Dead End - A Second World War Era Gothic Story

It was a Sunday morning, and though the time was not yet 9 even, the heat was already oppressive. Soaked in sweat, I was going through the motions of shaving, sitting before a hand mirror which I had placed on a window sill for better light.

Through this window on the first floor, I had full view of our front yard and the rocky plain that stretched beyond it, right up to the range of hills that formed s sort of backdrop to the landscape. There was nothing of interest in this view except a lonely cottage situated at the foot of a hill, in which, according to my information, lived Bipin Pal, all alone. A day before I had met him though briefly.

Whenever I glanced through this window, it was this cottage which caught my attention, as it did now. This time however there was something more that attracted my attention. I saw a woman, who had come out of the cottage, open the compound gates in a hurried manner, and without bothering to close the gate, she briskly started walking in the direction of my house. This woman, I guessed, must Bipin Pal’s house maid, about whom I had heard much from my all-purpose servant, Narayan, who, although as much new as myself, was already well informed about most of the local characters as well as goings on of this little mining town.

I now suspended all activities and intensely watched this woman who appeared to be headed towards my house itself.

Presently she was at our gate and I could see that she was in an extremely agitated condition. Before long, I heard her banging our front door. After a brief spell of door banging, to my utter amazement, she let out a terrific scream. At this I dropped the razor, dashed to the staircase and scrambled down. By then Narayan had let her in.

Beads of perspiration stood on her forehead and her eyes were round with fear, as she leaned on the wall, visibly shaking. After spending considerable time and efforts I managed to get from her the reason for it all—that when she went in for her work as usual, she had found Bipin Pal hanging by his neck in his cottage. I myself became rattled up quite a bit upon hearing this. However, the realization dawned on me that I could not just receive the news with due shock and remain otherwise unconcerned but should do something in the direction of informing the cops and all that.

Accordingly I despatched Narayan to the local police out post to inform them and then asked the highly agitated maid to relax in the meantime. I then hoped that the moment the cops came into the picture, my end of the story would be over. But in this I was mistaken. No sooner than the cops arrived, they started asking me questions in plentiful, the first of them being whether I knew the person who had hanged himself. Even as I was trying to think up a vague reply to this question, Narayan shot off his mouth, telling them that I had met the deceased only a day before. That did it. The cops asked me lot more questions and finally asked me to accompany them to the cottage. I could not immediately think of any good excuse to wriggle out of this unpleasant proposition, with the result I meekly agreed to go with the law.  My servant Narayan was very keen on accompanying us, but I was in no mood to entertain his wish.

With hot sun beating down, we set out for the cottage, which, instead of its usual quaint look, now bore a sinister air about it.

On entering through the gate which was covered with creepers of all kinds, we found that the front door was open ajar. What I saw through the open doors so startled me that I froze on my oath

The sight of a man hanging by his neck is physically just as one would imagine it to be like, but when actually confronted, it looks very unreal as though one is seeing a phenomenon quite strange to this world. Anyway there he was –suspended in mid-air, head downcast and the limbs hanging limply. This view, neatly framed by the door, looked like one of those, grotesque, surrealistic pictures. As I was brooding on this macabre scene, the two constables were carrying out their investigation, and presently one of them came out. In a loud, raucous voice, though a hushed tone would have been more befitting to the occasion, he said, ‘the fellow had actually sat for his breakfast, believe me, the toast is hot enough to eat if one is inclined to do so!’

Just then the other cop too emerged from the house with a sheaf of papers in his hand. ‘Never saw a house more scantily furnished than this one’ he commented with a wry face.

He then asked me if I knew Bengali and explained that the papers he held in his hand were in Bengali and that none at the police outpost would be able to read it. The cops presumed that the papers were written by Bipin Pal himself or at least, the addresses of his kin and such other useful information would be contained in them. When I told him that I knew Bengali well, they asked me to go through the papers and give them any useful information that I may find in them.

‘But it would take time’ I told them.

‘Never mind’ the cop said, thrusting the papers in my hand, ‘You can tell us all about it tomorrow’

After that they took the body down and by that time the ambulance had come from the neighbouring town to take away the body. Each of us then went our way- I to my house.

It was late in the evening when my house was finally rid of the cops who had been until then taking innumerable statements from everyone concerned using my home as a temporary police post. With a sigh of relief I settled down in the armchair for a badly needed nap. But my intention was foiled by Narayan whose hunger for gossip was almost pathological, and he now wanted me to read for him the papers which the cops had given me.

‘Get lost’ I said, shooing him off, but I knew that it was in vain. Narayan’s perseverance is of epic proportions and I had always ended up conceding defeat, as I did now. He however agreed to leave me alone for the rest of the evening provided I tell him the story at the first available opportunity next day.

The papers were written legibly and neatly as though the writer had all the time in the world. I found that it was in fact a long letter written by Bipin Pal, the date indicating that it was written about a fortnight back. The name of the cottage and town figured at the top. The letter started thus---

‘My dearest sister Toru, I do not find it worthwhile any more to pretend that I have the desire to live. The ennui is unbearable and death would be redemption.’

‘But I must admit that I do not have the courage to end my life. I have steel wire hung from the ceiling about which my servant has inquired several times. I have so far refused to answer her question rather than lie, since as you have often said, I am incapable of lying. But I shall tell you about it in this letter which you will receive only after I am no more. Anyway, the idea is that I may find a moment when my mind is immersed in other thoughts or just blank, as it sometimes happens, and at that moment I find the wire dangling before me and suddenly, before my mind becomes fully conscious of my action, I shall go ahead and hang myself. It may be any moment, when I light my after dinner cigarette or I sit down for my breakfast.  

At this I stopped reading since I felt that my mind may be irreparably affected by these eerie thoughts of a demented man. After some time however, a morbid interest compelled me to read further.

‘The days are still the same here, the rains; oh God: would it never stop raining. I sit near the door and watch those horrible black clouds in sickly grey sky. I have forgotten how brightness or even ray of light looks like. I would give anything to remember it if not actually see it.’

