Stairs

Part 1- The News

I swirled my cabernet sauvignon in the goblet before taking a big swig. “Don’t let it’s aroma fool you kid. It’s made in India and not in Napa Valley. But you won’t even notice!” uttered the affable old man. Bond, Ruskin Bond was almost eighty-five but his eyes were like a twelve year old’s, shining with ideas and excitement. Sasha and I were on a vacation in Mussourie and naturally, we had to drop in Ruskin’s place for a little wine-tasting. I just had my second book published and was not looking forward to any more writing at least till spring. Sasha too had taken a break from his business and we decided to romance the Himalayas together. Mussourie was our first stop and we had made ourselves comfortable on Ruskin’s balcony.

We all got so caught-up in the wine that we hardly noticed the day fade into evening. It was early November and the days were short. Soon there was a chilly wind blowing across the face of the hills. It rattled our bones and made the centuries old oak trees that lined the path to Ruskin’s home, creak. We took our goblets and went inside. Ruskin’s home was so comfortable that you would feel like sinking into it. There were sofas covered with thick rugs, a large furry carpet in the middle of the room in front of the fireplace and bean bags that added a touch of modernity to the otherwise hundred-year old bungalow. With just two candles lit on the mantelpiece casting a dim glow and monstrous looking shadows across the room, our conversation inevitably drifted to the afterlife and what happens there. Sasha and Ruskin debated fiercely on the depiction of afterlife in various religious texts. I was quietly sipping my wine and feeling a sense of languid euphoria spread over me. This wondrous atmosphere was disturbed when my mobile phone shrieked in my pocket. I looked apologetically to the two men before answering it on the fifth ring. It was my cousin Kush calling from Delhi to give me the news about my paternal grandmother’s illness.
“Is she critical?”
“Can’t say Di. The letter came this morning and was very abrupt. It only said: I don’t have many days to live. Would like to see my grandchildren. It wasn’t even dated!”

It was unbelievable! But I knew that somehow it was the duty of the ‘grandchildren’ to pay her a visit. I called up my sister Butul after speaking to Kush. She was working part-time at a biotech lab in Bangalore and would only be able to come on the next weekend. So it was decided that I would fly out of Dehra to Varanasi tomorrow afternoon. Kush would join me a day later. We would stay there till our parents could make it.

Early next morning Sasha drove me to Dehra in Ruskin’s battered Cruiser. I was a tad disappointed that our ‘holiday’ came to such an abrupt end. But I promised to be back if things were taken care of in three day’s time. Sasha said he’ll wait for me. If I can’t make it, he’ll go home to Delhi. With a quick hug and a kiss, I walked into Dehra airport.

Part 2- The House

The airport in Varanasi didn’t boast of much infrastructure. It was just a sheltered land in the middle of the plains, 30 kms from the main city where only some planes flew. My ride into the city on a shared jeep wasn’t any more eventful. It was dusk and cold winds were blowing. I had to do my best to hold on to the door handle of the overcrowded jeep with one hand and hold on to my scarf with the other to keep it from flapping away. I reached Siddhgiri Bagh only to find that the neighbourhood was having a power cut. But it didn’t take me long to locate my ancestral home which is an imposing structure, three stories high and the biggest house in the neighbourhood. Several waves of renovation over the years have introduced many modern features into the otherwise ancient facade. One such example is the big red iron gate which had been introduced three years ago when my youngest uncle had bought a car. The small portico had been turned into a garage for his Bolero. But my uncle now stays in Orissa with my aunt and my kid sister.

I struck the thick chain that hung from the gate to signal that I was here. I heard some scuffling and coughing and nervous breathing from inside. The gate opened and I was facing my paternal grandmother as healthy and hearty as can be!

She wasn’t exactly thrilled to see me. But she led me inside nonetheless with a candle as best as she could. It was freezing inside as though the temperature had dropped a few more degrees suddenly but my grandmother didn’t seem to care. She was draped only in a wispy shawl, I noticed and her hair was loosely tied in a low bun. She ushered me into her room on the ground floor where she stayed and asked me if I would like to eat anything.
“No, it’s okay. I would eat only at dinnertime.”
“So, what brings you here and so suddenly?”
What! Is she kidding?!
“Er...Kush told me that you were very ill and wanted to see all of us?” I purposely ended this sentence as a question because I wanted an answer.
“Really? But don’t you see my dear that I am fine...”
At this, she brought her face very close to mine and held up the candle to illuminate both our faces. I was repulsed by the horrible stench from her mouth. Her teeth were all yellow. My grandmother had the whitest teeth in our family and she didn’t wear dentures. But clearly, she hadn’t been taking good care of her pearly whites lately!
“Er...yes, of course...you are very...healthy...”
I shivered inside my all woollen garment. It was getting colder by the minute I thought! For about ten seconds, the old woman sat on her bed looking at me. I shifted nervously in my seat thinking of how to escape.
“Er...can I go and change? I’d also like to visit the bathroom...”
“Sure...”, and she led me to the stairs which would take me to the guest room on the second floor. She handed me a lighted candle and told me to mind my step. “The stairs are very slippery...Be careful...”

