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Mr Bhatnagar was your Daddy's teacher, and he loved your Daddy a lot
and he always said "I will choose a bride for Aditya [my dad]".
Me: "Daddy, what did he teach you?" Daddy: "Chemistry." Mom: "He taught your daddy chemistry
Me: "And wasn't he also the warden of the...?" Dad: "The old Boarding House [school dorm]" Me: "The old Boarding House at the Colvin Taluqdar's College [the school in Lucknow where my grandfather was vice-principal]
Mom: "One day it so happened...when I got married...I mean, it hadn't yet been a week since the wedding...
...and your Daddy had already left for an interview...he had gone to Dehradun...
"...my room at the old Boarding House...was a little away from the rest of the house"
Me: "How big was this house?"
Mom: The house was very big
Me: "And what was the plan of the house?"
Mom: "In the front was a verandah, then a drawing room..."
Dad: "There was a series of rooms, then a verandah,
...then there was a big courtyard"
Mom: "There was big courtyard, and in the courtyard was my room"
Me: "No, I don't understand"
Mom: "...my room adjoined the courtyard".
Me: "So your room was away from the rest of the house?"
Mom: "...yes, away from the rest of the house...a little bit"
"...there was the verandah, the courtyard, and then the kitchen..."
...and then the servant room...
Me: "So how did you choose this particular room"
Mom: "I didn't choose it...it was a little away...
and there were a lot of visiting guests
so my father-in-law said "This is a little away from it all"
"You won't have any problem getting some rest there"
...so he picked the room, and my luggage was put in there
And in that room was an almirah...
...and that almirah was locked...
Me: "What kind of an almirah?"
Mom: "A wooden almirah...a cupboard"
"Well, my bed was there"
and your Daddy wasn't there
"Now I had gotten a lot of books as wedding gifts
"I had always been fond of reading"
"And one of the books I got was "Gunahon ka devta" [The god of crimes]
Me: "Yes, by Krishan Chander"
Mom: "Ever since I'd gotten the book I had been thinking whenever I'm going to find some time I'm going to read it"
Me: "How old were you?"
Mom: "I must have been...21 years old"
"So I was happy that tonight I would get to read 'Gunahon ka devta'
Me: "So what does all this have to do with that cupboard...?"
Mom: Just listen to the story, don't ask so many questions...
"...or how will the story ever end...?"
"Now what happened was...my father-in-law, my mother-in-law, everyone..."
"...all the elders in the house told me "Don't sleep in that room"
"Go and sleep with Bina"...that was my sister-in-law...
"Go and sleep in her room"
"...but since I was determined to read that book I said "I'm not scared, I'll sleep in that room"
...and when everyone else went to sleep I went to that room...
I put up the mosquito net
and I had gotten a lamp as a wedding gift
so that lamp...there were a lot of mosquitos
so I put the lamp inside the mosquito net
Me: "The kind of mosquito net that has the four bamboo poles [at the corners of the bed]
Mom: "Yes, with the four bamboo poles, that was the kind of mosquito net..."
"...so inside that kind of mosquito net, with that lamp, I lay down and started reading 'Gunahon ka Devta'...
Me: "The rest of the lights in the room were off...?
Mom: "The rest of the lights were out"
Me: "And the rest of the people had gone to sleep...?"
"Now I remember that I read until a half-past-twelve...
"...after that I don't remember when I dozed off
Suddenly I came awake
and realized that all four bamboo poles of the mosquito net had fallen on top of me
...all four of them...!
...and somebody with a heavy face, someone dark...with bloodshot eyes...
...and his face right next to my face...is staring at me...!
My thought was...I was wearing a lot of jewelry...
...(well, I really wasn't wearing it, I was supposed to, but instead I had taken it off and put it under the pillow)...
...(I really couldn't wear a lot of jewelry)...
...so I thought
my room is away from the rest...
...so this must be some thief!"
So I thought that, and I threw off all the bamboo poles
and I opened the door
and ran out into the courtyard
and I saw clearly that he was wearing a bluish shirt
that had stripes
and wearing pajama bottoms
a white pajama
someone wearing these clothes was walking toward the back of the house
beyond the kitchen
and there was a really high boundary wall
the one that closed in the courtyard
and he is walking toward the wall
Me: "Just sauntering...?"
Mom: "Just ambling toward the wall. And the back door...
...I saw him until he got to that door
...the door that led out into the back yard
Me: "Meaning that there was a door in the boundary wall?"
Mom: "Yes. That door. There were two doors, one going to the side
to the Boarding House
and the other one led to some farmland
and an orchard
and a kitchen-garden where Amma-ji [my grandmother] used to grow vegetables
So he was going to the side where there was farmland
So when I ran...well after the courtyard there came a verandah
which had a little step, about one foot high
where Amma-ji and Bhai-saab [my grandfather] were sleeping
Me: "They were sleeping in the verandah?"
Me: "Was it a hot summer?"
Mom: "No, whether in summer or rain...well, actually it was still cold...early in February...
...I was married on February 4th...
...and I was running, and I was looking toward the man while running...