At this point I was again forced to stop reading and the reason was not far to seek. At the time the letter was written, the weather was exactly opposite—it being the peak of summer with not a shred of cloud in the sky at any time of the day. By this I could have easily concluded that the man was insane, but for the memory of the brief meeting I had with him when he had looked absolutely normal to me and had behaved like an intelligent, sober and sensitive man.

‘Waiting for the end to come’ the letter continued, ‘I felt that you should know the events that brought me to this condition. I wanted to forget them myself, so that I may recover from this sickness of mind. But now I know that no such thing is possible.’

‘You would remember the day I came home for the weekend with Roberts whom I introduced to you and father as a good friend of mine in the army. This was the beginning.’

‘As you I had met him first in the army headquarters when I had gone there to get my appointment. After we got acquainted, he had asked me to show him around Calcutta. I had been much flattered by his asking me this favour, since it appeared to me that I had been able to strike such good friendship in such short a time,  that too with a foreigner and a white man. But little did I realize what it all meant.

After I spent a day with him I came to like Roberts immensely. Though outwardly he looked very sombre and austere, he was in fact a jovial and pleasant person. The fact that after visiting our house three or four times he had almost become like a member of our family speaks of the endearing qualities he possessed.

For another three months, until the fateful day when both of us left for the Kohima Front, Roberts and I were together much of the time, and I had never been happier in my life than during those days. Roberts was the kind of person who not only gives you his best but also bring out the best in you. He made me find joy in the most trivial things. Being unsentimental and conservative, I would have normally shuddered to even think of doing some of the things that I did with him -like rowing down the Hoogly River in a moonlit night or having a scholarly discussions with a roadside fortune teller.

Then came the day when we were to leave for the Kohima Front. Though I came home that day, both you and father were not at home and I had to leave without bidding you farewell.

It was late in the afternoon when we boarded the plane that was to take us to the forward area. The sky was overcast with clouds and it was cold and drizzling which made everyone quite depressed. I was searching for Roberts whom I had not seen for the past two days and when I spotted him sitting close to the entrance of the pilot’s cabin, I cheered up considerably.

I slapped him on his back with what seemed to be an excess of joviality under the circumstances and asked, ‘So old boy, how was your luck with the alligator?’ If I expected him to guffaw, there was no traces of a smile even on his face. Other fellows sitting nearby, who had been greatly irritated by my striking a cheery, out of tune note, now derived some satisfaction as I looked around sheepishly.

A few minutes after the plane took off, Roberts, besides whom I sat huddled, turned to me and started saying in a distressed voice, ‘Isn’t it a terrible thing to be aware of your future and know with certainty what is in store for you? It is like riding the Time Machine, being in the present and future simultaneously.’

I was not able to get the drift of his talk and said so to him. He seemed to realize my difficulty, for he started explaining to me in detail about his meeting with Pandit Nikhilendu on the previous day and how it brought about a whole transformation in his outlook of life. You will remember that Pandit Nikhilendu was known to father, and once when Roberts insisted on seeing a genuine ‘Indian holy man’ I had taken him to this saintly astrologer. Subsequently, it appears, Roberts visited the Pandit several times when the latter read to him from his collection of ‘Naadi’. If you do not know, this ‘Naadi’ is some ancient scripture which is said to contain the history of all the people in the world, living, dead or yet to be born. Roberts was utterly fascinated by this amazing history and learnt a good deal about it from the Pandit. He told me all about it.

‘According to Naadi, there have been, or going to be, only a few lives, but men and events repeat themselves by interchanging endlessly. It is like the kaleidoscopic patterns, all breathlessly different but in essence made from the same elements. We partake in events and experience emotions which we think are unique but in reality are no more unique than the rising of the sun or the blooming of the buds. When I partake in events, these would also be of the past and of future, in which other people had taken part or would take part.

‘Take me’ said Roberts at this point, turning in his seat and grabbing my arms, in a low voice which others would not have been able to hear clearly, ‘the fear of death I am experiencing now has a precedence.’

I interrupted him to ask him in an equally low voice, whether it was the battle ahead that made him feel the fear of death.

But Roberts continued unmindful of my interruption, ‘That old man experienced an uncommon fear of death, the very same emotion that I am experiencing now.’

‘And who is this old man you are referring to?’ I was obliged to interrupt again.

‘You mean Kapila?’ Roberts said.

‘Yes, whatever his name’ I replied.

‘Kapila lived in a place which is within fifty miles from here’ started Roberts and went on to narrate a somewhat bizarre story, which according to him, occurred about eighty year ago. It is in short like this-

Kapila was an outcaste Brahman who lived from civilization, somewhere in the jungles of Kohima. His young wife Triveni whom he could marry only by buying her off from her parents, also lived with him.

The thing that really set Kapila apart from others was his incurable fear of death, which led him to do many strange things. He would indulge himself in experiments verging on the occult with the purpose of isolating what he called as ‘Life Substance’ from living organisms.

All this meant great hardship to his wife Triveni. To a girl who was still in her teens, to be away from her parents and loved ones was a sufficient cause for sadness.  Added to this was the utter loneliness, worsened only by the in human company of her old husband. All these combined had made her life most miserable and unlivable. To give an idea of the terrible life she led, it suffices to say that she sometimes had to join her husband in digging out the corpses from the burial grounds of tribal people who lived nearby and later to drag them home for his abominable experiments. She however bore the hardships and the perpetual fear and sorrows of her lonely life with a silent, animal like fortitude.

Then came the day, when, after prolonged illness, the old man lay on his deathbed, gripped by the terror of his impending real death. While narrating the story, Roberts had explained at this point, ‘It is the same terror of death that has sprung in me now. Pandit NIkhilendu has told me that as I near the place of the past event, the emotions which haunt the place regardless of time, will have a greater grip on me, the inheritor of the very same emotions.

Kapila desperately sought ways to alleviate his fear and the solution that struck him was at once most insane and horrendous. The only way, he thought, was to have a companion in death, and none could be an easier prey than his frightened little wife. Calling her to his bedside, he asked Triveni to sit near his bed pretending that he would like her to hold his hand. But when she kneeled close to him, he grabbed her delicate neck with both his hands.