The second floor had three huge rooms. But only one was kept open now that no one generally lives here anymore. This was the room where I presently stood. It looked as though it hadn’t been cleaned for months. There were cobwebs all over the walls; the floor had gathered a considerable inch of dust and the bed was covered in dishevelled sheets. I went to find grandmother downstairs to ask her if the room can be cleaned now but I didn’t find her anywhere. I found a broom though behind the kitchen door and did my best to tidy up the room upstairs.

At first I didn’t notice how warm the room was. But as I unpacked, I found sweat dripping off my brows. Damn, was it stuffy in here. It was stuffy and inexplicably claustrophobic. But what was even stranger was a strange feeling of sadness that swept through me like an unexpected gush of wind.

I made two phone calls after changing into my Pyjama and T shirt. The first one was to Sasha to tell him that I had reached. The second one to Kush to ask him what time was his flight due tomorrow. I could only reach his voicemail though and left him a message. The next thing that I remember was being consumed by exhaustion and collapsing on the bed.

I awoke with a start, the phone still in my hand. Shit! I must’ve been asleep for hours! Poor grandma is still waiting for me to show up for dinner...I threw on a sweater and rushed downstairs.

Dinner was unexciting. Dry chapattis and dry vegetables. Grandma didn’t eat for some reason. She just sat and watched me as I tried my best not to throw up. The food tasted awful as though it were days old!
“Oh this electricity is such a nuisance here! You must be finding it so inconvenient...”
“Uh...no Grandma, it’s alright, really...after all who sleeps with the lights on!”
Never good at making small talk especially with octogenarians (Ruskin excluded!) I just smiled and nodded at everything she said wishing this torturous dinner to be over soon.
“It has been a long time since I was visited by anyone in this house...I must tell you child that I feel awfully lonely at times...”, said my grandma to no one in particular. “Your father had called me in the morning today to ask how I was,” she continued in barely a whisper. “I told him that I am okay just some palpitations now and then. And my problematic joints...ha ha ha...just things that happen when you grow old!”

Part 3- The Night

It was around ten when I blew off the candle and settled down between the covers. Inspite of the crushing warmth of the room, I shivered. Pulling the covers closer to my body I tried my best to sleep but unexpected noises prevented me from doing that. These things are bound to happen. Houses which have been empty for a long time do have the habit of going bump once in a while. Sounds of a rat scurrying here and a bug creaking there cannot be missed. And when wooden doors and windows expand with the heat or contract with the cold making a loud crack or when the wind knocks off the ladder in the attic which falls with a loud thud, your heart is in your mouth, waiting to pop!

For about twenty minutes I tried to block the noises out but the more I tried, the louder they became. Then I gave up finally as exhaustion took over and fell into a deep sleep.
Around midnight, I was woken up by whispers. I sat upright on the bed straining my ears to catch them once more. They sounded like they were coming from within the room. So, I was not alone! I grabbed the torch which I had kept under my pillow and shone it around. Silence. Everything was as it was. Only the room was freezing. I could see my breath as a mist. I called out to my grandma thinking that maybe she wasn’t feeling well and had come to tell me that but the door was shut and there was nobody else in the room other than me. I felt goosebumps on my arms as I shut out thoughts of other-worldly presence in the room which could have perhaps led to the sudden temperature drop. This was not exactly the time or place to entertain such thoughts and I reprimanded myself! Maybe I’d feel at peace if I look around and see for myself.
I unlatched the door and crept outside with the torch. The long corridor led to an open veranda where the lavatory was. The other two rooms on the side of the corridor were locked from outside. The temperature returned to normal as soon as I stepped outside. As I was crossing the staircase, I heard footsteps and heavy breathing coming in short gasps. My grandma, for some reason was coming upstairs. I guessed she must’ve heard the strange whispering in the dark too. I turned and shone the torchlight directly at her. She didn’t seem surprised. Infact, she didn’t seem to notice me at all! She kept coming up the stairs at me staring straight ahead. Her eyes were empty and her face was ghastly pale with deep hollows around the eyes. In a few seconds she floated up and stood facing me. Her mouth was trying to form strange words but no sound came out. And then I noticed: her feet were not resting on the ground! She was floating at least five inches above the ground. That could mean only one thing: The old woman who opened the door to let me in, who treated me to a cold, stale dinner downstairs was not my grandma at all. It was her ghost.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t scream. My legs felt like they were in a cast and my voice was lost. I could only stand and stare at the entity hovering in front of me, the mouth forming unspoken words. The torch fell from my hands and rolled to the side. It sort of brought me back to my senses. I bent down to pick up the torch when I heard loud thuds, like someone was tumbling down the stairs. The vision of my dead grandma was no longer there. I raced down the stairs with the torch. On reaching the end of it, my torch went out and I stumbled over something and fell headlong.

