The smell was sharp, strong, and putrid. It hit Aankhi as soon as she opened the door. She stood back in shock. Had she come to the wrong house? She stepped in gingerly. It was as if she stood in a fish market. The dank, musty interiors made it worse. She had bought the house on a whim. It was located a bit away from the main town and had a large open space surrounding it. It She had felt the wind brush her face as she walked across it. It had made her feel nice. The real estate agent had told her it had not been inhabited for quite some time and needed a bit of cleaning. That had not deterred her. At least it would be her own space. However, she had trusted him and not bothered to check it out herself before buying it.
Aankhi walked around the room she had entered. Making sure that everything matched the description he had given. She counted the windows. There were five in all. It seemed to be a large room. She unbolted and threw open the windows eagerly edging her face upwards to breathe in the fresh air. The warm afternoon sunlight rushed in to caress her upturned face. That made her feel nice.
She walked out to sit on the large square swing hanging in the courtyard. This was another thing that had excited her. She had always loved swings and planned to have one in her own house. To think that the home she was finally buying for herself after all these years already had a swing waiting for her, had actually helped her make the decision.
The house was planned in the traditional way. It was not too big and consisted of a large central room, which Aankhi had entered earlier, with another small room attached to it that served as the bedroom. The kitchen and the bathroom were located outside to the left of the courtyard and not within the house. The courtyard sat in the middle of the house surrounded by the other rooms. The open space was a scraggly overgrowth of bushes and trees. The grass grew wildly not having been trimmed or mowed in years. She could feel it brush against her calfs as she walked across it. Aankhi planned to call in a gardener to help her get it in shape. At some distance there was a small water body that was encircled with a clump of coconut trees. The description mentioned them all.
She moved towards the rooms now to arrange the few things she had managed to buy on her way to the house. Once done, she made herself some coffee and sat sipping it on the swing smiling peacefully. She finally had a house of her own. It was a bit old but it was hers. The price fitted her budget too. It was pure luck. For some reason, the real estate agent was eager to get it off his list as fast as possible and had agreed to the price that Aankhi had quoted.
Ankhi must have been sitting for quite some time as she felt the mellow warmth being replaced by nip in the air. The sound of crickets buzzed in her ears and Ankhi realised it was evening already. She was about to get up when she heard a sound from the kitchen. She moved towards it thinking that a cat had got in. As she reached the opening to the kitchen, Aankhi froze.
In the dim evening light, she could make out the outline of a figure sitting hunched over her little oven where the coffee filter stood. Ankhi could not move as she saw the figure tilt its body forward to stoop over the filter and move back. It kept rocking back and fro in this manner several times before it got up. Ankhi stood transfixed as she realised it was a man. He was clad in a white Dhoti folded in half, in the traditional way, reaching upto his knees. A white half shirt covered the upper part of his body and a white scarf was tied across his forehead. He was tall and muscular and stood with his back towards Aankhi .
“Who……Who…are you?” Aankhi mumbled. Shock clenched her throat making it difficult to speak.
The man spun around in fright. He looked equally shocked. He had a square stocky face. Thick black curls crawled across his head. A thick moustache covered his upper lip like a dark caterpillar. He had buck teeth that left his mouth slightly ajar.
“You…You…can see me?” he asked stammering in shock.
Aankhi nodded breathing hard.
“And you are not scared?” he asked still in shock.
Ankhi shook her head. She was too busy getting over her shock at being able to see someone simply because she had never been blessed with the power of vision!
All her years in the blind school had made her self-reliant to judge things by feeling, smelling and hearing them. The lack of sight had never been a deterrent. However, today, when she saw this man, she felt for the first time that she had indeed been losing out on a lot from life.
Soon, her shock turned to confusion. How could she see this man? Moreover, why was this man as shocked as she was? Did he know that she could not see? Also why did he ask her about being scared?
“Why do you think I will be scared?” asked Aankhi recovering from the initial shock, “and what are you doing in my house? I think you are the one who should be scared because I might call the police for trespassing” said Aankhi slowly coming in to her own self.
“Trespassing? Me? In my own house?” said the man looking at her with big round eyes.
“Your house?” asked Aankhi stunned.
“Of course. I built it with my hard-earned money” said the man sounding offended.
“So why don’t you live here then?” asked Aankhi curious.
“But I do…I still live here” he said stubbornly.
Aankhi looked bewildered.
“Here? You mean you live in this house?” she thought she had to talk to the real estate agent tomorrow. How could he sell her a house with the real owner living in it?
“Well…not exactly in the House but around it”
“ What do you mean?” she asked curiously.
“I live on that Coconut tree in the courtyard.” he said pointing to the tall tree standing near the little pond.
“The Coconut tree!” asked Aankhi surprised “Why on earth would you live on a Coconut tree? Why don’t you live in your house like every other normal human being?
The man looked at Aankhi and sat down on the kitchen floor cross-legged with a glum face.
“Because I am not normal!”
“Yes! That I can surely make out” said Ankhi suppressing a smile “But why?”
“Because I am dead!” he said morosely.
Aankhi looked at him her eyes widened in surprise. The man looked at her and continued.