...so I tripped on that step and fell down unconscious...
...so I tripped on that step, and fell unconscious...
...because I thought "It's a thief...
...I never thought of ghosts...
...my only thought was to be able to recognize the thief...
...so I was looking that way...
and I fell and lost consciousness.
Me: "Did you bump your head?"
Mom: "No, I just hurt my elbow. I was wearing a lot of bangles...we wear glass bangles...
...so quite a few of the bangles broke...
...and I hurt my elbow...
...and I fell down unconscious.
but when I opened my eyes I saw that everyone in the house
...Tau-ji [my dad's oldest brother] had stayed after the wedding
Holi was around the corner
so all the relatives and guests were staying there
...so I noticed that there is a large crowd around me, and my father-in-law is doing some prayer-beads and chanting
I got up with a frightened start
and the only thing I said was "Chor!" ["Thief!"]
...with a long "oooooo"...
...so everyone asked "Where did that thief go?"
...so I gestured...I couldn't speak for fright...
...until I suddenly realized that I was surrounded by all the elders...
...so I covered my face with my sari and sat down there.
Well, after that...well, nothing really...my father-in--law and my mother-in-law put me in Bina's bedroom...
...saying "Don't worry, go to sleep with Bina".
So I went to sleep with Bina.
Me: "Didn't anyone go looking for the thief?"
Mom: No, no one said anything to me at the time
What happened in the morning...well, it had been a really late night
and all this drama happened...
...well, my mother had given me orders that every morning
I had to get up and take a bath and touch the feet of all the elders
this was the custom she had taught me
Well, when I woke up it was eight
No one woke me up on that morning
so I kept sleeping
and when I woke up I got scared and started weeping
I thought "Today I will get a scolding!"
Well, Bina and I were great friends
and she asked me "Why are you scared?"
and I said "It's very late, I'll get a scolding"
and she said "No, nothing of the sort happens in our house"
"so get up, go take a bath, say your prayers..."
In our family for nine days after the wedding we have Gaur pooja
the bride worships the Gaur and then everyone has breakfast
Me: "What is 'Gaur'?"
Mom: 'Gaur' is the wife of Shiva
Well, after the Gaur pooja when I was sat down to breakfast
then my father-in-law showed me this...large group photograph
Me: So until then you hadn't described the thief?
Mom: "No, no, nothing, we hadn't talked about what had happened"
I just woke up, quickly took a bath, did the pooja
and when I sat down to breakfast then he showed me the photograph
and he said "Can you recognize him among these people in the photo?"
Me: It was a photo of the staff, or students...?
Mom: I'm not sure who all were in the photo
he only said "Do you recognize anyone here?"
and I immediately put my finger on a face!
I said "Yes! It was him! It was him!"
and I was so happy, so excited that now the thief will be caught!
...although he hadn't really stolen anything...
...yet I was very happy that the thief will be caught
And then my father, all smiles, said...
"It's been about four, five years since he died!"
"He's not alive!"
"This man you recognized is not alive"
I thought this was exceedingly strange
But my father-in-law had a suspicion...
He insisted that the cupboard in my room be opened.
Me: It was locked? Mom: It was locked.
Dad: It was [Mr. Bhatnagar's] family who had locked it. Mom: His family had vacated the whole house...before my father-in-law..
Me: So he was the warden before Baba became the warden...?
Well, I didn't know any of this
I didn't know the ABCD of that house
So ultimately it happened that when he got the cupboard open
Mr Bhatnagar's ashes were kept in there!
His wife wanted that his ashes and her ashes should be immersed together
Yes, she was still alive, so she thought "When I die then my ashes and his should be immersed in the Ganga together"
Well, my father-in-law told her "Nothing doing, take these away", and he gave her the ashes
saying "Take these to your new house"
Then my father-in-law said "I feel that he always used to say...Aditya was his favorite..."
Me: And he had said "I am going to choose a bride for him!"
Mom: Yes, he used to say "I will choose a wife for Aditya"
so he must have come to see if I fit the bill!
...and when I gave the description to my father-in-law
that he had these big, bloodshot eyes, and a heavy face, and a dark complexion
...and the blue striped shirt,and the pajamas, he said
"Those were the clothes he died in!"
Dad: Well, it was like this. One day, about four years before, that there was a football match
between the District Police and Colvin Taluqdar's College, and Mr Bhatnagar, in the same dress in which mummy saw the apparition.
had gone to see the football match. And while the match was on he just had a cardiac arrest and he collapsed
and he had gone to see the match, and his body was brought back in the same dress.
Me: Was he fond of... a couple of drinks? Dad: Yes. Which is why his eyes were bloodshot.
Mom: And I had never seen him, because he died before I got married...but I recognized him in the photo, his dress
...so this is something really strange
After that...even after your daddy came back...I never slept in that room again!
"He'll come back to see me again!"
Me: Daddy, weren't there also stories of freshmen in the Colvin hostel who used to think it was the warden making rounds...
...because they had no idea that he had already passed away?
Didn't he also...patrol the old Hostel where he used to be the warden?
And the older kids had heard of this...you know?