Hunger

Inder Sahab, known in the neighborhood simply as the doctor, wakes up with a hangover. Painful bars of sunlight sneak in through the heavy curtains, blinding him. The machine gun stutter of overloaded autos outside pierce his dehydrated brain. He lets out a belch and brings up some cud from last night’s meal. With a satisfied smile, he licks his lips and relishes the garlic taste of last night’s dinner. His smile reveals excellent teeth for a man of fifty one. Inder looks at his watch. His bushy eyebrows come together in a frown as he remembers his afternoon appointment with Dr Bhatt. The point of the small hand pointing at 11 is covered by a tiny brown speck. He frowns and scratches the glass with his thumbnail, filed to a sharp point. He loosens the pajama bit stuck in his butt crevice with a pinch and makes his way for the bathroom. Vestiges of last night’s alcohol still slosh around inside his head, dizzying him. Sitting on the toilet, he plays a fine balancing game. The calming numbness changes into pin pricks with every slight turn of his neck. He sits very still and pays attention to the state his toilet is in. What he sees is a revelation. He looks down past his pubic bush into the commode. It is stained brown from years worth of failed flush debris. A shaft of sunlight shines through the almost opaque skylight behind him, illuminating the silk routes of the arachnid empire that has spread from one to the other corner of the toilet ceiling.

Kaamchor Koli, he mutters under his breath. He would have fired the slow chuttad a long time ago if the man wasn’t such an excellent cook. Doctor saab mollifies as he remembers how silken last night’s kebabs had been. He had just pressed the morsel with his tongue against his palate, and the layers of juicy fiber had separated and dissolved. For all his tardiness, Koli mian really did know his cuts and spices. He tongues a piece of meat stuck in his teeth that has been bothering him since last night. Once he had it, he stuck his tongue out to inspect the bothersome fiber, before swallowing it back once again. Last night, after the fourth peg, Inder was almost tempted to invite Chadda over and make him taste Koli’s piece de resistance. A broad smile erupts on his face as he imagines Chadda gorging on those succulent breasts.

Inder sahab comes out of the toilet after a quick shower with a towel wrapped around his waist. His hirsute upper body is fair and soft. A man to whom manual labor is a mystery.  He puts on his usual brown suit with more haste than usual. Meetings with Dr. Bhatt always puts him on the edge, and he wants to have the upper hand by arriving early. He takes out a small orange pill bottle and swallows a tablet. He shakes it but it is mute in its emptiness. Damn damn damn!

Thirty minutes later, he arrives at the heavily treed headquarters of Benzer Pharma on Lodhi Road carrying a brown leather attache.

“Hi Sherlyn”, he says to Dr. Bhatt’s secretary, “Am I late?”, he worries that his voice betrays his panic. “Dr. Bhatt’s going to be a few minutes late, why don’t you go on into room 214.”, informs the buxom secretary without looking up. He nods licks his lips in appreciation. The deep lines of her cleavage stir his blood.

“How would you like to come for a drink with me baby?”

He quickly closes and opens his eyes to get rid of the voice in his head. Get a better grip, Inder, he tells himself, and fixes his stare on the watercolor over the reception. It does not help calming him down. The painted birds flap their wings at him! He is about to scream when Sherlyn’s voice breaks the spell. “Dr Panwar”, she is staring at him, her look concerned.

“Some coffee, black and very strong please.”, mumbles Inder without looking at her. She looks shocked for a moment, but before she could decide whether to get offended, he growls, “Now!” and she scoots away. On his way to the meeting room, he stops by the toilet. He  locks himself in a cubicle and tries to stop his hands from shaking. He half sits on the toilet awkwardly, his huge frame finding it difficult to crouch and fit on the tiny commode. The deep breathing doesn’t help with the shaking of his hands.

“Why don’t you drag in Sherlyn here and tell her who her daddy is?”

He waits, daring not to face anyone until the thoughts go away. He knew these were just the buildups. It would be another hour before it flares up full flame. But I will have the pills by then, he reminds himself. That calms him a bit.  

He waits till the screams in his head quiten. He splashes his face with water and slaps his cheeks. He tells the bearded man in the mirror. “We are here to get the pills, after that we are going back home. Just hold it together, and no funny business.”

214 is still empty when he reaches. He wonders why the chief chemist of Benzer pharma always meets him here and not in her private chambers.

“Probably because it has CCTV. The way you keep staring at her thighs every time you see her! Like a juicy piece you want all for yourself!”

Inder swings around in panic as the door opens, but it is only Sherlyn with the coffee.

“Hey, she is looking at me isn’t she? Does she know what I am thinking?”

He grips the arm of his chair tight, eyeing every little move as she keeps the coffee and leaves. He relaxes only after the clicks of her heels have silenced.

“You never did learn what moderation meant. Don’t lie to me, I have seen you naked and raw!”

Inder pours himself a cup of coffee and gulps it straight down. The scalding hot bitterness numbs his tongue and gullet, distracting the voices in his head. To his relief, he is saved from spending any more time alone by the sound of the door opening.

