Haunting Bombay

by Shilpa Agarwal

  “Remember this Gulu,” Maji said furiously, pointing a finger so close to his eye that the tip of it touched his eyelashes. “You were nothing more than a street urchin when I took you in. I gave you food, shelter, a job, a second life. I gave Avni another chance, too. It was she who decided not to take it. Remember this. Now jao! Go away from my home!”

  Gulu took a step back as if he had been slapped. What had he been thinking, to confront Maji like this? If Chinni were watching, she would have had a cruel laugh at his expense. Bhenchod fool! she would have spat in his face. Can’t stand up to a woman! It was true, Maji had given him a second chance, a life better than the slums into which he had been born. What would he gain by telling her now, after all these years? The threats that had been lodged in his throat died away. “Please forgive me,” he whispered.

  Maji snorted.

  “There’s nothing left for me out there,” Gulu said, his shoulders hunched, his chest caved forward in defeat. Will Chinni really kill herself ? he thought.

  Maji looked up into the misty sky. The rest of the household stood on the verandah watching, waiting for her verdict. It was Savita who unexpectedly stepped forward to plead his case. “A good driver’s difficult to find these days.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Jaginder feeling as if his position as man of the house was at stake. “He’s been with us since he was a bloody boy, after all.”

  Despite his support, Gulu couldn’t help but to feel a sting of hatred towards Jaginder.

  “Please please please,” the twins chorused from the verandah.

  Parvati, Kuntal, and Cook Kanj remained silent, reminded once again of how uncertain their own livelihood was, how their presence in the bungalow on Malabar Hill was only on sufferance, as workers but never as its rightful inhabitants.

  “Go from here,” Maji commanded. “Never return.”

  Gulu stopped himself from crumpling to the ground.

  “If I see you here again, I’ll call the police,” Maji threatened before turning back to the verandah where the rest of the family stood in shocked silence, not one daring to question her decision.

  “Wait!” Nimish called as Gulu walked away. “Was there any news of Lov— of Vimla Auntie’s daughter?”

  Gulu shook his head.

  The gate was bolted once more.

  As the sun began to set on the fourth day, the Mittal household heard yet another hollow knock on the gate. “That’s it,” Maji said, reaching for her cane, “I’ll thrash him myself. Come Nimish, come with me.”

  As she unchained the gate, however, she saw it was not Gulu who stood before her, but Pinky. Pinky in wet and dirty pajamas, crusted coconut milk upon her face. She fell, shuddering, to the ground. For a blessed moment, Maji found herself unable to speak and crumpled to the ground beside her. Without a thought for his grandmother, Nimish hastily carried Pinky to her room, where he laid her down on the bed and closed the door.

  “Tell me quickly before they all come,” he whispered to her. “Tell me where Lovely is!”

  Pinky looked at him with lifeless eyes.

  “Please,” he begged, caressing her hair. “Please.”

  At his touch, she began to laugh, a horrific, gleeful cackle. She yanked him towards her, her breasts rising to meet his falling hands, her lips crushing his.

  Nimish fought back but could not break from her unearthly grip. Her wide open legs clamped around his hips.

  Kuntal stepped into the room and gasped, her hand flying to her mouth.

  Pinky turned her wild eyes upon her and pushed Nimish away.

  She reached out to Kuntal, her fingers splayed back.

  “Oh my God,” Nimish cried out, moving backwards to the corner of the room, panting breathlessly, “oh my God!”

  Kuntal took a step forward.

  Pinky lifted herself off the bed and began to sway.

  Tears began to fall from Kuntal’s eyes. She stretched her arm toward Pinky.

  Parvati rush in and stopped. “Move away!” she yelled. “Kuntal!”

  Kuntal dropped her arm.

  Maji finally arrived at the room and tried to push Parvati out of the way. “Pinky!”

  “She’s possessed!” Parvati yelled, grabbing Maji. “Kuntal, get out now!”

  Pinky’s sunken gaze fell upon them, a low growl rumbled in her throat.

  “No!” Kuntal said, “I’ll stay with her.”

  “No!” Parvati yelled, instinctively protecting her belly. A familiar hate rose up in her chest. “Look at her eyes, I’ve seen eyes like that before!”

  “It can’t be!” Maji cried out.