Summoning all the energy if his failing, senile body, he then strangulated her to death. After Treveni died in his hands, Kapila himself reached the end of his sordid life.

I felt something was seriously wrong with Roberts, but thought it prudent not to continue the conversation with him. The strange story told by Roberts, left me quite unsettled, uneasy and even more depressed in spirits than before.

An hour or so might have elapsed when Roberts once again turned to me and all tensed up, his voice quivering, ‘Bipin, this is the end, we are all heading for a certain death’. There was a deathly pallor on his face,

Since his voice was loud enough to be heard by others some of them looked towards us, clearly irritated, and I felt very embarrassed. But sensing that something was really wrong with Roberts, his story apart, I whispered to him, ‘Look here, some of us may die but not all. There have been people who have survived dozens of wars and there is no reason why you should not.’

Roberts shook his head and said aloud, ‘I don’t mean the war, but we shall all die in an accident. This plane is going to crash against one of those hills below.’

One of the fellows sitting nearby could not stand it any longer and barked at Roberts, ‘Can’t you keep your mouth shut for a minute!’

Thereafter Roberts sat quietly with a blank expression on his face which I found quite disturbing. It was obvious that something has gone wrong with Roberts and felt very sad about it. But I hoped that it was a temporary derangement of the mind caused by the stressful situation.

Soon after this, we came to know that the pilot was experiencing difficulty due to poor visibility and that one of the engines had slight trouble. As I looked out of the window, the green hills in the gathering darkness, seen for fleeting moments among the swirling clouds, indeed looked menacingly near for my comfort.

As a precautionary measure we were asked to be ready to bail out if proper landing was found impossible; and in this I did not lag behind. Meanwhile Roberts said to me, ‘It is coming to that! But it is some comfort to know that I will not be alone in death.’

But soon the plane steadied and we were finally told that the danger was over and the plane would be landing within about fifteen minutes. But this reassuring news did not seem to have any effect on Roberts. In a panic stricken voice he now muttered, ‘If I am to die, everyone here shall also die’. Soon after saying this, he suddenly got up from his seat and ran into the pilot’s cabin, near the entrance of which we were sitting.

After this the events moved rapidly,--too rapidly for me to recollect them in proper sequence or in detail.

I heard two shots in quick succession from the cockpit as the place tottered violently. Then I saw Roberts emerging out of the pilot’s cabin with a pistol loosely held in his hand. Some people rushed at him while others managed to enter the cockpit even as the plane was swaying wildly.

Perhaps I was the only one to have bailed out. Perhaps others either did not have time to bail out or got distracted by trying to get hold of Roberts or else thought they had better chance of survival by staying back.

I remember that the place where I came down was the side of a hill, covered with tall trees. My survival was almost miraculous, for the altitude from which I had jumped was so low that the parachute had only partially opened. I was prevented from falling to a sure death only because the half spread parachute got entangled among the tree tops as I fell through a clearance amidst the trees, thus cushioning my fall.

The night had already fallen and I was hungry and tired. Added to this, I was feeling severe pain all over my body due to the terrible jolt I had received while landing.

I was slowly making my way up the wet and slippery lichen covered slope which, when I heard the drone of a plane. I immediately felt that it was the same plane which I had abandoned so recently and was surprised that it had survived still. Listening to the drone, it seemed that the plane was circling the sky. But suddenly, the drone grew intense and fast became a roar. The wind whistled through the trees and the dead leaves swept off by it hit my face in the dark. With a thundering noise, the plane flew right over my head, almost touching the tree tops and casting an eerie red and green glow beneath. I fell down trying to duck. As I lay on the ground I felt the earth shudder when the plane hit the top of the very hill with an ear splitting explosion.

I lost no time in getting on my feet and scrambling up the hill with whatever energy I could muster.

After considerable time when I reached the top, I found the hill levelling off to form a plateau, and saw that the plane had tried to belly land on this small area of level ground. With its nose dug into the ground and the tail tilted up, the plane lay burning with bright flames licking the night sky. The air was filled with thick smoke and the acrid smell of the burning leather and rubber.

It seemed unlikely that anyone could have survived the crash. Going round the site of the accident, I found several dead bodies on the ground and it appeared that some of the men had managed to crawl out of the burning plane only to succumb to the injuries already received or to be roasted alive in their burning clothes.

However there was one man who appeared to be still alive. When I saw him attempting to speak, I stopped and knelt besides him, trying to catch the words he was uttering. With utmost efforts he whispered into my ears an account, though somewhat incoherent one, of the accident and its aftermath.

He said that an attempt was made by the badly wounded pilot, with the help of others, for a safe belly landing. Roberts seemed to have scuttled it, although it was not clear as to how, and so the plane crash landed, catching fire in the process. A few men managed to get out of the plane and among them was Roberts. Roberts, it seems, was in a much better shape than other, but to everyone’s horror, instead of coming to the help of others who were hardly able to get up from where they lay, he went about systematically attacking them ruthlessly with chunks of metal and boulders. Thus, even the few survivors of the accident were wiped out by this homicidal maniac.

I gathered that just before I had arrived on the scene, Roberts had been trying to finish off this dying man, who now spluttered ‘Ghoul! trying to strangle me as if I was not already dying!’

I was feeling terribly sick looking at this man’s face which was a mere smudge with the burnt skin fairly well peeling off and the rancid smell of the burning flesh filling my nostrils oppressively. It was all nightmarish, the horrifying scene of destruction, the dead bodies seen in the smoky orange light, my own helplessness as a bystander and the utter incapacity to comprehend the meaning of it all. The horror of the situation benumbed my feelings and made me loose the grip over my mental faculties.

Later I must have wandered off from the site of accident in a daze and collapsed somewhere out of sheer exhaustion and lay there asleep or unconscious. When I woke up, the day had broken, and it was drizzling with dark clouds rumbling in the sky.

I got up and walked aimlessly, still in a sort of trance. My memory becomes clearer after I saw what seemed like a house amidst a cluster of trees and walked towards it. Nearing it, I found that the house was uninhabited and was in a terrible state of decay. The rain soaked dead leaves squelching under my feet and the rain drops pattering from the foliage above, I walked around the house, making my way through the thick vegetation. Like any other house in ruins, it looked very sinister, seemingly brooding on some unholy past.