“Dr. Panwar! Sorry for keeping you waiting.”, greets the Banarasi bedecked woman. He is a bit disappointed that Dr. Bhatt isn’t in her usual skirt today. Still, the flash of midriff is more than generous. She has a streak of gray running through her fashionably short hair. Like a splash of thick jizz, Inder thinks. There is brown lipstick on her lips to camouflage the nicotine stains. Her smile vanishes as she sees the haunted expression on Inder’s face. “Oh dear, it doesn’t look like the pills are doing their job!”

“I told you bitch to give me a higher dosage last time, but what do I have to do to make you listen. You want me to pin you down and make you squeal huh!”

“No, it is just that, I got a bit carried away last night”, Inder speaks very softly, afraid that what he really thinks will come out otherwise.

“This is not going to do Inder, you have hit tolerance. You have got to check yourself into rehab, did you check the brochure for Nanda Devi that I had sent you?”

“Yeah bitch, and be trapped for the rest of my life with those senile farts!”

“It’s just you know, with the house in Ambala just about to be completed, and other businesses…”, Inder trails off, too disoriented to make coherent excuses.

Dr. Bhatt purses her full lips, biting back what she wants to say. Inder Panwar still makes her uneasy. She has been medicating borderline schizophrenics for so long that she could read them like open books but with Inder, she can never be quite sure what he was thinking. Even now, she has told Sherlyn to keep an ear out for 214.

“I am giving you the 65mg this time.” She holds back the bottle as Inder makes a grab for it,

“Dr Panwar, you are a medical man yourself, you should know this is only a patch fix. You really need therapy and electro shock before you overdose you know. I would advise you to check with Nanda Devi, just check in for three months, consider it a vacation. After all, we don’t want anymore, you know, incidences now, do we?”

The loaded question hangs in the air like gun smoke.

“Just give me the bottle bitch before I reach over and pull you down on the floor by your hair and make you do it!”

“Yes of course doctor, I will I promise. I feel much more in control nowadays. It’s just that, things have been so busy. But I will look into the rehabs, I promise.”

With fumbling hands, he unclasps the attache and takes out a stuffed manila envelope. The flap is half open and several Gandhis peek out. He keeps the envelope on the table. Dr. Bhatt pretends as if she has not seen it.

Without another word, Inder leaves. Only after his footsteps have died did Dr. Bhatt finally relaxes, Her knuckles are white from holding the knife so tight throughout the meeting.

Pills in his pocket, Inder almost bounds down the stairs towards his car. All he wants now is the dark of his bedroom, a peg of Vat 69 and some Bach in full blast to drown himself in.

It is a quarter to four, and the traffic is light. He rushes past giant real estate hoardings on DND. He  swallows a pill and lights a cigarette. At the sector 16 traffic signal, he chuckles loudly as he notices a hoarding for some fitness trope that declares, “You are what you eat!”

His mood fouls as he notices a large pile-up ahead before the final left towards Sector 31. A traffic cop’s lathi can be seen above the car roofs, gesturing all vehicles to make a u-turn. He rolls down his window and growls to a hawker peddling flags, “Whose sister got fucked ahead, huh?”

“Saab, there has been an explosion in the underground drain, full road ahead is flooded. All cars are going around Noida stadium.”

With a curse, Inder tries to turn his car, but discovers that everyone else has the same idea. The asphalt shimmers in the July heat. The air swelters from the heat of a hundred idling engines. Inder’s left eye starts flinching by itself, keeping beat with the pandemonium of car honks.

But I had the pills!

He loosens his collar which is limp with sweat. Koli the sisterfucker has not fixed the car AC still. He slowly crawls bumper to bumper in the diesel stench for half an hour, the inside of the car like an oven.

Tak tak tak! He turns around to see a policeman tapping the back of his car. “ Sir, are you sleeping? Jaldi!”. The brakes shriek as Inder slams the car to a halt and gets out, furious. He picks up a boulder lying on the scorching pavement and with all his force brings it down on the head of the startled traffic cop. The honking dies down and there is one hot moment of absolute silence before pandemonium breaks out. Inder runs his tongue over his lips, looking at the glistening crimson oozing out of the cracked skull of the still convulsing constable. The scared shrieks grow until it drowns all sounds. The red fills his vision until… Tat tak tak! The angry constable is shouting at him to move it, couldn’t he see that he was holding up everyone. Inder blinks several times, afraid how vivid the vision had been.

Panting, he concentrates all his willpower and drives the last quarter mile, the voices in his head now screaming orders he knows he won’t be able to resist much longer. As he parks his car and gets out, he is sure that everyone on the road has slowed down to have a better look at him. He lets out a low whimper and runs inside. The bitch had been right, his tolerance was too high, the pills were not having any effect. He clenches his jaw as he realises that he would have to let Koli shock him during the night.

He slams shut the front door behind him and bellows, “Koli, madarchod, peg bana”. Koli comes limping as fast as his polio legs would allow, a crystal tumbler sloshing over with a generous patiala of Vat 69. Koli’s neatly trimmed pencil moustache curls up in delight as Inder gulpsdown the neat peg and audibly crunches the ice cubes. The alcohol calms his nerves a little, but he knows what he really needs.

With oily unctuousness, Koli speaks, “Saab sit sit, I will turn the AC on. Why do you run after these phuss pills saab when they don’t work. Your ailing can only be cured by this wretched servant here”, he giggles.