“The stairs are very slippery... Be careful...”

So they were. That is how my grandma died. And I just stumbled upon her corpse that lay bundled at the foot of the stairs. Ignoring the sharp pain in my back I scrambled to my feet and ran towards the door. I had to get out of here before the demented spirit of my grandma drove me crazy. Without the torch, it was tough to find the way in the pitch blackness. I ran towards the direction I assumed the main gate would be. “Where is it?! Where is the main door! Why can’t I reach it?” I ran for a full five minutes in the dark but realised that I had not moved an inch. Again I heard whispers. They were all around me. I felt as though my wretched condition was being watched by a dozen spirit eyes. They were laughing, chuckling, making fun of my hapless situation. I turned in the opposite direction and ran again but I ended up reaching the foot of the stairs near the body. There’s no escape, the voices seemed to whisper. I looked down and found my grandmother’s face twisted at an awkward angle. The lifeless eyes staring at me and her mouth speaking those same inaudible words. Laughter rang out through the whole house. Suddenly it grew cold and I heard someone speak from behind:
“I hope the power cut is not bothering you...”
It was my grandma again, the hollow eyes, the floating body. She floated closer to me. I collapsed on the floor my eyes fixed on the ghoulish figure. “I have told you not to run down the stairs...”
“Are you hurt my dear?”
“Your father had called me in the morning. I told him I might die soon...”
“You can’t get out of the house child. You can NEVER GET OUT!”

The last words echoed as I had one final look at the floating figure as it ascended the stairs. And then the whole world faded into black. I could vaguely make out loud thuds as the scene repeated itself over and over. But I had no energy left in me to open my eyes, stand up and run. I wanted to just die here. Die right here at the foot of the steps. Die right here in this possessed house. I smirked and was enveloped in a last consciousness of great sorrow. Then, darkness.

..................................................................................................................................................................

The whispers were back. But I was dead now and it didn’t matter. Death had equipped me to fight the dead. I forced my eyes open. Light. Strange, blinding, the brightest light I had ever seen. And then some faces hovered above me. As my voice adjusted to the sudden brightness, I saw my cousin Kush mumbling something and then another face...and then another. I sat up and saw I was still in the house. There were others too. Kush and a few other men. There were men in white coats who were carrying something away on a stretcher...something covered in a white cloth. Shit! The body! It all came back at once. I shuddered.

It was late afternoon when the medics left with the body. Since it was death under suspicious circumstances, I reckoned there would be an examination unto the cause of death. But the decision would be taken later when my dad and uncle would be here. Kush passed me a hot cup of instant coffee. I had told him about last night. He had heard me out patiently and then had said that the apparition bit was probably cooked up by extreme stress and sleeplessness. I didn’t contradict him. We are left to each our own explanations. The power was back thankfully and we shared a last cup of coffee in the house before we both left for the airport.

As I went upstairs to my room to get my bag, I felt a strange chill envelope me. My breath was visible again—the second time in twenty-four hours. I didn’t look behind my back. Just picked up my overnight bag and rushed out of the room. As I started down the stairs, I heard several loud thuds. I froze!
“Di! Are you alright?” Kush came panting up the stairs. I looked at him straight in the eye. He understood. “Lets get out of here...” was all I could say.

I stared at the house from the window of the cab and saw it recede into the dusk as we drove out of the lane. I thought I saw the lights in the second floor room where I was staying come on for a brief moment before plunging the house in total darkness...forever.

The Beginning

“They’re here...” This two-word one-liner uttered by Carol Anne from Spielberg’s 1982 spook Poltergeist pretty much sums up the state of affairs of ‘our’ world. They are here and now and always have been and will be. By ‘they’, I mean the disembodied energies which have nowhere to go for energy cannot be destroyed. So they have chosen our world as their home. However, they have their own world too which is inside our world but we cannot see that world during our day to day lives. That is because their electrons and our electrons do not vibrate in the same frequency. So even as I write this piece sitting on my bed on a dark rainy afternoon, a couple of disembodied energies are actually peering over my shoulder, reading every word and smiling at my naiveté!