The Shadow on the Wall, Page 3

  Chapter Three

  The early morning jog was when Hari did his planning for the day. The cool, clean air seemed to help with the thinking process.

  ‘I have to find cheaper lodgings, or at least cut down on some of the unessential expenses,’ he thought. ‘Cut down on what, food, travel, I can’t cut down on those. The miscellaneous expenses - there should be some scope there.’

  He was too deep in thought to notice that he had taken a turn in the road and was now on an unpaved path. A small stream was flowing in the distance and he seemed to be in a heavily wooded area.

  “A forest here, in the middle of Mumbai!” said Hari. It was not possible to jog anymore so he started to walk. It was a holiday, so there was no hurry to get back and he decided to investigate the path further. There were trees in all directions. The path was just wide enough for one person to walk on. Shrubs and creepers added to the greenery on both sides.

  ‘Let me see where this path leads, as it is, today is a holiday so don’t have to go to office,’ thought Hari and continued along the path. The thick undergrowth weaved and wound its way around some trees until finally it reached a small clearing. In the middle of the clearing, there was a small hut. The hut was made of wooden rafters and looked old. Hari looked all around him but could not find another soul in sight.

  “Does anyone live here,” he shouted. His voice seemed to echo in the trees there. A couple of steps lead to the main door of the house. There were a few windows with glass panes, all covered in dust. Hari peeped through the panes. The house seemed to be empty. The entire house was made of wood and stood on posts, which lifted it a few feet of the ground.

  ‘May be it was to keep the flood waters out of reach of the wood and prevents rotting’, he thought. ‘The stream that I saw may be flooding this area during the rainy season’.

  He went up to the door and slowly pushed it open. It slid open with a sound that only hinges rusted from years of neglect could make. A warm, dusty draft of air hit him as the door opened inwards. As he entered the room, his footsteps echoed on the wooden floorboards. There were three rooms and there was a door at the back. The house considering its age seemed to be in a rather decent shape.

 

  “I wonder who used to stay here,” Hari said aloud. His voice echoed in the house and for a brief moment, he was scared. The only sign of life he could see in the house were some broken glass bangles pieces, lying scattered on the floor in one of the rooms. That same room had a large dark stain on one of the walls. The stain looked like a shadow. The shadow a woman would cast if a strong enough light was shining from the opposite direction.

  ‘ Maybe this room was used for cooking. This must be the soot from the burning charcoal,’ he thought. Then he remembered that he had been in the house for quite some time and it was time to get back. He softly closed the doors and made his way back down the steps. Suddenly he felt as if someone was looking through the glass panes of one of the rooms. He turned and looked back but there was no one there. He smiled and walked back the way he had come.

  He forgot all about the house for as soon as he reached his building he saw Vijay standing there at the gate.

  “What are you doing here?” He asked Vijay.

  “Today is a holiday. Today is also a Friday and the weekend is coming. In addition, my parents have left for a cousin’s marriage and I am all alone at home. All are good enough reasons to celebrate”, Vijay said. “Let go for a movie”.

  “Movie? That costs money. How will I ever save enough money if we go for movies and eat at hotels?”

  “ You can save money after you retire. Right now, you are young and the day is young. Let’s celebrate”

  “By the way”, Vijay looked at Hari conspiratorially and asked, “Do you drink?”

  “ No.. And I do not plan on starting it now”, said Hari.

  “Me neither. Just checking what kind of company I keep. My parents wouldn’t like it if your company were to spoil me.”

  “ Me spoil you?” Hari laughed. Vijay was fun to be with, the two ran to the bus stop and got on the first bus that came their way. The weekend passed by and then again, it was Monday.

  That morning, again Hari went jogging in the direction of the hut. Today he reached the place quickly as he already knew the route. There was no doubt in his mind now, no one seemed to own that hut. Leave alone owning no one even seemed to have come near that area in a long-long time. His footsteps from the previous week were still undisturbed on the floorboards. He walked around the structure and the more he looked around the more he was sure that the place was indeed deserted. The thick foliage of the trees, the years of dust and dirt on the floor and the walls all pointed towards the same conclusion.