“I will fuck your sister raw, why are you still standing here. You are relishing my torment like you relish theirs, aren’t you motherfucker. Jaa jaa, go get it quickly!” Inder shouts, breathing noisily through his mouth.

Koli vanishes into the kitchen, but his excited titters can be heard. Five minutes later, the room is heavy with the smell of tandoored meat.

“Huzoor’s khuraak”, announces Koli keeping the platter. The doctor bites into a boti of meat, and lets out a deep sigh. The voices stop clamoring. His hands stop shaking. “Koli, dim the lights, and turn up the music”, he orders. He reclines lazily on the sofa and feels something small and lumpy against his back. He twists his left arm behind him and fishes out the troublemaker. It is a cheap woolen sock. A little thing, too small for Koli or Inder, but it would fit a five year old snug like a murderer’s gloves. Inder lazily tosses it on the floor, and tells Koli, “We finished the murgi, but you didn’t clean up the feathers did you pigfucker!”

A certain sinking feeling

Now when you look back at it, it all seems to make sense. Back then was a different story though. Back then Myna’s eyes were blinded by love. After all this, I am thinking maybe mine were too. I am thinking it was one of his tricks.

You are thinking I am giving it away, hinting too much and that everyone would know that this story ends sadly. But are you so sure? One woman’s misery is another’s joy sometimes. And as for me, I am still getting used to the newness of it all to bother thinking good or bad. After all this, I am starting to get convinced there is no good or bad. Maybe you would consider it to be a tragedy, but maybe she feels different. Maybe Myna really has become like him now. Or maybe she was like him all along. He says I will become like that very soon. Payal, I wait for you.

Myna was thirty edging on thirty one, and her parents were worried she wasn’t married yet. She didn’t care though. I know because she used to laugh at their silliness. She would always get light headed on mentholated cigarettes and talk about how she had narrowly escaped being the mother of two by now. She would talk about girls from her school who could cook and clean by the time they were thirteen and who were married off after tenth grade. She would blow out puffs of smoke and with a hard edge to her voice tell me about girls who were made to sleep on the floor when they were having their periods. Payal would always snort that she was making that shit up, but I think Payal was just jealous of her.

I never knew Amrish too well. She showed me his picture on her phone once. Tall and thin, with a devious look in his eyes. I told her so but she just laughed. It was clear she was deeply in love. I gave her the usual warning about meeting strangers off the net, but she told me he had already met her parents and they love him. He had cooked brinjal with sesame for them, sat with her mother and discussed embroidery. I concluded that mom and pop’s panic had infected her by then, perhaps she really had become desperate. But who am I to judge. Perhaps he had her hooked from the first day. They have their ways, even I have known that by now.

One day she comes to the office all smiles with a huge box of kaju katlis. Her hands are tattooed with mehndi and she is bursting with excitement. She takes me aside and shows me a glittering diamond on one of her fingers. I remember feeling slightly miffed that I came to know of this so late. Smoking all those cigarettes together, I had felt that I was privy to this sort of information before the man who granted her leaves and the man who emptied the dustbin under her desk. I told her all this, and by the end even I didn’t like the sound of my own whining. She didn’t make any fun of me though. Would she not even make us guys meet, I asked. She said he was too shy and not good with social things. I would call you once we are settled, he will really like you. He is very intelligent, oh the things he talks about, you will love him. Her voice was full of pity like she was talking to a one legged dog. Perhaps she imagined I was in love with her and jealous. Anyway, things cooled off between us after that. I noted how good friends she and Payal had become all of a sudden though.

Come to think of it, ever since her engagement announcement, I started liking Payal a lot better too. After pleading so many times, I had finally gone around and arranged for some pot for Payal and me. Payal told me she had met him. Dark and handsome, but he has this way of looking at you you know, that makes you imagine that you are standing in a very long and cold stone hall and he is sitting on a throne on the other end and that your life depends on him. I got chills hearing her describe but then it was Payal’s first time smoking pot.

Then one day, out of nowhere, she said that he had told her to stop smoking. I reminded her about all her long talks about no one knowing when they might die. That it may very well be the next moment. I asked her so what difference does it make if ten more minutes are shaved off our lifetime. But where I expected some arguing back, she just gave me patience and pity, and I told her to stuff it and went out on the street and walked it off with a cigarette.

A few days later, she told me she has put in her resignation. She was going away to the hills with him. She was just a secretary, so I had no grounds to say what about your career. Anyway I could sense her congratulating her own maturity for this gesture of goodbye, and this fresh dose of pity just pissed me more. But then I heard tears in her voice. I had grown up enough to not bother thinking they were for me, but I was still her friend, so I asked what was troubling her. She shook her head, said she was just scared of the exciting times ahead. Maybe some part of her subconscious knew all of it all along, sensed the finality of this farewell.

What will you do, I asked her. She shrugged and said vaguely that he had a few orchards and didn’t I know just how interested she has always been in gardening. I bit my tongue before I ended up reminding her that she has had a maid or two all her life. I wished her all the luck in the world instead, and even winked and lied that I wouldn’t be surprised if I heard about the coming of little ones one or two years down the line. She winked and hoped I would start paying attention to things around me as well. She meant Payal of course and that soured my mood a bit.