Suddenly, I halted in my path as I became aware of someone watching me. It didn’t take me long to behold the grey eyes which were staring at me. It was Roberts.

He looked haggard in his dirty wet clothes with gaping black holes caused by burning. But for his eyes, it was difficult to recognize him; his hair had burnt off completely while his forehead and large portions of his cheeks had turned purplish black colour.

But there was none of the satanic homicidal glint in his eyes which I had expected to see. Nevertheless I was panic stricken in his presence and wanted to run away if I could help it. ‘I was waiting for you’ he said calmly and in a matter of fact tone, ‘It was all a terrible thing to have happened.’

These few words, spoken soberly, assuaged my fear somewhat and I began to think Roberts might have become normal again. He then walked towards me and held out his hand. But I stood still. I realized that Roberts could never be same for me again. His lovable former self had died, at least for me, after having killed a plane load of people in a most gruesome manner.

‘Fate has brought us to together’ he said and continued, ‘You will no doubt remember what I told you while in that ill-fated plane.’

‘I don’t’ I said curtly, fear having given way to indignation at the affected civility and melodramatics,--coming from the perpetrator of a horrendous carnage.

‘You will remember, not to forget it again!’ he exclaimed. Sweeping his hand towards the ruined house, he then said, ‘This is where Kapila lived and battled against death. Come, I shall show you the final scene of his life’

Now, of course, I remembered the strange story Roberts had narrated on the previous day. But I was confused as to what possible connection it could have with the scene that he proposed to show me. Roberts then asked me to accompany him into the house. I wanted to refuse. But, as yet my attitude towards him was undecided. I was unable to work up a genuine revulsion towards him because he had not really done any harm to me nor even threatened me. Also, curiosity goaded me on. Hence, when Roberts asked me to follow him into the house, I did so, albeit reluctantly.

The roof of the house had come down at many places and some light filtered through these openings, making the otherwise dark interiors of that ancient house somewhat visible. The floor was wet and slippery at some places. From the ceiling hung enormous bats looking like shadows without bodies and the damp air inside stank of their droppings.

Once in a while a bat would fly past my face, the furious flapping of its wings reverberating in the empty rooms, and every time it happened, it didn’t fail to frighten me. For reasons unknown, I was reminded of Triveni, that unfortunate girl in Roberts’ story. Could it be true that she lived here as Roberts claimed, and could it be that there were bats in those days too and frightened her with the flapping of their wings in those dark rooms?

I could not help this train of thoughts and Triveni’s life of misery, fear and loneliness became more and more real to me. It was not a detached feeling of sympathy that I felt for her life but her feelings themselves. Interrupting my thoughts, Roberts gripped my arms and said excitedly, ‘This is where the final event occurred!’

At first I could hardly see anything in that room, littered like other rooms we had passed through, with rubble. But I soon found out what it was.

In the semi-darkness, there lay extremely decayed remains of two human skeletons, one on an old crumbling bed and the other on the floor, the latter with tell-tale anklets and bangles.

Nothing in the world had ever shaken me like the sight of these two skeletons. I was till then inclined to be sceptical about the story told by Roberts—but now, as the terrible proof lay before me, the truth of it overwhelmed me.

A tidal wave of emotions engulfed me. The sorrows of Triveni’s life which I had begun to feel before I came upon this scene now completely took hold of me. The fear and misery of Triveni’s tortuous life and the final tragedy filled my heart, never to leave it again.

I saw her before me, a necklace around her neck and bangles on her wrists—things which might have given her girlish pleasure while looking into the mirror in some dreary dusk. This pleasure was perhaps the only in human emotion she would have ever felt in her miserable life.

I don’t know how long I was brooding on this scene. When Roberts touched my shoulder I became conscious of the fact that I had knelt on the floor and was weeping like a bereaved man. And, that marked the end of my former life,--to become forever the inheritor of Triveni’s misery, fear and loneliness.

So, dear Toru, you now know the events that changed my life and soul. You and others may consider me as mad or demented and what is more, I myself feel so sometimes. But it is also true that I am normal otherwise—I can think and act rationally, though I am unable to shake off this sorrow and fear and this terrible sense of utter loneliness which I inherited in that fateful morning. I do not know how to explain it. Was Roberts right when he said that events and emotions perpetuate themselves?

In a way it was the same with Roberts. His fear of death was the same which Kaplia felt and his method of alleviating it by having companions in death was again the same. But now I am coming to that. Roberts did not get a companion when death really came to him. He died alone, unlike Kapila and at least that final tragic event did not repeat itself. But it would have, and that is the only thing now left to be told.

After I came out of the ruined house, I found that Roberts was not inclined to leave the premises. But I could not bear to remain in that place any longer—the sadness I felt there was driving me mad and I was also anxious to leave the obnoxious company of Roberts.

When Roberts realized that I was set to go, he became very much agitated. ‘No!’ he said, seizing my hand, ‘I may die any moment now and you can’t leave me alone’ I began to suspect that he looked upon me as a prospective companion in death.

If only Roberts had allowed me to leave that place unhindered, I would have been spared of committing a heinous crime. But Roberts’ crude attempt to detain me with the apparent intention of making me one more victim of his horrible craving for killing infuriated me beyond control. Selfishness had always irritated me; but this selfishness of Roberts which made him kill people in most callous manner so that the fear of his own death could somehow be alleviated was about the worst kind one could think of. Lives of other people meant nothing to him. After killing all these innocent people, he now stood before me, expecting me to sympathize with him and if necessary to give my own life so that he may face his imaginary death with less apprehension. A sort of blind fury surged within me. No wonder I was driven to obliterate this beast of a man from the face of earth.

Fury apart, I had no means to kill him. In a hand to hand fight I was no match to Roberts and I knew it. I had no weapons with me, and further, if he sensed my intentions I stood no chance of survival.

However I did not hesitate to use cunning, as anything seemed fair means to get rid of this maniac. Anyway, I was in no mood for deliberations,--but was led only be animal instinct for revenge and survival.