  ‘Someone stay here would need access to water, ‘he thought.

  He remembered having seen a small stream on his way to the hut and found a shortcut from the house to the water source.

  ‘Water problem solved,’ he thought.

  Hari sat on the front steps and calmly looked at the problems he would face. He asked himself questions and gave his own responses to them.

  ‘Owner of this house?’

  ‘ Looking at the hut and the way it is maintained, I don’t think this house has had an owner for some time’

  ‘Advantages of living here?’

  ‘No rent, cut on food costs – I can cook something’

  ‘Disadvantages’

  ‘No electricity. The question is do I need any electricity? If most of my time, I would be in the office, why would I need any electricity. All I need this place for is to come here and sleep’

  ‘No one to speak to? Why should that be a problem? I hardly speak to anyone in the chawl’

  ‘Toilet would be a problem. For that I would have to use the jungle’, he though and smiled. ‘Small sacrifices need to be made for the greater good’ he thought.

  Balancing all the pro’s and con’s, Hari was more than eager to move in. The savings in money was huge and that one factor over came all his other concerns. He could see his father’s face lighting up with a smile stretching from ear to ear, as he would receive all the extra money from his son. V.N.K had never asked his son to contribute towards the family income but all the same was happy the first time he got a cheque from Hari for ten thousand rupees. Now he could contribute a lot more than that.

  Hari informed Vijay about his decision to move to this hut.

  “What are you mad? You say it is in the middle of a jungle and yet you are ready to go there. “

  “I need to save money”

  “If you had been a girl I could have told you some interesting ways you could make money”

  “One of these day, I might just hit you”

  “Don’t get upset. Ok come on. Let us celebrate. How about going to a hotel and having lunch?”

  Hari moved the same week. He had needed an extra bag as the number of clothes he now owned had increased slightly. Going to the office of a MNC required him to be decently dressed. In addition, he had purchased a couple of buckets, plastic mugs, some basic utensils, bed sheets and a sleeping bag. Vijay helped him with the shifting. The auto rickshaw deposited them on the street and from there the last kilometer was through the forest lugging the suitcases.

  They had started early in the morning. By the time, they had cleaned up the house and put everything in place the friends were completely exhausted.

  “O God. I have never worked so hard in my life. Not even at my own home, “Vijay said and collapsed on the floor tired.

  They had bought some bread and butter, which they had for lunch and then too tired to do anything further they both fell asleep on the sheets spread out on the floor. By the time they woke up it was around three in the evening. The sun was gone down below the tall trees and it was starting to get dark.

  “I had better run my friend. I must hand it to you though, it takes guts to stay alone in such a place”, Vijay said and retuned back to civilization, leaving
Hari all alone.

  After Vijay left, Hari looked all around him. The glass panes looked clean now. They had brought a few buckets of water from the river and cleaned up the floor and the walls. The wet wood panels were giving a musty, smell and Hari had to open the windows to let out the smell. He ate the remaining bread slices and went to sleep too tired to think. It was his first day in his new house.

  The next morning, by the time he woke up he realized there was no way to check the time. It was a Monday and an office day. He dressed quickly and rushed to office. The half an hour walk to the bus stop was one of the disadvantages of life in the hut. The advantage was that he was the only passenger from that point and was always able to get a seat to sit on the bus.

  “So you are alive? I thought you would not be coming to office today after all that work”, Vijay said as he saw Hari settle down at his desk.

  “I have some purchases to make,” said Hari “Have to buy some stocks of food. Today morning I realized I had nothing to eat.”

  “Buy a couple of bottles of jam’s and pickles. Bread, you can buy every other day. Stock up on rice and pulses. Start a small hotel and that could become a side business.”

  “ This is now getting to be costly,”Hari said.

  “Most of it is a one-time investment. You do not need to buy bed sheets every day or buckets for that matter. At the end of it, you will see it turn out much cheaper.”

  “Very true, plus I think I need to get a cheap cell phone. That way I can keep in touch with the outside world and also use it as an alarm clock.”

  “You know you could watch dirty videos on your cell phone? Where you stay you can also have the volume turned on full , since there would be no one anywhere near to catch you.”