Her wedding was in the hot season. I caught myself a fever and avoided attending. She didn’t even notice that I have stopped messaging.

And then she was gone, and two months later I got a message from her complaining how poor the connection is in the hills and how she misses me. I read it and toss the phone under the pillow and go back to sleep. Anyway, I wanted to be fully refreshed before dinner with Payal.

Next day was Sunday. I remember because I had just woken up and sat propped up half sleepy smelling the waft of luchi and aloo subzi that came from the kitchen of Mrs Mukherjee downstairs. My own breakfast prospects were dim. I sat meditating on the advantages of a family with the freedoms of my bachelor life, trying to make myself feel better when the phone rang. I knew even before seeing that it would be Myna and not Payal.

It was Myna. She sounded happy. I didn’t know then how exactly, but her happiness infected me. I felt grand and forgiving. Suddenly I didn’t clench her so tightly anymore. I congratulated her again, and this time I meant it. She said she wished I could come see how beautiful the orchards were now in April. I felt like I had smoked an entire long OCB rolled fat in under a minute. I boasted gallantly that her wish could be my command. She asked really, what about leave from office. I told her to hell with Saraogi and his spreadsheets. He could stuff them where the sun doesn’t shine. I cut the call and booked my tickets on Redbus. Now when I think about that morning, I wonder where he was at the time of the call. Was he standing outside my door, or is he really so strong that he can do it all the way from the hills over the airwaves. Maybe I would know soon. Already as I type this, I am thinking about the things I will say to Payal. Amrish promises to help me too.

Two days later, six thirty a.m in the morning. Almost four kilometers above sea level, the wind here is still chilly in April. My mouth was still a bit sour from all the vomiting and my back ached from the thirteen hour bus journey. The conductor yelled out last stop. Me, two mufflered old men and a young boy and his five goats got off. The conductor dropped a cackling basket full of live chickens from the carrier overhead and the bus belched a smoky goodbye on our faces and headed down the hill.

He was standing there with his hands in his coat and back resting against an old Jeep. He raised a hand in hi. I remember feeling that he was taller than he looked in the photographs. My Sunday enthusiasm was still strong and there was no awkwardness between us. I told him that he looked like he swam regularly, and he told me that I looked like I needed to, and we both laughed.

While he drove, I sank back and got hypnotized by the hills. My back didn’t ache anymore, and my stomach growled for a hearty breakfast. Sunlight filtered through the tall sals overhead, speckling the asphalt ahead with gold. I noted that he had dark shades but still squinted as if even the weak winter sunlight hurt his eyes. He drove slowly and I was soon lost looking at the hillside full of wildflowers. In between, I caught flashes of brilliant yellow or red feathers as birds tooted tree to tree, too fast for my eyes. I asked him who all lived in the house, and he said it was just him, her and his mother. We passed through miles and miles of winding forest, and I noted we are so far out that their aren’t even any electric poles. We have our own diesel generator, he explained. The sun was high and hot by the time we reached the house.  

The house was an old wood slats and tile roofed thing that had seen better days. She stood in the small patch of garden and beamed at me just like old times. She looked thinner, and I wondered if she had become taller too. She told me that she was very happy and that there were so many places she couldn’t wait to show me and so many stories to tell. He excused himself saying that he would go check on mother. She explained that she was a bit down. I asked what was wrong with her but she wove my question off and said just too much sun.

A servant who had learnt a long time ago that the best servants are neither seen nor heard served us breakfast. While I dipped my paratha in raita and slurped the thick malai tea, she told me how his orchards were doing well. So well in fact that he was on the lookout for trustworthy men to expand his business. I didn’t tell her that I felt the roof could use some new tiles, or that the transmission of the car he drove me in was touch and go.

She said he needed people to help with setting up the irrigation. Was I a really good mechanical engineer or what, she asked. What does he grow, I asked to avoid giving an answer. Blood oranges, she said. Cut them open and they are the color of beet inside, sweeter too than the normal ones. She sounded like an ad, I told her. She laughed and asked again would I help him or not. Some of my enthusiasm had ebbed at this news that I was invited because I would be of some use, but the cool breeze and the chirping and the way the sunlight reflected off the little pond in the distance still had its hold on me. Or that is what I thought had a hold on me. I managed a smile and told her that I will make up my mind after she gives me a tour of the place first. That cheered her up.

After breakfast, she arranged for a couple of bicycles and we were off. It was easy going for the first half an hour, mostly just braking and letting gravity do the pedalling. When it got uphill, I started panting. After ten minutes, the back of her swinging ponytail was thumbnail size in the distance. I had never imagined her to be such an athlete and her stamina was a surprise. By the time I had reached the top of the hill, she had already unlocked the orchard gate. She looked down at me as I huffed the last few steps. I couldn’t tell her expression behind those large shades that she had on, but I tried to breath slower and hide the fact that I was out of breath. She suggested that I should give up smoking just like her.

The fence was in bad repair. Something thorny and stubborn had overwhelmed it, and had squeezed turn after patient turn all along the cement posts till it was a bent and sagging mess. I was no expert but the trees looked lush and untrimmed for years. This would be where he plans to build a juice plant, she said, and this is where we can build a bed and breakfast place. I remember thinking about  asking her when he plans to do all this building but something told me that would destroy this dream. What was I doing here with her? We left our cycles and walked on foot between the rows of trees. Little blue wildflowers bloomed dense around knee high, and their burrs stuck to our clothes.