I thought with feverish anxiety of a way to get rid of Roberts, and soon a sure way to eliminate him occurred to me.

While going round the house I had noticed a narrow shaft of a well, its mouth hidden by ferns and creepers. I thought if I could bring him around to the edge of that well, it would be an easy to push him into it and accomplish my objective. No doubt it took me much time to do just that, but I did it!

I still remember vividly those few breath taking moments: his legs poised grotesquely in the air while the rest of him was inside the well, his scream, the cacophony of the birds frightened by that scream, the rustle of the ferns that covered the mouth of the well—and then finally the reassuring sound of the splash- muffled by the dark interior of that ancient well.

Then I ran, as fast as my weakened legs could carry, back to the civilization. You will no doubt remember the evening I came home. Both you and father could not recognize me—I was in such horrible state.

Although I was apparently in a state of shock for a few weeks, I remember how well you tended to me during those days and how miserable our dear father to see my condition. In fact, during those weeks I was desperately trying to overcome an overwhelming feeling of gloom and utter disinterest in life which I was experiencing. At last I realized that it was in vain, the change which had come over me in that ruined house was a permanent one.

It is like a cancer of the mind. There is just one solution for this (you will excuse my way of putting it) and right now it is dangling before me.

Good luck to you, dear Toru, and my only wish is that you enjoy a happy and full life.’

By the time I had finished reading Pal’s letter, I myself seemed to have been infected with the melancholy of the writer. That is why I brushed aside the fervent request of Narayan, who had come on the scene now, that I tell him at least the gist of the dead man’s memoir.

I hastily got out of my house to catch some fresh air and shake myself off from the moroseness. I could help thinking on the contents of Pal’s letter. The letter, either by its style or by its contents did not seem like a letter. I would have been quite justified in classifying it as fiction, but somehow I could not quite do so. I knew that there was no way of finding out the truth and thought better to forget about it all.

Next day, early in the morning, a cop presented himself at my house and asked for Pal’s letter. I came to know through him that the Inspector had chided the constables for handing over the papers to me which he considered as an irregular procedure. As such I gathered that there was no necessity for me to render any further help to the Police in this connection.

The story would have ended here, but I was destined to add a sequel to it.

About a year after the events I have narrated, I had to go to Calcutta on some official business and while in Calcutta, something reminded me of Pal—especially things he had written in his ‘letter’. It suddenly struck me that I could visit Pal’s sister if I wanted. It would be like meeting a character in a story one has read.

Though I did not have the address of Pal’s sister with me, I thought that I could perhaps get it from the police department as I was sure that there must have been some follow up action by the police of Calcutta in connection with Pal’s death. Thinking up complicated plans which I need not put into action is my favourite pastime. But it was different this time. A tentative phone call to the police quarters miraculously brought results and before long, I had the address of Pal’s sister in my hand.

Thus I had the proof that Pal’s sister did really exist and at least to this extent Pal’s story was genuine.

Just before the day I was to leave Calcutta I managed to have an evening free for myself and set out to find the house of Pal’s sister. Until I was on the doorstep of the house, I had a breezy confidence –which however vanished without a trace as I stood poised to ring the doorbell. I suddenly felt very awkward when it occurred to me that I had no ‘locus standi’ in meeting Pal’s sister. The more I thought about it less sure I became and without even bothering to ring the doorbell, I turned to go back. Just then the door opened and a young woman stood on the doorway. She might have heard my footsteps or seen me through the open window.

‘I came to see Mr Pal’s sister’ I said hesitantly.

‘I am Pal’s sister’ she said and asked me to come inside.

I had expected to see a matronly woman with strands of grey hair since Pal himself was about forty or so and for no apparent reason, I had thought of the   sister Pal was referring to as much older than him. The young woman who stood before me was anything but the picture I had in mind.

She was quite young, somewhere in her twenties and extremely good looking. With her wide eyes, long eyelashes and lily white complexion she looked like a princess out of some Mogul miniature painting. No wonder it took me considerable time to speak anything at all. But she happened to be quite good in one-sided conversation and my awkward reticence went unnoticed.

By the time I was seated, she had got out of me all the preliminary information like where I had come from and why I was in Calcutta and all that.

‘So you knew Bipin’ she said.

My ‘knowing’ her brother seemed to have made me rather dear to her and she felt quite free with me.

She was the very definition of a ‘charming hostess’. I made me feel quite at ease as she engaged me in non-stop conversation. Although we began talking about the circumstances of her brother’s death, soon the conversation drifted to other subjects. Time just flew in her company as we talked about all kinds of things.

Among other things, she told me something of her family.—how she and her brother grew up in that house with only their father looking after them, their mother having died quite early in their lives. She told me that within a month of her brother’s death, her father also died, and I could see her eyes getting moist as she told me about this.

I genuinely felt sorry for her and regretted that I should have raked up such sad memories in her. Sympathy swelled inside me.

‘You are alone now?’ I said weekly.

She did not say anything to this, but veins stood up in her neck and I knew that she was unable to utter any word. She sat staring at the floor and after a few moments said, ‘I shall get you some tea’ and went inside.

When she returned with tea, she had sufficiently recovered and was able to answer my questions.

‘I am not alone now’ she said presently, placing the cup before me. ‘Since then I have married and my husband is living with me here. He was a good friend of Bipin’

I felt some vague disappointment on hearing this and took up the cup sullenly.

Meanwhile, peering through the window she exclaimed, ‘Imagine! He is here just as we are talking about him’

Turning to me she said, gushing with great happiness and love, ‘You will be delighted to meet my husband. He was a friend of Bipin. Bipin, of course, rarely developed any intimacy with his friends –with the exception of Roberts’

‘Another exception must have been your husband surely’ I said to this.

With her hand on the door knob she turned to me laughing and said, ‘But Roberts is my husband’

The few seconds which elapsed when she opened the door to let in the tall white man with cold grey eyes and greeted him with smiling words –were not sufficient for me to recover from the shock and summon my faculties back into service. This goes to show to what extent I had believed in Pal’s last letter to his sister and its bizarre contents. However, as the fact sank into my mind, I was able to regain my composure somewhat.