  “ I do not watch dirty videos. That is not why I want to buy one. Also my budget is two thousand rupees only”

  “Why don’t you try this. This was something we did when we were children. You would need two matchboxes, one piece of string and two small nails. Tie the nails to the string and attach one matchbox to each end. Keep the wire taunt and guess what, you have a communication device. It will cost you five rupees maximum. One rupee for the equipment and four for my technical expertise”

  Vijay like his own joke so much that he started laughing even before he could finish his sentence. Even Hari joined him. He liked Vijay. The boy knew how to take out the seriousness from any situation.

  That evening as he returned to the hut, he had a bag full of groceries with him. While arranging the provisions in one of the rooms, which he was planning to use as a kitchen, he noticed something shine out of the corner of his eye. This was the room with the stain on the wall. As he bent down and peered, he noticed that it was the glass bangles pieces.

  “I clearly remember having thrown them out of the house. Maybe I missed some pieces,” said Hari to himself. In this house, he had started the habit of talking out aloud. There was no one to notice and helped reduce the silence. He picked up the bangle pieces and threw them out of the house.

  The next morning as he was tying his shoes, he noticed the glass bangle pieces were back in the same spot from where he had picked them up the previous evening. Too busy to think about it he rushed to office.

  The glass bangles pieces kept appearing every time Hari threw them out.

  “Must be some rodent with a glass bangle fetish”, said Vijay

  “May be. Anyway, I have stopped throwing them out. As it is, once I reach home, I am too tired to do anything at all. Just eat whatever is available and drop off to sleep”

  The project was entering the testing phase and the workload was getting hectic. The testers were finding all sorts of defects and the development team was to work round the clock to close them out. Hari was putting in around 12 – 14 hours at work. He would leave at eight in the morning and return – if lucky by eight. By the time, he reached home it would be around nine. He was now familiar with the location of every stone and shrub in his path and rarely needed to use the torch, which he carried in his office bag. He preferred to way back home in the moonlight.

  The day the testing completed, Gopi, had set up a party in the office for the team. That night by the time, Hari got down at the bus stop it was already ten thirty. Hari needed his torch to get to his house, as there were dark clouds in the sky, hiding the moon. He had had a heavy dinner at the party. The loud music there had given him a headache. Feeling a bit uncomfortable, he sat down on the steps leading to the house and rested his back against the wall. The gentle breeze and moonlight felt relaxing and before he realized it, he had wafted of to sleep.

  He saw a young woman sitting on the steps leading to the house. He saw himself, lying there with his head resting on her lap. He could not see her face clearly. Long black tresses covered part of her face. She had a jasmine garland in her hair and the thick, sweet smell from the flowers filled the air around. She was gently massaging his forehead. As he looked at her, he could see tears in her eyes. A drop of tear formed at the end of her eye. It slowly rolled across her cheek and fell down on his face. Then another drop fell. With a start, Hari woke up.

  He looked up but the skies were clear, the clouds all seem to have disappeared and the moon was shining through. It was a full moon that night. He got up and started going inside the house. Then he stopped and sniffed the air. There was a strong smell of jasmine all around.

  ‘What a vivid dream. It almost felt real, ‘he thought.

  “There must be a jasmine growing nearby and the breeze must be blowing the scent over,” he said. It was a Friday. With the testing completed, Gopal had given everyone the weekend off. Too tired to think Hari fell asleep in a short time.

  The next day was Saturday. Hari decided to sleep late but force of habit opened his eyes at five. He lay there in the sleeping bag, looking all around the room he was sleeping in. It was an old house no doubt.

  ‘Must be over a hundred years old’ he thought. There were intricate carvings on the rafters; he had not noticed that before. As his eyes swept to the other rooms, he noticed the dark mark on the kitchen wall there. No amount of washing had removed the stain.

  ‘The shadow seems to be getting more distinct with each passing day,’ he thought,

  “This woman in my house may be only a shadow on the wall as of now, but all the same she is my companion. Someone with whom I will be spending much time in this desolate corner of the world” he said and started laughing.