The trees ended where the hill sloped down steeply into a mess of rocks some hundred feet deep into a jagged V. Skeletons of tree trunks told that the stream had gone dry long ago. I wondered where we would source the water from, and felt a grim satisfaction telling Amrish in the evening that his choice of factory site was poorly judged.

She was already down the slope, and as I looked at her, I spotted a little stone cottage just above what used to be the stream bed.

The scene, the breeze, the sunlight, everything had a very dreamlike quality. One of the walls had crumbled, but the roof still hung overhead, leaving a large shaded square of floor. The other room lay dark. We clambered onto the upraised floor and sat with swinging legs facing the stream bed. Behind us were the stone walls streaked with the soot of someone’s lamp. The dead trees had made me believe there was no water here but this close, the sand glittered with moisture. There was a stream under the sand! Maybe he really was so intelligent as she said, I thought.

Now I know. He is.

I asked if this hut was part of the orchard. She told yes its the most important bit. I asked what she meant but she was rummaging in her bag and didn’t appear to hear me. She pulled out a large glittering box that must have been for her sunglasses. Her eyes looked immensely old, and I had remembered them to be a soft brown and not this bottom of the well black that I saw now. Let me tell you what happened a month back, laying a hand on mine. You will know why this place is so important. Looking into her eyes then, it seemed like the most natural thing to be said.

It was about a month ago. We had just had dinner and when we come out onto the garden, the full moon leaves me spellbound. It was so bright I could make out the bats hanging under the huge tree in our garden. The hills just called to me and I urged him can’t we go for just a small cycle ride. He told me if I would like to see the most important place, and I said yes. So we take out these cycles and head down the road. Mother waved us goodbye at us from the gatepost. Her hair waved beautifully in the breeze and the moonshine. It was so bright the silica in the road glittered and the air was thick with the smell of crushed eucalyptus pods.

What she said didn’t make sense. Are you telling me what happened or are you telling me a dream, I ask.

Can you really always tell the difference, she asks and silences me. Then she tells her story again.

So we come up here and he unlocks the gate and down the hill we go till we are at the edge of the orchard. The stone hut shone in the moonlight. We came by and sat here swinging our legs. She looked at me and smiled.

I was beginning to get a little scared by then, and I asked her again what was she talking about.

She pointed at the walls behind us and said that it was time I met myself. She said that when she came down here with him her rattled with fear. She said that she had felt cold and trapped, kind of just like how I was beginnig to feel.

But don’t be scared like I was. It will be a relief once you meet yourself, trust me.  And how relieved he was. I was his first, he told me afterwards. Mother had told him how to. I was his first, and he said soon I would have mine too. He was right you know, now I never even feel the itch to smoke anymore. Then next morning I was messaging you to come down here. I told you already right he needs people he can trust.

Her grip on my hand was tight. It didn’t hurt but I knew she wouldn’t let go no matter how much I pull.

You know that game where you stack up a pile of flat stone and one team tries to rebuild it while the other tries to out them by hitting them with a ball. I was always the assembler in those games. I got so good at it that a split second before the ball would come smack against my face, I would know. There was this certain sinking feeling, a stopping of time as if the entire world hushed for my demise.

A faint shuffle of footsteps made me turn.

I froze as I saw him come towards me. I could tell he was taller, but the rest was all the same. The same tan shirt, the same loose jeans. Even his right shoe had the same dent at the maw where a nail had gone through.

Don’t be scared, he said. I didn’t like the voice, but then, everyone hates their own voice on recordings too.

Time to meet yourself, I said to me.

---

I wake up early next morning and call up Payal and tell her what an amazing place this is. I tell her all about the blue wildflowers that stick to your legs, and describe the hard time I have pulling them out of my socks in the evening time sitting by a crackling fire. He is sitting in his room deep in concentration, an extension receiver to his ears. He smiles approvingly, for I seem to be a natural at this. Payal is won over easy. I suspect even without his influence, she would have agreed to come here. I can see how right he was. The address made it all so clear. I can just see the bed and breakfast in the hill up there. Everyday we could open the briefcase then, everyday we would be having more trustworthy people. I am getting ahead of myself though. For now, I wait for the morning when I will drive down to the bus stand and drive Payal over. I wait for my first one. He says my itch to smoke would completely Go once we have Payal 2.0.

Bethel's Villa

“Are we there yet?, Tia complains.

Ansh, her husband, holds out four fingers, “I counted. That’s the fourth time you are asking that! Four. Stop being such a whiny wh-”, he laughs as Tia lightly slaps him, aborting his limerick. The Verna speeds along the winding tree lined roads towards Bethel’s Villa. They have been looking at houses for a month now, trying to find a perfect home away from the city. She peeks out of the window but then crinkles her nose. There is something dead in the ditches by the side of the road.

“No one would even hear you scream here.”, she says.

“Why, what would we be doing that would make you scream huh?”, he asks with a sly grin. “Besides, the agent told me this Mr. Lalka was selling cheap. I thought you wanted seclusion, thought you said you didn’t want to meet people for a while.” Tia puts her hand over his on the gearshift. She bites back the resentment she feels at Ansh for bringing up this topic again, and instead, she gives him a smile and he pretends to understand. “Don’t worry honey, that was six months ago, and I completed the treatment right.”, she says.