Toru introduced us and I shook his hand mechanically. –my mind has not completely adjusted itself to a living Roberts.

At the couple’s insistence I stayed there for dinner, and by the time we finished dinner, I had come under the spell of this man Roberts. I remembered something of what Pal had written about him in his letter, ‘giving the best and getting the best out of you’

Though outwardly he looked very grave and reticent, he turned out to be a very friendly and gregarious sort. I found that we shared many interests and he kept me highly engaged with many fascinating things he told me about them. Added to that was his great sense of humour. I have to admit that he could have kept me in his thrall as long as he wanted. His opinion about India’s independence, which was on the verge of becoming a reality at that time, were quite original and made deep impression on me. It was obvious from the looks on the Toru’s face that she simply adored her husband though he was much older than her and I grudgingly realized that she had every reason to do so.

While I took leave of them, both Toru and Roberts wished that I visit them again as soon as I could find time.

When talking to Toru and later with Roberts, I had completely avoided any reference to the circumstances of Pal’s death and the letter which he had left behind. On my way back I thought a good deal about these and especially about the letter. I was now fully convinced that Pal was mentally ill when he wrote that letter, although the intelligent tone of that letter suggested that he was not insane in the normal sense of the word. I thought the reason for his tortured mind would never be known, but that it had something to do with Roberts was obvious.

For a few days after this, my mind was struggling to come up with an explanation for the vast contradictions between what Pal wrote in his letter and the facts before me. Finally something along the following lines seemed to satisfy my irrepressible urge to solve this conundrum --

Pal came to like Roberts immensely after he made friends h him. Pal, perhaps until then, was a hopeless introvert, miserable in his lonely world. Friendship with out-going Roberts changed his life enormously and his admiration for Roberts grew greatly. At this point, Pal’s sister enters the picture. It becomes obvious to Pal that Roberts and his sister are in love. A normal brother would not have been very happy at this prospect, but not Pal. He did not like the idea of this new found friend and his sister, for both of whom his affection must have been enormous, coming together and leaving him out. The former affection for Roberts and the latter jealousy and hatred towards him for trying to snatch away his sister, coupled with the shattering realization that his world is no more the same, created great turmoil in Pal’s mind. The letter was a product of his feverish mind. Roberts is depicted as having been transformed into a blood thirsty monster, who in the form of Kapila, snatches away and then strangles his sister –thinly disguised as Triveni. But there is no peace for his tortured mind even by writing such allegorical letters and ultimately it all leads to his suicide.

More or less satisfied with this explanation that gave myself, I no longer gave much thought to the contents of Pal’s letter.

I visited Toru and Roberts again during my next visit to Calcutta. This time I got sufficiently emboldened to make a casual reference to Pal’s letter while talking to Toru. She became suddenly silent and visibly stiffened. To my great relief, Roberts, who was also present, took up the topic spiritedly.

‘So you have read it’ he said and then turning to Toru, he continued, ‘If he has read that letter, it is better that he knows the facts fully, otherwise his mind will be unsettled forever.’ 

That was just like Roberts to look at things directly and in the right perspective. He then explained to me in detail what he called the background to Pal’s letter, while Toru kept nodding her head whenever he turned to her for her concurrence.

From the beginning, Roberts said Bipin was an emotional type. Although Toru was not aware of it—according to Roberts, Pal was taking lot of interest in some occult practices and this interest only worsened the state of his already overwrought mind. Then the war came when Bipin, who was a good photographer,  joined the army as an army photographer, much against the wishes of his father.

His overexcited mind reached the rupture point during those trying days on the Kohima Front, and he deserted the troops to return to Calcutta but lost his way in the jungles. When at last he reached Calcutta, he was in a deliriu in the neighbouring state m and was hardly able to communicate with his father or sister. He was endlessly complaining of darkness and rain. Hence he was taken to that mining town by his father and sister, where I eventually came to know of him, The reason for choosing that town was that it had very scanty rainfall. Since Bipin was always alluding to imaginary rains that made him depressed, this dry place was expected to cure him of that malady. As expected the change did him lot of good and he almost became normal again. But his indifference to the world around him continued as before.

 Meanwhile Bipin’s father fell ill there and so, both his father and his sister had to return to Calcutta for the medical treatment, leaving Bipin Pal alone behind. Just as Toru’s father was recovering from his illness, they received the news of Bipin Pal’s suicide, and that did it –the old man fell ill again and died within a month.

When Roberts visited their house after he returned from the war, which had just ended, he found Toru all alone and miserable beyond belief. Though she had some relatives, none had taken any trouble to come to her help. As a friend of Pal, Roberts had already developed affection for her and he now spared no efforts to help her and brighten her life as much as possible. Roberts slowly found himself stepping into Toru’s life and before long they were married.

As regards the letter which Pal had written before his death, Roberts said it was a mix of truth and fantasy.

‘None can say what made him write that letter’ sighed Roberts. ‘From what he has written about me, it is obvious that he was harbouring a lot of mistrust and dislike for me. –though I was all the time thinking that we were the best of friends.’

When Roberts said this, Toru tried to interrupt. She perhaps wanted to say something in defence of her bother but Roberts waved it away and continued, ‘Granted he was out of his mind. But the things he wrote about me surely indicate that he had supressed feelings of animosity towards me. And that would have  prompted him to picture me as some kind of Dracula.’

Toru could not stand it any longer and pleaded him to stop it. I sat there quite embarrassed and felt that, for all his fairness, Roberts was stretching it too far, unmindful of Toru’s feelings.

To my relief, Roberts wound it by saying, ‘Well, as far as I am concerned, I feel absolutely no rancour towards him, and for me he is still that kind, affectionate friend’. I could not decide whether it was irony or hypocrisy in what he said.

The performance of Roberts left me a trifle annoyed and my initial unconditional admiration for him got slightly dented.

It seemed to me that no serious discussion about Bipin or his letter had ever taken place between the husband and wife before.