  “Leave me!” Kuntal pushed her sister away.

  “The doctor can’t save her!” Parvati yelled. “Your prayers can’t save her! There’s only one who can!”

  Maji gaze fell upon her granddaughter, her malevolent eyes, her chilling stare. “Go,” she whispered, backing away, “tantrik ko bulao.”

  Kuntal closed the door in her sister’s face and locked it.

  “No!” Parvati cried out, pounding on the door. “NO! NO! NO!”

  Kuntal stood inside the room, pressing her back against the door, the thump-thump of Parvati’s banging resonating up her spine. “What have you done?” she whispered to the figure upon the bed, to the reckless spirit inside Pinky. A desperate look appeared in the girl’s shining eyes.

  “This is not the way,” Kuntal cried out, biting her lip. “This is not the way to come back to me.”

  The girl reached out, a rumble in her throat.

  Kuntal sat on the bed next to her, her face filled with grief. She unwrapped the sari palloo that she had tied to her waist and moistened the end of it with her tongue. Tenderly, she pressed it to the girl’s face, annointing her forehead, her lips.

  “What do you say when you want a lifetime,” Kuntal said, looking into those eyes through which she could glimpse her beloved, “but must say good-bye?”

  The pounding continued unabated, the rattling of the doorknob.

  Kuntal took a breath and continued. “I’m so sorry—”

  The eyes flickered, Avni’s eyes.

  “You must leave this child,” Kuntal managed, beginning to weep. “You mustn’t harm her. Please.”

  And then, she lay her head upon the girl’s heart and closed her eyes. If only she had the power to stop time, to make these precious seconds spin out, out, out, to infinity.

  “I’m here with you now,” she whispered.

  There was nothing more to say.

  The tantrik arrived, his rosary swinging angrily upon his ash-covered chest, bells clanging around his ankles. He sat cross-legged on a sheet laid out, not on the front verandah this time, but right inside the bungalow’s central location, the parlor.

  Without uttering a word, he fell into a deep meditation, his back remaining upright, spine etched deeply into the tight muscles of his back. The coil of hair upon his head was the only part of him out of alignment. His son lit a small diya and incense sticks and placed them next to statues of Hanuman, Lord Rama, Goddess Sita, and Lord Shiva and brought from the puja room in order to create a temporary shrine in the parlour. Then he pulled out a steel container of vermilion and turmeric, hues that were typically shunned by evil spirits, and laid a similarly colored thread near the shrine. Glass containers of ghee and asafetida were unpacked, the latter sprinkled around the perimeter of the sheet. The tantrik began to sing a bhajan, a devotional song to the gods, as he rang a brass bell.

  “Is that all he’s going to do?” Tufan asked, clearly disappointed.

  “Shut up,” Savita hissed, cuffing him across the head.

  Just then there was a honking outside the gate.

  “Panditji!” Maji exclaimed, remembering that she had called him the day before.

  Nimish raced outside to open the gates for the priest’s saffron Impala.

  For a whirling moment, Maji almost yelled at Nimish to send him away, to make any excuse so that he would not witness the tantrik in her home but the
n she realized she could no longer hide from shame. Panditji swept in under the cover of a huge umbrella, not even the small tuft of hair on the back of his head moistened by the pouring rain.

  “Please,” Jaginder said greeting him at the door. “Have a seat.”

  “What’s the meaning of this?” Panditji demanded when he saw the tantrik sitting in the dead center of the room, surrounded by the gods.

  “Panditji,” Maji wearily brought her hands together in namaste, “Pinky’s very sick.”

  “So you insult our gods with black magic?” Panditji’s bare chest quivered with indignation. Oh ho! What a secret this was! Jadoo tona, how he would make them grovel to keep his mouth shut!

  “We need you both.”

  “Both!” the priest huffed. “I communicate with the divine. What does he do? Conjure evil spirits?”

  “I bring the divine into the human body,” the tantrik shot back, lifting his scarlet-rimmed eyes to the priest. “Divine communication and divine possession are complimentary, Panditji. Surely you must have learnt this as a boy while memorizing your Sanskrit slokas.”

