Shayon's Labyrinth!

It’s been a while since i have been wanting to write some fiction. Talking about your real life is good. But then fiction is what makes your heart race, fiction is what allows you to hallucinate. Or should I say, fantasize? I know I am more of a narrator, than a story teller. So, I decided to share a little incident in my life that not many people really know of. And well, let’s not consider Sakshi in the list. She’s been around for a long while, now.

So, the story is from a time when the movie Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge was still a rage. It was from the time when Jurassic Park had just released and people were still reading books about Stegosaurus, Diplodocus and the T-Rex. I used to live in a hostel. The city was Kolkata. The year was 1995. And I was just a 10 year old kid.

Now, before I move ahead with the story, there’s a prologue that I should wrap up, first. It was back in 1990 when the first of my grandfathers passed away. Till date, I have no clue what was his ailment. As a matter of fact, this is the first time I am wondering about what might have happened to him. Anyway, getting back to the story, it was 1990 and I used to stay in Raipur. One afternoon, we received a call from my family in Kolkata and we got to know that he was already dead. By the time we could arrange for the train tickets and travel a whole day to reach home, he was already cremated. Apparently, it was getting late and they couldn’t let the dead body stay at home for long. In short, they couldn’t wait till we could arrive.

Even though I was just 5 year old back then, I understood what death meant. I understood the fact that my grandpa would never come back. I understood that I would never be able to go out for a evening walk with him, or ask him for a toffee. I understood that from then on I had to wash my own ass after I am done with my morning chores, even when I was in Kolkata.

He had died on a Tuesday. And since that same day, every single Tuesday, if I ever looked up at the moon, I would see his face. I’d see his face wavering in the thin air, smiling at me. While it felt good to be able to see him again, the very realization that he was dead got me into a very weird kinda dilemma. I used to say to myself, “if my grandpa is dead, and if he isn’t coming back, then who does this face belong to?” Since I couldn’t figure out a plausible answer, I figured that it must be my grandpa’s ghost. And thus started my fear for ghosts. Then on, I could never stay in a dark place, all alone. So much so, even if I had to open the door at my house, and there was no light in the living room, during the evening, I would keep singing loudly, trying to keep myself strong. Yes, that’s how fearful I had become, to the idea of ghosts!

Cut to 1995, the time of this story. The hostel I used to stay in, had a strict rule of switching off ALL lights by 10:30 pm, since we were supposed to wake up at 4 in the morning, every single day, for physical exercise. We weren’t allowed to switch on the lights even if we needed to go to the bathroom (yes, it was a pretty strict kinda school). So, I had made a pact with this room mate of mine, called Sourabh Majumdar (SM). Since he too was a bit scared, we decided that every time we needed to hit the loo, we’d wake the other up and make visitations together.

On one such night, it was 3 AM, and my bladders simply refused to wait till the day break, and the drops were already formulating. I got up from the bed, went to SM, and poked him on his tummy -

Me: Dude! Oye!

SM: Huh? (open his eyes with heavy restrain)

Me: Hey, get up. I need to go to the loo.

SM: Okay, you can go. (and wraps himself with the bed sheet)

Me: What do you mean ‘you can go‘? You need to get up and come with me.

SM: Okay, you go. I will follow. (still wrapped tight underneath the bed sheet)

Me: Come one, man! We had a deal, remember? Don’t bail out on me now, man.

SM: You are such a pussy, man. The loo’s just 20 meters away. Just go ahead, man.

Me: I can’t go all alone. You need to come with me.

SM: … (what really did you expect? This time, he didn’t even bother to reply, and went back to his snoring routine)

So, I gathered all my courage and tried to go out of my room. Now, right outside, there was a corridor. And the other side was a wall. Basically, half of it was the wall and the rest was grilled. The wall was basically where the building ended. There was a garden on the other side. I was on the 3rd floor.

I figured, there was a little hole on the wall. What more, the height was also perfect for my little brother to just take a peek outside, get some freash air, and also take a leak. Yes, you imagined it right. That’s exactly what I did. Okay, correction. That’s exactly what I was doing when suddenly the hostel’s warden bellowed, “who the hell is that?”

A few facts about the warden of my hostel. He was an ex-army man. He weighed over 100 Kgs (I suspect). And he would always wake up earlier than the students, get his room prim and proper, and then go out for a walk. Yes, he too lived in the hostel.

Anyway, the moment he bellowed, I could hear thumping sounds on the steps. sounds that kept getting closer to me. I got so terrified that I immediately retracted, pulled up my shorts’ zippers, ran into my room, and straight into my bed. Yeah, while I behaved like I was fast asleep, my ears were more alert than ever!

Now, this guy comes all the way up the third floor, lights up the corridor, gets straight into my room, fires up the tube lights, literally hurls me out of the bed, and started thrashing like a mad man. 10 minutes and a chipped tooth later, he left me writhing on the floor, at the mercy of the stone cold marble I was lying on. When my batch mates pulled me up, they told me that they could see innumerable sets of red-colored fingers, in five, right on mt back and the sides. Yes, even I took a glance at a couple of them. They were right.

I know what you are wondering. How did the warden know it was me, eh? Well, by the time the day light broke, everyone in the hostel knew what had happened with me. And even they had the same question. After breakfast, a couple of those kids were chatting up with the warden when an intelligent chap finally asked him the million dollar question. And he replied, “when I went up there, I could see drops of you-know-what trailing from the wall, all the way to his bed. The rest was pretty simple!”

Yes, even my own piss betrayed me!!

Oh, and did I tell you, the garden that I had pissed on? The one at the other side of the wall? Well, they used to take flowers from there for pooja, at the temple :-p

P.S. – Never again had I been afraid of ghosts. And never again did I see grandpa’s face, simmering over the moon, on a Tuesday night!

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Incidents, Life, Past, School, Story