My thoughts were mostly about Toru while returning from their house that night. Though she appeared to be a picture of happiness to me, this seemed to only to add poignancy to the sad circumstances of her life. Her joy appeared to be that of a person who finds a straw to clutch at while being drowned. How else could it be for a young who had lost her only brother whom she loved immensely and then to have lost a father who was a fountain of kindness and love, to be left all alone to the agony of self-pity. To have an alien husband, however loving, could at best bring some illusionary happiness.

I put a stop to such thoughts when I sheepishly realized that I have been stretching my imagination too much. It struck me that for all I knew Toru might be genuinely happy with her husband and the sympathy I felt for her was synthesized for my own satisfaction. Some strange resentment in me had perhaps made me feel that Toru had no right to be happy with the man she had chosen.

I did not visit Calcutta for a long time. But when I did visit, I lost no time in making a visit to Toru’s house. I was however disappointed since no one was home. As I had come on official business, I did not find time to go again until the end of my stay. But this time also, to my utter disappointment I found the house locked. With something of a shock, I realized that they might have migrated to England. I felt at once resentful and sad.

To get my suspicion confirmed, I went to a neighbouring house to enquire about Toru and her husband’s where about.  I had knocked on the door and was waiting for the response. The door opened after a longish interval and there stood a woman whose expression made it clear that she would like to get rid of me at the earliest. But her expression changed dramatically when I enquired about Toru. She showed great interest and asked me to come in. But I had no inclination to do so and told her that I only wanted to know if Toru still lived in that neighbourhood. The woman did not reply to this question at all but insisted that I come in.

So I went inside and sat on a cane chair that she offered me.

‘Are you related to Toru?’ she asked me with great earnestness.

‘No, just an acquaintance’ I said.

‘So you do not know anything about it all?’ she exclaimed.

‘I do not know what you are referring to’ I replied, and I could feel my voice breaking.

In fairness to my feelings towards Toru, it is better that the matter be told in short and plain words and not in the manner in which it was conveyed to  me by this woman to make it sensational.

Both Toru and her husband had died simultaneously a few months before. Toru’s husband was suffering from cancer or some such ailment and hence the reason for his death was obvious. But the cause of Toru’s death was not at all clear. Her body was found lying on the floor, by at the side of the bed on which her dead husband lay. During the post-mortem it was found that she had been killed by strangulation. After considering all evidence, including finger prints, the police could not just help arriving at the conclusion that her own husband killed her by strangulation when he himself was on the verge of dying.

I had almost run out of the house into the blazing afternoon before that woman could give me more of the gruesome details.

I remember walking back to my hotel in the hot sun, collecting my baggage and then dashing to the railway station in a hurry to leave Calcutta.

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Banavasi and Sonde- Memories, Legends and History

                               

Banavasi was just an optional add-on excursion for us when we set out to visit Sonde in Uttara Kannada, renowned for its natural beauty, and the Sode Matha with Vadiraja Swamy’s  ‘Brindavana’.  When we had ended up visiting both the places, we may be excused for imagining that it was Banavasi which was our main destination. Not because Sonde was insignificant, but because Banavasi was extraordinary. Any way- Sonde first.

Right in the middle of a thick forest, Sonde is a tiny little place that has grown around the temple of Rama-Trivikrama and Sode Matha. The local history has it that about 400 years ago, the king of Sonde, who had been deposed from his throne, came in search of Vadiraja Swamy, who was then meditating in this remote forest, to seek his guidance and blessings. He eventually regained his throne with the blessings of Vadiraja Swamy, and the grateful king set up a temple for God Trivikrama as per the Swamy's wish, and Vadiraja Swamy set up his Matha by its side.

In the Madhwa tradition, Vadiraja Swamy is considered as next only to Madhwaraya in importance. He was a person of great wisdom and spirituality. So it was very gratifying to see his ‘samadhi’ or ‘Vrindavana’, that is, the spot where he was actually buried, over which a small structure has been built.

Rama-Trivikama Temple, though not spectacular, is quite attractive with many carvings on its pillars, especially of the patron gods of the eight cardinal directions, each found in the respective direction as you perambulate the temple. A unique feature of the structure that houses the inner chamber of the temple is that it is in the form of a chariot, complete with wheels, except that there are only three stone wheels instead of four. So, there is a wheel mysteriously missing and thereby hangs a tale, about which later.

                               The Unique Chamber of the Deity in the Shape of a Chariot 

The story of Sonde will be quite unfinished if we didn’t tell the story of Bhootha Raja, the local chief of the spirits, who was ordered by Vadiraja Swamy to fetch the idol of Trivikrama from Badareekashrama. While bringing the idol in a flying chariot, Bhootha Raja was attacked by a demon in a bid to highjack the idol. In this mid-air battle, having no other weapon, Bhootharaja plucked one of the wheels of the chariot and flung it at the demon making a short work of him, and thus became a celebrity overnight. He remains popular till today. His framed pictures are snapped up at the souvenir shops and taken home, for it is believed that his picture wards off thieves. Apparently, all thieves for all times have learnt to dread- let alone Bhootharaja- but, even his image, knowing well how he dealt with one of their kind.

Now, coming to the mystery of the missing wheel, by some quick thinking, we came to the conclusion that it is the very same wheel which Bhootharaja had flung as a weapon in the mid-air battle. So, everything tied up neatly!

                                        

                                              The Dancing Devotee in the Sonde Temple

A ‘must-see’ place in Sonde is Tapovana where Vadiraja is believed to have meditated. It is in the middle of a thick forest on the banks of a small river.  It is an abode of great peace, and we were tempted to do some impromptu meditation, which we did, though not with great success.  

                                    

                 

                                                      The Tranquil Environs of the 'Tapovana'

 Later we made our way to Banavasi, a name that has become synonymous with nostalgia in Kannada because of what was said about it by the ancient Kannada poet Pampa, who is considered to be the first poet of Kanndada and also as one of the finest among the Kannada poets of all times. Pampa, when he stayed in Banavasi once, found it so enchanting and his stay so memorable that for the rest of his life he kept longing for this place. Being a great poet, he immortalized his feelings in some of the most moving lines of Kannada poetry. Pampa’s lines were playing on our mind as we drove, and we wondered if the place would have similar effect on us.