  “So my dear what is your name? Were you the one who rubbed my head yesterday and made my headache disappear” he asked the shadow on the wall and laughed some more. It was time to get out of bed.

  Hari realized that it was going to be a long day. Vijay and his parents were out of town on vacation and he was all alone. One whole day alone in the house would be boring. He thought of going for a movie, but quickly dropped the idea. Then he thought of calling up his parents on his new mobile phone. It had cost him around two thousand rupees and was one of the cheapest models available. It had no camera and had buttons instead of the more popular and costly touch screen display that the shopkeeper had tried to interest them in buying. The advantage was that it did not violate any of the restrictions in the ODC and he could carry it straight to his desk. He dialed the number of his house in Devipuram.

  He spoke to his father first then his mother. Then Priya came on the line. She was only half way through her story about how boring her studies were when his mother took the phone from her and asked Hari to disconnect. After putting the phone down, Hari realized that, he missed his family members. It would have been good to have someone to speak to on such days. He had stopped the habit of going on his morning run. The very act of walking to and from this house to the nearest bus stop was good enough as an exercise that he did not need anything extra. After his breakfast, which was usually bread, eggs and butter he pulled out an old novel, went to the doorstep, sat down, and began reading. After some time his back started aching by sitting on the step.
He brought out his sleeping bag, rolled it out near the front door, lay down on it, and continued reading the book. The sun’s rays were now falling straight at him and he felt drowsy. He did not realize when he fell asleep for by the time he woke up it was dark. He looked at his cell phone it said eleven in the afternoon but it looked as if the sun had already set.

  There seemed to be some sort of a smoke all around, which surprised Hari.

  “What is this?” he asked himself and waved his hands slowly through the smoke. The smoke felt wet to the touch, small drops of water formed on his hand and face as the smoke covered the house from all side.

  “ Oh, it is a fog”, he said. It was not the first time he had been in a fog. As a child, moving across different army cantonments, he had experienced all kinds of weather conditions. He felt it was growing thicker and thicker by the minute and soon, he could hardly see more than a few meters in front of the house.

  Then he thought he heard something. He listened carefully and there it was again. The sound seemed similar to the sound made by the silver anklets, women usually wore on their feet. It seemed to be growing louder and louder as if someone was walking towards him. In the almost one month since he had moved in to the house, he had not seen any one else in that area. Other than himself, Vijay was the only other person who had come to this house. The sounds of the anklet were now quite clearly audible. He was also able to see someone walking towards him. It was a woman dressed in bright colors and she was coming towards him.

  Then suddenly his cell phone rang and startled him. He took out the cell from his shirt pocket and looked at the number. It was from his home in Devipuram. He put it to his ear and said, “Hello”.

  It was Priya’s voice on the other side. As Hari listened to her, he looked up towards where he had seen the woman come towards him in the fog, but there was no one there now. He looked all around but there was no one there.

  “Hello…Hello. Cheta are you there” Priya’s voice from the cell brought him back to the present. She called him ‘Cheta’ or brother.

  “Priya, did we not speak just now? Why are you calling again? ” He asked.

  “ I want a mobile phone. Please can you buy me one?” Priya said.

  “Why do you want a mobile phone? Does Amma know about this?”

  “ Do you think she will allow me to get one? All my friends have it. I am the only one in my class who does not have one. It is so embarrassing,” she said.

  “Look, I don’t have the money now. Let me see if I can get you one next month”

  “One month from now?”

  “ Let me see”

  “Promise”

  “No ...no promises. Let me see if I have the money”, Hari cut the call and returned the phone to his pocket.

  “The girl needs to stop acting like a kid and take her studies more seriously”, he said to no one in particular. He then remembered about the women. He looked again but here was no one there. The fog also seemed to have thinned out. He came out on to the small clearing in front of the house and looked all around. There was no one there.

  ‘There might be some tribal people living in these forests’, he thought. He had not seen her face clearly but the dress she wore resembled a half sari, which was something that young girls wore in the south.

  “I didn’t know, girls wore half saris here in Mumbai. Anyway who am I to comment on women’s clothes?” said Hari “let me check with the expert on this subject”

  “Half-sari? What is that?” asked Vijay.

