Dating : (An interview with the) Churail

This short story of mine was featured in Ogma Magazine’s 7th / Winter issue, which is out in print. So yay! 🙂

“Chiku… bring it down! Please…” Nannu wailed.

Above us, my RC airplane, its mini engine buzzing, its red and white wings brilliant against the pale blue sky, did a 360-degree loop.

Flawless.

We were on the terrace. Me, with the plane’s black remote-control box, its shiny chrome joysticks in my hands; Nannu and Deepak beside me, necks craned upwards, staring at the plane in awe.

It was a beautiful day for flying. The wind was just right, and though the sun was up and bright, it was pleasant outside. I was even dressed for flying: my No. 14 NBA t-shirt over blue sports shorts and white North Star sneakers (all gifts from Leela Aunty in England). Tommy, my huge Alsatian, sat lion-like beside me.

I pointed the plane down as if to land it before taking it up again at the last minute, proud of my piloting skills.

“Chiku, my turn!” Deepak shouted.

Feeling sorry for them both, I turned the plane around one last time and brought it down again, this time for good.

That’s when the chalk landed on my head and Kiran Miss’ voice boomed out across the classroom: “Chiku, seven eights are?”

Which was just as well. There was no way any plane — RC or otherwise — could have landed on that terrace.

I stood up. There was no black remote-control with shiny chrome joysticks, there was no RC airplane with red and white wings, and there was certainly no lion-like Tommy — either here in class, or on that terrace, or indeed anywhere I knew about. Kiran Miss and all the other students were staring at me. She boomed out again: “Seven eights are what, Chiku!” The edge on her voice threatening consequences. The class tittered; I went red — at least as red as my sapota colored face could muster.

“Fiftytwosixzz,” I mumbled.

Kiran Miss didn’t look pleased; then again, she didn’t explode either. She told me to stand outside the class. Lucky me! Better outdoors than raps on the knuckles with that steel ruler of hers. I hurried to the balcony corridor outside and standing there wondered if my hero Tintin knew the seven tables. While the class carried on in a steady drone inside, I tried to get back to flying, back on the terrace with Nannu and Deepak and Tommy. But no matter how much I tried, that dream seemed to have vanished in a puff of chalk dust.

The frangipani trees outside the building swayed and their scent settled over the balcony corridor where I stood. Deepak and Nannu — unlike me, still inside the classroom — were probably belting out the seven tables. I could see the old palace that served as the administrative block for our school, the Raja Jitender Public School, and where its Principal Rani Madam sat. Which, luckily for me, she wasn’t doing right now, considering her black Morris wasn’t to be seen in front.

I wandered back to those seven tables and wondered if knowing them at the drop of a hat — or chalk — was really needed? To be clear, though, to all those who depended on me knowing the seven tables by heart, I had tried to memorize it. I can’t help that I am not good at memorizing stuff. That kind of stuff, anyways; Tintin comics are another matter.

Just then, the bell rang, and Kiran Miss marched out of the classroom, steel ruler firmly grasped in her hands, off to attack her next class.

***

All at Raja Jitender really looked forward to lunch hour: the children for sure, but probably even more than us, our teachers. Stuck as we were with each other the whole day, all breaks were welcome.

Lunch boxes and water bottles in hand, Deepak, Nannu and I would troop over to our favourite spot under the mango trees beside the old palace’s swimming pool. Its cut granite sides lined with steps and arches leading all the way down to the depths below, hinting at a former grandness — this wasn’t merely any pool; this was the palace’s pool. The emphasis on ‘was,’ now a dilapidated ruin, its water surface covered in hyacinth with patches of inky black peeking out, its cut granite arches on the verge of collapsing.

Most children steered clear of the place — afraid of its murky depths, even more afraid of those who may have drowned in those murky depths in years past.

Which suited us just fine.

“It smells good! What did you get?” Deepak asked me. “You want to exchange?”

“Ok!”

“Did you see The Omen? Scary movie,” piped in Nannu, half a jam sandwich in his mouth.

“Dad won’t take us to watch it,” Deepak responded, digging deep into my lunchbox.

“It’s about this ghost baby who kills people.”

“How can a baby kill people?” I was all ears now.

“Because he’s a ghost! He can kill anyone.”

“That was good! Can you get the same thing tomorrow, too?” Deepak, who let nothing come between him and his food, asked me.

“I’ll ask Mummy.”

It had been six months since I moved to Hyderabad from Nashik, tagging along with Papa and Mummy as they moved around the country. Studying at St Xavier’s Nashik, with the lonely tortoise in its tiny pool and the stacks of Tintins in the huge library, I did not want to leave the town and hated Hyderabad when we got here. There were no tortoises here, lonely or otherwise, and no Tintins in the library either.