“Still, the doctor said it can relapse anytime.”, he shoots off his usual reply. With a sigh, she removes her hand from his and looks out of the window. The sun blinks every once a while through gaps in the looming foliage. They ride on in silence punctuated by shrill cries that ring through the forest just like fire alarms. They slow down in front of a concrete placard which is so dilapidated that it barely announces Bethel Villa. “Here we are.”, he declares. In front of them lies a high gate, rusty now from lack of maintenance. “What is that?”, she points at an iron plate with a crudely painted beetle on it, nailed to one of the gate columns.

Ansh shrugs and pushes open the gate. It budges a little with a theatrical creak. “Cheapest doorbell ever!”, he grins. They walk up the gravel avenue darkened on both sides by upright false ashokas. The pebbles exhaust onto an expanse of lawn. On one end of it, there is a small greenhouse, and on the other stands the single story cottage. Tia’s mood lifts the moment she sees the strawberry topping red of the roof over the cake white of the house.  It is a grand old thing with a chimney peeking out, straight out of colonial times. There is a large verandah in front of the house, roofed by a trellis of morning glory. “Well well quite a little hovel, huh!”, mutters Ansh to her, excited. A short man with a neat grey goatee hurries towards them, his neck long white hair fluttering. “Welcome, hope you had no trouble finding the place.” He speaks in a hurry, as if afraid he will forget what he has to say before he can say it. His eyes are on Tia, appreciating her meticulously epilated legs.

Ansh, oblivious, shakes hands and introduces her. “Mr. Lalka, you really have a good thing going here!”, he gushes.

“Shhh, honey, we don’t want him to know we like it so much now!’, she mock-whispers, completing their usual ice breaking routine.

“You are too kind, too kind”, says Mr Lalka, rubbing his hands and ushering them towards the table spread on the verandah. She notices how long his fingernails are. The hair, the nails, the rubbing of hands. In her head, she names him Saruman.

“Just wait a while while I get Supriya.”, Mr Lalka scuttles off. As soon as he is out of sight, she turns to Ansh, her eyes shining with excitement. “Can you imagine the lazy breakfasts lying on that lawn there. People would just die of jealousy!”

“The agent was telling me Lalka Jr. lives in Canada, and that it is getting too tough for Lalka Snr. manage his wife here in the wilderness. He wants to quickly sell and move, so he will be selling cheap!”, whispers Ansh.

Mr. Lalka leads his wife into the room. She is taller than him, with grey black hair cut in an expensive bob. Dressed in a cream skirt and a pearl necklace, she looks just like an elegant extra out of a Victorian movie. The woman sits down opposite Tia with a look that is vacant and faraway.

“You must forgive poor Supriya. It’s been almost six months like this now. She can hear us fine though!”, he adds cheerily. His enthusiasm is that of a late night infomercial host.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what happened to her?”, she asks, looking at the mute woman who gives no indication that she can indeed hear them.

“The doctors keep changing their diagnosis, sometimes it is severe depression, to sometime late blooming autism. I have stopped keeping track really, as long as she is here with me, that’s what is important.”, he presses her hand in his. “What I wonder is how sudden it was. Normally she would get up earlier than me, go gambol in the woods and be back by seven. That morning, when I wake up, she complains to me that she isn’t feeling too well, that she needs to sleep. Anyway, I think it is just a normal headache, and tell her to lay down. When I come back with her breakfast, I find her on the floor, writhing and babbling about cats.”, he closes his eyes, trembling.

“It’s alright sir”, Ansh places a hand over Mr. Lalka’s.

He smiles and tries to lighten the mood, “Never mind this old man. Now, let me give you a tour of the house.”

There are two bedrooms, cool because of the high ceilings and thick colonial masonry. There is a huge four poster bed. The smell in the room remindS Tia of her own grandmother. She stares at the sturdy cross beams that support the roof, imagining painting them psychedelic. They walk the hall and kitchen, Ansh visualising where he would set up his Wii. Tia has a tough time deciding if they should use granite or marble for the kitchen countertop. Throughout the tour, Mr. Lalka keeps up an excited chatter detailing trivia. Over the fireplace mantle is a portrait of a Caucasian man in hunting breeches. Mr Lalka points at the painting and explainins, “Dr. George Bethel, the builder of this house.”

Tia points at a badly painted red beetle at a corner, clearly done later. There was a patch of red on its back the shape of spades. “Why the beetle?”, she asks, remembering the ad hoc heraldry from the main gate.

“The doctor used to study them, and other insects.”, Mr Lalka answers. His words sound carefully measured. He motions towards the study, as if in a hurry to change the topic.  

“There are a few books by him here, in case you are interested. The acreage behind this property, it was once part of the villa. The doctor used to go for long walks insect hunting in that forest .”, Their tour is interrupted by an eerie moaning coming from the verandah.

Supriya Lalka is shaking so violently that the pearls on her neck rattle. Her mouth is clenched  in a skeletal grimace, exposing her teeth. She froths at the corners of her mouth. With her finger, she stabs the air , wanting to convey something of great urgency. Tia follows her finger. The woman is pointing at the greenhouse. “What is she trying to say?”, she asks, scared by how rabid the old woman looks.