Apparently, last thousand years or so has not been kind to Banavasi, which at one time was among the foremost cities of India.  Its former glory has been now reduced to dreary ordinariness. But this is what time does mercilessly to people and places or anything else for that matter.  

We found a straight and wide street, which was rather unexpected in a town of this size, and we found an old temple at the end of it. The temple is called   ‘Madhukeshwara’ temple because the main deity of Shiva Linga in the temple is honey coloured (‘madhu’ is honey). This ancient temple in Banavasi was built by the Kadamabas, the first major ruling dynasty of Karnataka. It may be worth recalling that other renowned dynasties of Karnataka to follow were the Chalukyas, the Hoysalas and finally the Vijaya Nagara, all of whom left their legacy in the form of great temples (Badami, Aihole and Pattadakall of Chalukyas, Belur and Halebid of Hoysalas and Hampi of Vijaya Nagara).

Kadamba dynasty was founded by Mayura Verma in 280 AD, and they say it had a fantastic run of more than 1000 years. Mayura Verma is a name which rings a bell for the South Kanara Brahmins, because it is said that (perhaps without any historical proof), he brought 28 Vedic Brahmin families to his kingdom from a place in the North called Ahikshetra or Ahichattra., and gave these Brahmins land and positions. He did this perhaps to spruce up his Brahmincal credentials. Many South Kanara Brahmins believe that they are descendants of these pedigreed Brahmins from Ahikshetra. Interestingly, Ahikshetra is an historic town in U. P. dating back to 1^st Century B. C. and it was a great centre of culture and learning in ancient times, but lost its importance eventually and lies in ruins now (another victim of time).

There is an interesting story about how Mayura Verma became a Kshatriya (-of the warrior class) though he was born a Brahmin and was known as Mayura Sharma. He had gone to Kanchi in the Pallava kingdom, the region of present day Chennai, for advanced education, since it was a seat of great learning those days. And there one day he had a brush with a horseman of the Pallva army, just like any typical student, and was soundly thrashed by the latter as a consequence. Mayura Sharma  was so incensed by this humiliation that he decided to forthwith convert himself to a Kshatriya and wreak vengeance on the Pallavas for the insult heaped on him.. He did carry out his resolve and the career change took him really far. From being a run of the mill Brahmin priest, he became a mighty emperor in no time at all. This is a career change one can only dream of. (Now you also know why he had a soft corner for Brahmins).

 Madhukeshwara temple was a real surprise when we entered it. First thing that impressed us was the large court yard and the many shrines of different sizes and shapes which surround the main temple on its two sides and back. The main temple itself is, of course, very impressive. We were eager to know more about the temple and its many aspects and were looking for an able guide when we found one in an unexpected quarter.

                                

                                            The Elephant Entrance of Madhukeshwara Temple  

                              

                                              An Overall View of the Madhukeshwara Temple 

It was just after we had finished our Pooja conducted by the chief priest of the temple. Extremely busy and harried though he was, the chief priest found time to tell us a few interesting things about the temple. He then unexpectedly (for us) offered to show us around the temple. When we readily agreed, he took us on a whirlwind tour of the temple throwing up a steady barrage of information. His pace was such that we literally had to run to keep up with him and to avoid missing out on the massive information being generated by him. This also ensured that the priest didn’t miss his double income either, because by the time he took us back to where we started and we paid his fees as a guide,  the next batch of worshippers were ready for the priest and he was ready to earn their ‘dakshine’. No doubt they too would be interested in being taken around the temple and he would earn his guide- fees as well. This dual-career, double-income priest was a unique find for us and we have no hesitation in recommending him to other prospective visitors to the temple!

The main temple has a long and wide columned passage before the entrance to the inner chamber housing the sanctum sanctorum.

We learnt that the temple was built over many centuries and hence its parts belonged to different eras and different architectural styles. For instance, the inner chamber was built in the early Chalukya style while the hallway was built in the Hoysala style much later.

Among the fascinating features of the temple are a magnificent and almost life size idol of Vishnu which is in the inner chamber. We stood transfixed before this statue of Vishnu, captivated by its great beauty.  There is a view that the temple was originally a Vaishnava temple and this was the presiding deity of the temple. It may be so, because it was a fairly common practice those days to change the temple from Vaishnava to Shaiva, or from a Jain to a Hindu, or any which way depending on the prevailing royal patronage and favour.

                                              

                                                           The Life-Size Statue of Vishnu

Then there is a part of the hallway leading to the inner chamber where temple dancers used to perform. The stone pillars on either side are polished to mirror finish, and they say, the idea was that the dancers were reflected on these polished pillars as they danced. This piece of information prompted us to imagine a scene. The night has fallen….and bejewelled young women are dancing in the flickering orange glow of the torches and their reflections flutter on the mirror-like surface of the polished pillars, giving almost a magical effect to the scene. -But then we had to hurry after our priest-cum-guide, leaving the imagined scene half finished.

                                 

                                                  Nandi with His Eyes on His Two Bosses

There is also this huge statue of Nandi, the bull, facing the Shiva deity, as is normal, but what is not normal about it is its stance of serving two masters, the second one being a Durga deity in a second temple which is located adjacent to the first temple but with its own pillared front hall. Following the bull’s eyesight, we were amazed to find that while the line of sight of its right eye leads to Durga, the other one leads to the Shiva Linga of the main temple. So, Nandi was keeping an eye on Shiva, and eye on Durga too- so to say.

The earlier mentioned shrines surrounding the main temple were like the collection in some great museum. They housed rare idols of divinities which you do not normally see or hear about. Some of them are reproductions of the idols at famous temples all over India; idea apparently was that, with one visit to this temple, the worshipper would get the feeling of having visited many important temples of India. Among these mini shrines, we also saw a huge four posted bed made of stone, perhaps carved from a single stone, with intricate, decorative carvings all over it. It is said to have been donated by the earlier mentioned king of Sonde to commemorate the winning back of his kingdom. This was indeed a unique piece of art.

                            

                                          Victorious Krishna Impresses His Admirers 

The visit to Banavasi was gratifying to our spiritual and aesthetic sensibilities and it sharpened our historic perspective too. Banavasi did not remain any longer as a forgotten chapter of history for us.

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