But I met Deepak and Nannu, so maybe there’s that. Deepak, dark like chocolate, round face, podgy nose and hair that never curled; wearing the same pair of dirty white socks every day, its elastic band stretched once too often and dangling limp at the ankles under dirty white canvas shoes. Nannu, the opposite in every way, with a complexion that in comparison seemed white, in socks that never sagged, shoes that never stained and whose school bag always smelled different, smelled nice. Unlike my bag which smelled a mix of sweat, soggy paper and food.

My Best Friends Forever on school days from morning until afternoon when we dispersed and went our separate ways home.

***

When the last bell rang, I dumped my textbooks and lunchbox into my bag, grabbed my water bottle, and joined the hordes of children rushing out of the building, running down the stairs, past the old swimming pool, across the junior playground and towards the back gate. Setting off on my daily commute, the kilometer long walk back to Gitanjali Apartments where we — Papa, Mummy and I — stayed.

Past the Bungalows of the Blessed: the neat rows of government villas — a Justice here, a Minister there — each in its own manicured acre. Then across the desolate plot covered in thorny shrub and rock with paths hidden within for those who sought them. Then past St Francis College, in front of which were always gathered the chaat wallahs with their bandis. Then through the shortcut lane that ran past Hilltop House alongside the estate’s high walls until it climbed up a slope and rejoined the main road, going by the Children’s Park before leading to Gitanjali Apartments.

On this side of the railway tracks, the right side of the railway tracks.

Hilltop was curious: an old, palatial, English-manor-style house surrounded by vast forested grounds, incongruously plonked right in the middle of Hyderabad, with a tiled roof and pointy tower with a wind vane stuck on the top of it, looking like an Indian Marlinspike Hall.

In other places, this might have been a hotel with guests paying through their noses to enjoy, as pantomime, the past lives of the Indian aristocracy.

This was not one of those places. The house had been empty for years and was now mostly dilapidated. Its plaster peeling, its paint fading, its reddish-brown roof tiles covered in black moss and its wind vane now under a layer of green and broken, its cockerel dangling upside-down.

Though it had seen better days, it still stood there: alone on its hill, solid like a rock, unmoving even as time passed by all around it.

What’s more, it wasn’t even really empty — it was supposed to be haunted.

By a Churail.

At least according to our househelp Neetu didi. She told Mummy about it the first day that she came to work for us.

I didn’t know what the word meant.

“Papa, what is a Churail?”

“A witch.”

“A witch … a bad witch?”

“Those are only stories, Chiku. There are no good or bad witches.”

“Neetu didi said there’s a Churail in the Bhoot bungalow.”

“Bhoot bungalow?”

“Hilltop house. Neetu didi told Mummy there’s a Churail living there. She lives in the treetops and flies around and her feet point backwards!”

“How does she know all that? Did she see the Churail?”

“No … I don’t think so. She’s afraid of using the shortcut lane beside the place.”

“Anyways, that house is empty. Why does a witch need the trees when she can stay inside the house?”

“Hmm … Can we go and check?”

“No. It’s a ruin. There are no Churails but there can be bad people, got it? So stay away from that place. Is that clear?”

“Mm … hmm.”

As if.

Everyday on my way back from school, I peered through the estate’s rusting iron gates towards the large house at the end of the muddy, potholed driveway, lined with large stone pots that once were filled with flowers but now lay on their sides broken and empty.

In the evenings I took Papa’s binoculars to the terrace to look into the walled forest and the old house — scanning across the lush green treetops, searching for signs of people. Though I could see the moss-covered roof and the broken wind vane with its upside-down cockerel, I never saw the Churail — or anyone else, for that matter.

I did discover a marble fountain in the center of the grounds, now overrun with weeds, its water pool long dried up, and a large stone platform with a checkerboard pattern of alternating black and white tiles. A giant chess board harking back to a time when guests at the house must have played chess as it was meant to be played — in style.

***

“They sold Hilltop,” Papa told Mummy at dinner.

“Who?”

“Its owners. KLF has bought it. They will build 3000 flats in the property.”

“What about the Churail?” I asked.

“What Churail?”

“The Churail who lives there. Will she have to move?”

“Chiku, there are no Churails! Finish eating and go watch TV.”

“Mm … hmm.”

In bed, I processed this new information, trying to visualize the old house with its fountain and its giant chess board replaced by highrises.

And the Churail? Would she move into one of those new flats?

***

I knew I had to explore Hilltop — the coming Saturday would be ideal.

When the day finally arrived, I packed my treasured Explorers on the Moon into my bag and set off as usual in the morning, past Gitanjali’s entrance gate and around the Children’s Park until I came to the slope where the shortcut lane met the main road. There was no looking back now — I turned into the shortcut lane and walked down the slope alongside the estate’s wall until I reached the broken section, dilapidated like the house it guarded with a gap conveniently wide enough for a person to slip inside.

I slipped inside.