  The priest raised one of his contoured eyebrows, quickly inventorying the dullness of his mind for a suitable reaction. He could storm away in anger, forcing Maji to appease him with expensive gifts, maybe even one of those newfangled refrigerators to keep his lime sherbets cool in the temple’s back room in between prayer sessions. Or he could stay, not allowing this filthy, serpent-tongued sadhu to show him up. Making up his mind, he adjusted his silk dhoti and plopped himself onto his prayer mat.

  “Bring the girl,” the tantrik ordered impatiently, gesturing to the space in front of him.

  “Yes,” Panditji said loudly in his high-pitched voice. “Bring the girl.”

  Nimish stood up, his face pale, and hesitated.

  “Oh, for bloody sake,” Jaginder grunted, heaving himself up.

  The priest quickly busied himself with opening jars of ghee, sweat dripping from his protruding belly onto the floor.

  Jaginder carried Pinky into the room, Kuntal holding onto her hand, and Parvati clutching at Kuntal. He placed her upon the sheet.

  The tantrik’s heavy lids flickered open. “Move away,” he growled at the family. “You.” He pointed to Maji. “You come.”

  “What’s the nature of her illness?” the priest inquired, feeling faintly hungry despite the three samosas he had consumed on route.

  “She won’t talk,” Maji said. “See how she’s sweating.”

  “She’s in God’s hands now,” Panditji said, evading any commitment as to her fate. With that, he emptied the contents of one entire jar of ghee into the iron kund and lit the match against the floor.

  The tantrik passed a hand over Pinky’s body. A low chanting emanated from his mouth, a guttural sound—ma—that grew in intensity, sounding more like a wail, and finally culminating in a terrifying scream.

  Panditji nervously attended to his flickering fire, speedily muttering prayers as his fingers fumbled with a bag of puja samagri. His eyes kept going askance to the tantrik as if with a will of their own. The rest of the family drew back, chilled, their hearts beating faster and faster. Maji looked from the priest to the tantrik as if she did not know which one to put her faith in. Tufan stopped fidgeting and hid his face behind Savita’s sari palloo.

  Rain poured down outside, thunder growling.

  The chanting continued again, faster this time, clashing with the priest’s equally urgent prayers. Maji found herself rocking back and forth as if trying to keep up with their frantic pace.

  The sacred fire suddenly leapt from the iron kund, singeing the thick patch of hair at Panditji’s navel. He yelped and dabbed at his belly with an oily cloth.

  The tantrik took some black ash from a pouch and drew a line around Pinky’s neck to trap the spirit within her body while he questioned it. He uttered a mantra, blowing a spell from his mouth onto Pinky’s face.

  She opened her eyes as her body began to shake.

  “Bolo! ” the tantrik commanded, eyes blazing, thick matted beard twisting ferociously. “Suchh bolo! Speak the truth!”

  As if being physically assaulted, Pinky began to writhe on the floor, screaming.

  Panditji began to hyperventilate, his chest moving in and out with the intensity of a hummingbird’s.

  “Kuntal,” Savita managed to whisper, her face devoid of color. “Take the boys out of the room.”

  Kuntal nodded but Nimish, Dheer, and Tufan refused to move, entranced by the scene unfolding in front of them.

  “Kali Mata ki jay, Shankar Bhagvan ki jay. Victory to Goddess Kali! To Lord Shiva!” the tantrik chanted in a low, hollow voice that echoed endlessly against the parlor’s tapestried walls.

  “Ki jay,” Panditji echoed, grasping the tantrik’s familiar words.

  Maji felt something grip in her throat, an incalculable fear that grew more and more insistent. It moaned in her ears, an unearthly sound like spirits swirling around and around her head, wailing their ancient laments.

  “Bolo! ” the tantrik commanded again. “What do you want?”

  Pinky’s lips parted, a deep, gritty voice unlike her own moaned, “To belong!”

  “Why did you enter this girl’s body? She did not call you!”

  “She! She!” the voice howled in accusation.

  “Who are you?”

  “Avni!”

  Savita screamed and threw herself around her boys, “You can’t have them, you witch! You took my daughter, filled my life with misery. Isn’t that enough? Isn’t that enough?”