Mr. Lalka has her arms around his wife, trying to calm her. “She gets these fits sometimes, it subsides in a few minutes. If you will excuse us now. Mr. Sen, maybe you can have the broker contact me with your intention.”, he leads his wife back inside, softly telling her to take deep breathes.

Ansh and Tia lead themselves out, walking back to the car in silence. Once in the car, she blurts, “I don’t know Ansh, I loved the place, but that was creepy.”

“What are you talking about, are you saying we pass on this just because some old cow had a fit. A property like this would easily be at least 20% higher anywhere else.”

She looks outside, unsure how to reply. All she has is a vague clutching in her stomach, while he is armed with reasons and figures.

“She was pointing at the greenhouse, I wonder why?”

Ansh gets irritated, “So what are you trying to say. Look, you saw how the poor bird was, you can’t take her seriously. You have got to stop overthinking honey, you remember what the doctor said right.”

There! He has fired his ultimate salvo. Tia has nothing to say now. It always comes down to that breakdown six months ago. With a sigh, she says, “Fine, I guess you have a point. She just looked so … I still have goosebumps.”

“Aww honey, did she scare you?”, he looks at her with a grin, his free hand caressing her earlobe. Tia hopes that the nameless dread in her stomach will go away soon.

-------

The next month passes in a flurry of activity, with the two busy with all that goes into making a house a home.  They rarely get the light switches wrong anymore, and Ansh can walk without his glasses at night till the fridge without stumbling. Tia barely remember Mrs. Lalka’s fit anymore. Husband and wife have fallen into a comfortable routine, basking in the rare luxury of not even knowing when the weekend came up.

It is early morning. The lawn hosts a flock of koels making an easy breakfast of the worms who have come up to sun themselves. Ansh sits in the veranda, head buried in his Mac, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips.

“Did you know the doctor spend his last days in the Ranchi sanatorium?”, he asks his wife, who was tying her shoes, ready for her daily hike.

“Who?”

“George Bethel. I googled him. So that’s why Lalka was being so shifty that day. He was scared we would use that to further reduce the price! It says the dude discovered over 2000 species of insects. He lived in the asylum for the last five years of his life. Could you imagine that, dying there all alone…  this other site though, purely to be taken with salt though, tells that it was the postman who discovered the doctor. They found him sitting on the roof, shouting in a strange tongue, flinging tile pieces. Imagine that, right this roof.”, he points a finger upwards.

“Well, too bad they hadn’t discovered Alzolam back then.”, she deadpans. He gets the hint that he should shut up. Atleast he doesn’t tell her to stop being so sensitive. She picks up her satchel and sets out for the woods behind their home.

Unlike her daily stroll,  today she strides with a purpose for the giant banyan she had come by yesterday. She had noticed the small pond just beyond it, but before she could take pictures, clouds had gathered, forcing her to retreat. Secretly, she had named it Tiansh, but had decided it was too cheesy to tell her husband. Today, the water is perfectly still. She wonders how deep the water is. She picked up a large boulder and hurls it in.  The stone sinks with a guttural belch. The pond is deeper than it looks. The moment the noise dies, she regrets her hasty action. A vague unease creeps over her, a guilt for having desecrated something ancient. She tiptoes along the bank of the pond, her feet squelching in the mud of the pond tide her stone had created. She turns back, discarding the idea of a picnic at this place. Somehow, it is a little too quiet here. Just as she is passing the banyan, she sees something red balloon and vanish from the corner of her left eye. She turns and peers through the rasta braids of the banyan. In the darkness of a bamboo grove, there is some sort of rapid blooming. Its like a great many feathery fans opening and closing. She counts six of the things, each about the size of a tennis ball at its largest. She creeps  until she is next to the grove. In the shade, it is cool. From this close, she can see that they are beetles of some sort, repeating their dance of opening and closing their outer shell, exposing the red lining underneath. When the beetles are at their smallest, the red on their backs look just like spades. They made a gentle whoosh as they open and close in unison. She takes out her camera. As she bends forward for a better shot, the water bottle falls out of her unzipped bag. It falls to the ground with a mute thud, but that is enough to shatter the moment. The air rings with a high pitched whine, like very loud fire alarms. Trinnniinnniin! Startled by the noise, Tia falls backwards as the beetles buzz out. There is an intense smell of burnt matchsticks in the air. She stumbles up and hurries back towards the cottage, her ears still ringing. About halfway there, she realises that something is wrong. She feels as if she could run to the city if she wanted to. Her muscles burn with energy. A crazy laughter takes hold of her brain. Suddenly the noise of her footsteps and the twit of the birds and the snap of the twigs are all audible to her with excruciating clarity.  She feels as if the sun has been dimmed. She stumbles to the ground, the red roof of the house visible. “Ansh!”, Tia cries out. She can barely hear her own voice above the shrieks inside her head. The forest seems to be looming in, closing in on her. She stands up somehow, and limps towards the verandah, calling for Ansh. The verandah door swings open and she stopps dead in her tracks. She lest out a startled cry as she sees a cat in Ansh’s familiar t-shirt walk out. It has red glowing eyes and its tail is made of thick black smoke. She whimpers as she sees it coming towards her. She tries to run but slips on the lawn. The cat-man comes towards her, baring sharp teeth while she lays helpless. It is close now, she could see the whiskers almost touching the shirt collar. The cat kneels beside her, looking at her with concern. Its tail peers past its shoulder. Ansh is calling her name from far away, and then, all is darkness.