  “In the south, it is a dress worn by young girls or those who are too young to wear a sari and too old to roam around in a frock”

  “Ok now we are entering into interesting territory,” said Vijay.” By the way, since when have you started observing girls’ clothing with such interest? I thought that was my area of specialization”

  “Wait, let me show you what it is”, said Hari and typed “Half sari” in Google in his system and clicked on images. Within seconds, the computer monitor was full of images of women in various stages of undress, most of them showing their midriffs and striking seductive poses.

  The two boys were busy scrolling through the rows and rows of images and did not notice Mohan who had come up behind them.

  “Well, if you two are done watching the images, I want you to meet someone”, he said. There was a girl standing behind Mohan.

  “This is Manju Haridas, who has just joined our team as a developer”, Mohan said “Hari I am making you her buddy. You will introduce her to the other team members, introduce her to Gopi, also show her where the cafeteria, restroom and library are.”

  “ I could do that”, Vijay volunteered. He had noticed that the new comer was quite good looking.

  “Ah, yes Vijay. Have you finished writing the test cases that I had asked you to yesterday?” Mohan asked Vijay.

  “Test cases, what test case? Oh, yes..those test cases…. Yes…yes..I should be able to complete them by tomorrow”, Vijay replied.

  “I want them by today EOD. No excuses”, Mohan said and walked back to his desk.

  Vijay slid up to Hari and whispered, “Enjoy”, and went back to his desk.

  “Welcome to Indigo”, Hari said but did not get a response from the new comer. She was still looking at the screen full of girl’s photos on Hari’s monitor.

  “Oh I am sorry”, Hari said and quickly closed the browser.

  “We were just trying to look up half saris. You know for reference... I mean, to understand better… to…” Hari said. “Anyway come let me introduce you to the Project Manager”

  Later that day at lunch, Vijay was very keen to get all the details.

  “So what did you talk about?”

  “What?”

  “With that new girl. That Manju , who has Manjued into my heart and soul”, said Vijay with a dreamy look in his eyes.

  “ I introduced her to Gopi, showed her the cafeteria, and told her where the rest room was”

  “That is all. Oh my God! Of all the silly people on this planet, Mohan has to choose you to guide her”

  “Why what is wrong with me?”

  “ What is wrong with you? You had your bosses approval to roam around with the prettiest girl in Indigo for one whole day and all that you did is you showed her where the rest room was. Oh God! Please pardon this man for his sin’s he doesn’t know how to appreciate beauty. By the way, did she ask about me. I mean while you were escorting her to the rest room, did she ask who was that dashing, handsome young man standing at your desk and talking to you… any question of that kind?”

  “Well she did notice the web page full of girly picture you were ogling at when she had come to my desk…. Remember the research on half sari’s that we were doing?”

  The two friends burst out laughing.

  “By the way, talking about half saris, what are you planning on doing to the girl in half sari who turned up at your house?”

  “ I didn’t see her clearly, it was too foggy”, Hari said.

  “ Next time she comes, call me, I will take it up from there”

  “Take up what and from where?” Hari said and the two again started laughing.

  “My… I think.. I have started thinking like you “, Hari said

  “My friend, if you become like me, and it will only be an improvement on what you are now.”

  That night as Hari blew out the candles and prepared to go to sleep, he saw a head outlined against the glass panes. Someone was looking through the window. For a second he was shocked, but recovered quickly and shouted, “Who is there?”

  There was no answer. Since his college days, Hari had the habit of sleeping with his torch behind his head. He turned back, took it in his hand, and switched it on. As he shone it at the glass panes, there was no body there. The moonlight was now shining through the glass.

  He got up and went to the door, opened it and stepped out of the house. He shone the torch in all directions. There was no one there. The o
nly sound he could hear was the sound of the wind as it floated through the trees and rustled its leaves about.

  “I do not have time for this nonsense. Tomorrow I have to get to office early,” he said to himself. Switched of the torch and went back in. He was asleep even before his head hit the sleeping bag. Had Hari been awake, he would have noticed, that the light that was coming into the room was again blocked. Someone standing at the window and watching through the glass panes was blocking it.