A hush dropped over me. The neem trees around me rose straight up into the sky, their canopy forming a mesh suspended midair through which the light filtered down onto the grassy earth. If there were snakes within, I saw none; instead, I heard birds, calling out to each other.

There was a path leading away from the gap in the wall. Clearly, my garden was nobody’s secret.

I followed the path until I reached the fountain. A sculpture in yellowing marble and rusting iron, its dried-up pool filled with trash. The deep whoop — whoop — whoop of a coucal rang out from somewhere above me as I went onwards in the direction of the house until I came to the giant chessboard. Looking at its size in awe, I knew that Deepak and Nannu would know exactly what to play on it — anything but chess.

Climbing up the low hill towards the house, I passed what was probably the estate’s old stables or maybe its garages: a series of low structures, rotting wooden doors in front and moss on the walls, but otherwise mostly standing.

I opened the first door and peered into the darkness inside. Three pairs of curious eyes looked back at me.

“Aaaaaaaahhhh!” I screamed, running back down the slope towards the platform when I tripped on a root and went rolling over.

***

I saw a gigantic star above me. No, it wasn’t a giant star, that’s silly; it was a giant chandelier, with glittering crystal light holders; like an inverted pyramid, bigger than Papa’s Ambassador car. Its twin hung on the other end of the room — if you could call it a room. It was bigger than our flat. I lay on an ornate divan covered in silk: a bunch of large cushions on my side, one under my head. The four large windows on the wall to my left were open, drenching the hall in light.

There were several paintings — mostly horses, a few dogs — and a large portrait of a handsome couple at one end of the room. She sitting, a shadow of a smile on her face and decked in pearls; he standing behind her, with a grand moustache and a grander turban.

And there were animals, lots of them, all long dead: a stuffed tiger standing in one corner, the head of another tiger mounted on the wall opposite me, two leopard heads guarding the couple’s portrait, and what I found both horrifying and fascinating — teapoys on elephant legs. One near the diwan, others strewn around the room.

A veritable Zoo of the Dead.

Clearly, I was inside Hilltop.

I got up.

“Hello.”

The lady from the painting was sitting on an ornate chair behind me. She looked older than in the painting, but she still had those pearls.

“You’ve been sleeping a while. Everything alright?”

“Yes, Aunty.”

“What’s your name?”

“Chiku.”

“Drink that glass of milk on the teapoy beside you, Chiku. It’ll get cold.”

“Yes, Aunty. Thank you, Aunty.”

“You were on your way to school. How did you end up here?

I squirmed slightly, hoping she didn’t notice. “I … I like this place; I wanted to see it … before the flats came.”

“And what do you think of the place?”

“Er … It’s nice. A little too big, I guess, but nice. I . . . I also wanted to see the Churail — if there is one over here,” I added, quickly glancing at the lady’s feet: they were definitely pointing in the right direction.

She laughed out loud. “And did you see the Churail?”

“No, Aunty . . . at least I don’t think so.”

“Where do you stay?”

“Gitanjali Apartments, near the Children’s Park. We came over from Nashik in April.”

“Nashik is a lovely place. And how do you find Hyderabad now?”

“Hmm … Hyderabad is not Nashik.”

She got up and walked over to a window, and standing there gazed out over the grounds for some time.

I thought she had forgotten about me when abruptly, and still looking outside, she said, “No it isn’t, but give it time. I hated the place when I first came over here.”

“Mm … hmm.” I nodded.

She continued, “I came over here a long while ago. There wasn’t much over here then — just this house and the woods around it for miles. Slowly, the city swallowed everything outside.”

She turned back, smiled at me and said, “And now this will go too.”

I perked up. “Why can’t the house stay as it is?”

“It’s too old, and like you said — too big.”

I looked around, still in awe. “If this place were mine, I wouldn’t let it go!”

She laughed out loud again. “Maybe if I were younger, I wouldn’t; not anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Chiku, this is just stone and brick; it doesn’t really matter. What’s important are the people. Does that make sense?”

“Hmm … I guess so. What about you? Where will you be moving to?”

“That’s enough talk for today. Time for you to go home. And no skipping class again.”

“Yes, Aunty. Thank you, Aunty!”

The lady walked with me through the hallway and to the grand double doors of the front entrance.

I went down the front steps, down the tarred driveway lined with flowering plants in large stone pots, past the gleaming iron gates painted in black.

As I turned to close the gates, I saw that the house seemed as if freshly bathed. The roof tiles a deep reddish-brown instead of a mossy black, the wind vane’s copper glinting, its cockerel standing proud and upright.

The lady stood at the doorway, a trace of a smile on her face as she waved goodbye. I turned away and walked back home.

***

On Sunday morning, I went up to the terrace with Papa’s binoculars.

Hilltop was as I had always remembered it: the paint peeling, the roof tiles covered in black moss, and the wind vane green and broken, its cockerel dangling upside-down.

***