------

She wakes up, her head nestled in the familiar snug hollow of her own pillow. From the sunshine filtering in through the curtain, she can tell it is mid day. She tries to sit up but the effort makes her groan. Her head is still swimming in the pool of sedatives the doctor has pumped in. Trying to turn on the bedside lamp, she  stumbles and the ashtray shatters. Its noise echoes like a rifle’s report through the still house. Hurried footsteps thud on the staircase landing, and a moment later, Ansh’s spectacled face peers in through the door.

“What happened?”, she mumbles, her throat was parched.

“You were out since yesterday afternoon. You wouldn’t open your eyes, just kept thrashing about. Dr. Joshi had to sedate you, he insists you join rehab this time.”, he says with a sigh.

“No it wasn’t something I made up Ansh. In the forest, I saw something, a type of beetle I think. It’s the one that is painted on the gate. With the red spade on its back. I startled them before I could take a photo. I wonder if that is why…”, she is talking to herself.

Ansh protests, “You are at it again Tia, all these obsessive connections and explanations. Why don’t you just admit that you had another breakdown, then we can … ”

“Just stop paraphrasing Joshi’s brochures alright, I read them too. You are making it difficult for me to even say what I feel, all the time the constant reminders, just stop that! I know what I saw, come with me to the forest, now, maybe where I found them is where they nest.”, Tia realises she is going down the slippery slope of insanely wanting to prove one’s sanity.

“Are you saying you saw things because of some insects?”, he asks, incredulous.

“When they flew away, the air smelt just like burnt matchsticks. It must be some neurotoxin. Don’t you get it, that’s what drove Dr Bethel mad, that’s what had gotten Lalka’s wife.It’s not safe here, you know, they could come to the house anytime.”

“You are doing your paranoid thing again, Tia! Nothing is going to fly in from the forest and attack you.” he tries to assure her, but all Tia hears is condescension.

“Let’s not talk anymore, come down and have some food first.”, he says, effectively killing the argument.

After lunch, she curls up on a divan in the verandah with a book, her head still heavy. Across the lawn, she can hear the hammer or the electric drill now and then as Ansh repairs the greenhouse shutters. Trinnniinnniin! She sits bolt upright at the familiar fire alarm sound. It comes from the direction of the greenhouse. Ansh is in there! She remembers the greenhouse, all the heap of broken flowerpots below the benches, all the cool dark places.

“Oh no!”, she whimpers and runs towards the greenhouse. “Cover your nose, don’t breathe!”, she shouts. She still can’t see him. Her nose crinkles. There it is, the pleasant pungent burnt smell. She stops breathing and takes a few steps back. She can see her husband now. He is holding on to the greenhouse door for support. She can tell from the way he is reeling that he has inhaled a full load. “Tia!”, he calls out.

“Thank god!”, she heaves a sigh of relief. Maybe he didn’t breath in, she hopes.

“Did you see the beetles, did you smell anything?”, she shouts. He is only a few steps away now.

Her question answers itself as his expression changes into a snarl. He charges at her with a yawp. The savage look in his eyes are beyond reason. She runs, wishing she had her hiking shoes instead of the flimsy Pikachu slippers.

She vaults the wooden fence and keeps running. Any minute now, cars pass by this road all the time, she thinks. Ansh charges after her, baring his teeth. Tia knows how his muscles would be burning with energy. He is getting nearer. She tries to run, but slipps on some wet leaves and falls face first. Before she can get up, Ansh is over her. “Aagh!” he screams as her elbow catchest him under the jaw. He grabs at her ankle, tripping her again.

A Bolero comes from the opposite direction. The driver slows down, confused by what he sees. A woman is on the ground, and a madman in pajamas is pinning her down.

“You sonofabitch, you picked the wrong day.”, the driver mutters to himself. His right hand tightens around the grip of the Heckler and Koch under his jacket. He had got the pistol ever since those dogs had waylaid his wife on this very road and raped her. None of those animals had thought about giving her a chance.

He gets out of his car and points the gun at Ansh, “Get off the woman, pig! I am going to shoot you dead otherwise!” Ansh is deaf to the warnings. Tia is pinned under him, her elbows covering her face against his blows. She is too dazed to shout to the man to stop. The man with the gun sees that Ansh is reaching  for a boulder. He presses the trigger. The gunshot shatters the silence of the woods. The air  gets thick with the startled calls of a thousand birds. Ansh falls over Tia, clutching his throat where the bullet had gone through. He gasps for air, but his lungs are drowning in his own blood. After a few desperate wheezes, he falls silent. The driver stands frozen, the gun still held in front of him. Tia pushes off Ansh’s deadweight and sits up, her thin tshirt warm with her husband’s blood. There is too much adrenaline to make her cry, that would come later. Somewhere in the forest, a strange ringing sound, like fire alarms go off. The birds cry as if they have gone mad.