey bees started coming out from the cloud in the sky. They started coming down towards me. Two more and 4 more and so on... They became uncountable and were coming towards me. The cloud looked as if it was a hive. Like rain drops, they were pouring downwards…

I scared so much that I felt like going for urine…

And suddenly there was nothing in the clouds. Was it again a hallucination or dream? Like in the afternoon?

It must be midnight when I woke up. The dream was not real but urine feeling was real. I couldn’t gather courage to go inside home and see what the time was. I got up and went towards bathroom.

While peeing, I could see from bathroom window a big old banyan tree. Its dangling branches were looking in the moonlight to me as if they are hands of people climbed upside down on the tree.

While such scary thoughts were taking control of my mind, a white man-like figure came from behind the tree. It was looking very scary in the white moonlight. Was it a fair skinned man or a Satan? He directly started looking at me. Directly into my eyes! Through the window!

While looking at me, he sat down making strange gestures and again got up. Again sat down. Then he started smiling intriguingly and got up. He then leaned on the tree, looked up at the moon in the sky. While looking at the moon, he smiled as if someone was waving hands towards him from the surface of the moon.

Then he captured few branches of the tree and started swinging. However while doing so, he was continuously looking at me without moving his eyelids. The other branches also started moving automatically as he was swinging. He was also uttering something beyond my understanding.

It was end of my tolerance of scariness and immediately I started running out of the bathroom and the curtain of bathroom fell on my head.

I went to Tatya and said, "Ta... Ta… Tatya, A white demon is there! A white spook!"

Hearing this Maai woke up but Tatya didn’t. I removed the curtain from my head. Then Tatya woke up. I told him in short what I saw under the tree.

Tatya told me to first relax and keep calm.

Tatya gave me a glassful of water, ignited the lantern and said, "Let’s go! Show me where your white Satan is?"

Raaj was insisting on coming with us but Tatya denied saying, "I will call u if we need you. Someone needs to be with Maai" Maai and Raaj went inside the house.

Our earthen house was little bit away from main locality. The people in nearby locality might have fallen fast asleep and our voices may not have reached them because no one seemed to have woke up. Tatya took me to the tree. I was still scared in my mind though I was not showing it from outside. The branches were still waving but the white Satan wasn’t there!!

"But he was here! Right here! He was swinging!" I said to Tatya by recalling in mind the Satan’s scary and eye locking swings.

"Ok. Let us see from the other side of the tree from where it appeared as you had said," said Tatya giving me some courage.

We both came to the backside of the tree. The chirping sound of crickets was very irritating. The sounds of bells tied in bullocks neck was coming. Our walking on the dry leaves of trees on ground was making big sound in the night silence.

The nearby farm in darkness! And those many scarecrows standing spreading their hands! So scary!

"Vhyom...Vhyom", making this sound the white Satan suddenly appeared hanging upside down by thrashing his face in front of our faces, swinging and laughing. His eyes were lit with redness which was making him look scarier. Tatya also got scared for a while with such strange white creature in human form but he got recovered very soon from the fear. It was seen from his calm face.

I screamed a lot and said, "This is the Satan I was talking about!"

Unexpectedly next moment, Tatya pulled him down by holding his chin with strong grip. The Satan fell down on his head. I was so admiring Tatya at the moment that I can't explain it in words. The Satan whom I got scared too much was now pulled down on ground by Tatya! Vaah!

When Tatya pulled him down, the whole huge tree shivered for a while and all the dangling branches started swinging together.

The dried leaves were making sounds. The Satan after falling down got bewildered. When all this was happening, I was watching it by standing bit away and resting against the tree trunk. Tatya put the lantern in a hollow space inside the tree and started searching for any stick nearby. And he hot one!

He started picking up the stick and said, "So you are Satan? What the hell Satan are you! I can easily beat you with this thick stick! You are an idiot and not a Satan, understand?"

Suddenly in a lightning speed, the white Satan got up from ground...

And started running towards the village locality. There was no point in running behind him with stick because he ran through thorny bushes. After going ahead till a safe distance, he stopped and turned back towards us. He watched us with furious sparks in his eyes in such a way that we both trembled with fear for a while. And in the dark bushes he disappeared...

Tatya took back the lantern and the thick stick and said, "Let’s go back to our house Jay!"

"Tatya you are a very courageous person. I am proud of you!" I couldn't stop admiring him.

After this incident, we all spent whole night without sleeping. At 5 am, we all slept little with an anonymous fear on face….