  Jaginder pressed a trembling hand against Savita’s back, his other hand curled into a fist ready to strike at that voice, so strangely familiar, to save his family whatever it took. She had come back, the ayah. She had defied them and come back. He had a sudden understanding of the wheel of karma, of its mercilessness

  Kuntal continued to weep, her hands covering her face. Cook Kanj pushed his wife behind him, brandishing a rolling pin in an upraised hand. Parvati held her belly fighting the urge to vomit.

  “Make her go!” Maji demanded. “She’s no right to be in this household! Make her go!” She touched her rosary as if it were a weapon, her lips moving silently as she prayed to the gods and goddesses for their merciful protection. Outside, the sky turned dark, casting the inside of the bungalow in a long shadow. Rain pelted the roof, the window, the doors, as if insisting on being let in.

  The tantrik gazed at Maji for a long moment, then closed his eyes. The room filled with an unearthly vibration as if a wrong chord had been plucked on a sitar and then amplified. Tufan covered his ears with his hands. Nimish adjusted his spectacles, watching Pinky with horror. Jaginder furiously scratched at his chest hair, then pulled Savita tight. Panditji abandoned his sacred fire and prostrated himself in front of the idols, the rump of his enormous bottom heaving up in the air.

  The tantrik continued to gaze at Maji, his heavy lids closing so only white showed where his iris should have been.

  “Make her go!” Maji repeated.

  The tantrik wiped the ash from Pinky’s neck and tied the twisting red and yellow mauli, the sacred thread, upon Pinky’s fragile wrist. “Go!” he commanded. “Kali Mata ki jay! Shankar Bhagvan ki jay!Vishnu Bhagvan ki jay!”

  “Hail to God!” Panditji wept.

  Pinky’s body writhed, her arms flinging back and forth, out of control. Her eyes rolled back, her mouth opened and words in an indecipherable tongue, poured forth unchecked. Then she abruptly sat up, her body still violently shaking, and cast her eyes around the room, looking at the people who were her family. Dark shadows encircled her eyes, making them appear demonic. Gazing at Parvati, she lunged at the person closest to her, hands gripping Maji’s throat.

  Nimish leaped to grab Pinky from behind, to pull her away.

  “Go!” the tantrik yelled, jumping to his feet, bringing down the bullwhip with a sharp crack. “What you seek is impossible because your violent acts have tainted you, but what
can be given, will be. Now GO, leave this innocent child!”

  Pinky became still, falling backward into Nimish’s arms, eyes rolling back into her head. She uttered a low moan and then was silent. Maji grasped at her throat, breathing heavily, as Jaginder helped her onto the couch. Panditji tentatively pushed himself back to a seated position and wiped his face with his oily cloth.

  The tantrik stood, legs splayed, sweat pouring off his body. His hair had come uncoiled and now swept across his body in thick ropes. His whip was held in the air, ready to strike again if necessary. He gazed down at Pinky, his fierce scarlet eyes scanning her body. Then, slowly, he glanced up at the ceiling and lowered his whip.

  “She is very weak,” he finally said. “She will die tonight.”

  “No!” Maji sobbed. “No! No! No!”

  Dheer and Tufan began to cry.

  “The ghost,” the tantrik pointed, seeing her curled up in a tiny ball, hanging in the corner of the hallway like a desiccated spider. “By midnight, she will die.”

  Panditji cast his pale face upwards and passed out cold.

  Afterward, Pinky was laid gently on Maji’s bed for the night. Only a few hours were left until midnight, until the fourth day was done and the little ghost was forever banished, her soul cast back to the other side to make its way alone in the undulating layers of gray, to be reborn.

  The ghost had curled up dizzily in the plastic bucket next to the broken chocolate pieces. She had sucked the alcoholic contents dry but had not quenched her thirst as she had hoped. She waited to die. Hear me, she whispered, the first and only words to escape her lips. The utterance, a spinning, silvery filament, traveled upon the tissue-thin wings of a moth, fluttering through the dining hall where they momentarily circled a dimming bulb before pressing on, beyond the dark hallway, to Pinky’s ear. And there the moth flapped its tiny wings, disturbing the air so slightly that only the lightest strands of hair on Pinky’s head, the fine ones nearest her cheeks, rose in response. But that, that rising was enough to make Pinky move her hand to brush it away, to stir and wake. To hear the plea, or warning, humming in the night air.