“I died in this very house 10 years ago. They cremated my body but could not burn my soul. I have been around ever since yearning to finish something. Ever since they sold the house, several families have come to stay here. I would come to meet them. To make things a bit hospitable. They would be frightened and sell the house. Nobody seems to realize how lonely it can get on the tree sometimes.”
Aankhi felt sorry for the poor man but at the same time, she could not stop giggling to herself imagining the plight of the previous inhabitants to find a ghost welcoming them into the new house.
“So is that why you came now?” she asked.
“Well, once this house came to be known as a haunted house, nobody came to buy it. I was beginning to lose hope when the rich smell of your coffee dragged me here. It has been ages since I had coffee that smelt so good. Just like how my Meenamma used to make it. Fresh and strong.”
“Meenamma?” asked Aankhi curiously.
“My wife” said the man in a low voice.
Aankhi looked at the man silently. She knew he wanted to tell her his tale but she did not want to rush him.
“My name is Yanaikkum Kuzhakan Talavar” the man began on his own “I was a farmer. My father died when I was just a boy. He could leave us nothing other than this piece of land. I took up farming at a very young age. My brother Sreeghan was still a child. I gave up my education so that he could study. Soon we both grew up. He left for the big city to study engineering. I remained here. I built this house by myself. I got married. Meenamma came into my life and filled it with every joy. We were very happy. Until Sreeghan expressed his desire to sell his portion of the land for his higher education. He wanted to go abroad to study. I did not know what to do. There was no legal document that defined his share and mine. Even getting all that would take time. So, he suggested we sell off the whole land and divide the money into equal parts. I refused. What would I do if I sell my land? This is all I have and farming is all I know. I did not know any other way of earning a living. And besides why would I give up what was rightfully mine? That was the start of all the problems. Sreeghan got desperate. He even hired goons to threaten and scare me but I was rigid in my stance.”
“Oh my god!” said Aankhi “Your own brother!”
Yanaikkum Kuzhakan sighed heavily and continued “Then one day while I had gone to the pond for a bath, they were waiting for me in the water. I did not know that. They dragged me down and suffocated me. Sreeghan stood and watched the whole thing. When I reached out to him to save me, all he did was smile.” He said shaking his head.
“They made it look as if I had drowned” he continued “However, Meenamma never believed that I could drown in a village pond. She would go around trying to convince people that I could never drown. Soon they spread the word that she had turned mad due to grief. I saw her being dragged off to the Yamunabai Mental asylum and could not do anything about it.”
“What?” asked Aankhi stunned “How could they do that? Was there no investigation?”
“Yes, but Sreeghan had bribed the officers too, I guess. They declared it as death due to natural causes. The rope they had used to strangle me still lies at the bed of the pond. Nobody yet knows about it.”
“I am so sorry” said Aankhi shaking her head “What happened then?”
“Sreeghan sold the house. With no other claimants he became the sole owner. He sold the land at a high cost, took all the money and flew off to a new land to build his future. I stood watching helplessly as a mute spectator.”
They sat silently for some time. The crickets had intensified their buzzing. The bark of a dog in the distance indicated that the night had advanced.
Ankhi looked at the man “What do you want to do now?”
“I want to avenge my death and punish the culprits. I also want to free Meenamma from the asylum,” said Yanaikkum.
“But how?” asked Aankhi.
The man looked at her and his eyes brightened.
“You can help me. You are the only one who can see and hear me. Please I beg you, will you help me?”
“I?” asked Ankhi shocked “How can I help you?”
“You can tell the world my story” said Yanaikkum eagerly “tell them what I told you. All of it.”
“Do you think anybody will believe it?” said Aankhi.
“Why not?” asked Yanaikkum.
“The testimony of a vision less orphan and a ghost are not strong enough to stand in a court of law. We will need better evidence than that” said Aankhi smiling ruefully.
“Vision less? Can you not see then” asked Yanaikkum looking closely at Aankhi .
“And neither do I want to. I have no wish to see a world in which a brother kills his brother for money. I am much better off in my darkness.” said Aankhi angrily.
“No my dear” said Yanaikkum “The world is not inhabited by the likes of Sreeghan alone. There are better and brighter sides to it and there is no reason you should shy away from them.”
“Maybe” said Aankhi shrugging casually. “Let us now think of what we can do about you” she said quickly changing the topic.
“So, you will help me then” said Yanaikkum hopefully.
“It is not going to be easy” said Aankhi thoughtfully.
The birds were chirping now. It made them realise they had been talking through the whole night. Yanaikkum got up.
“Truth always pushes you through difficult path. But if you take that path, you will always win, no matter what. I could not fight for truth then, but I can now. I will help you in whatever way you want. ”
Aankhi smiled to herself wondering how that would be possible, but did not say anything.
“I need to go. I find it difficult to stay in daylight. I will be back tomorrow evening” said Yanaikkum
“ I will think of something” said Aankhi.
She sat thinking long after Yanaikkum disappeared. She had taken up a difficult challenge and there was a lot of work to be done. But first she needed to find Meenamma. Now what was the name of the asylum that Yanaikkum had mentioned?
YamunaBai Mental Asylum!
Good ! So that is where she will start from.
To be continued next week…
Photo by Wibhas Onnom from Pexels
