The haunted house

We were having a tea break after a grueling session of daily gossip, fondly called “Absolute Thinking” after office hours. It was early 1969 and all five of us had joined a unit of Larsen & Toubro in Orissa, about six months earlier.

Though we had lots in common, all were from IIT, Kharagpur, mechanical engineers, bachelors, extremely argumentative and lazy, we were also quite different in many other ways.

Ajit Mandal was from ’63 batch and was the senior most. He had the single ambition of going to USA!

Amlan Sen was from ’66 batch and was the best of the lot with regards to all human qualities. He was a connoisseur of everything good in life be it literature, music or playing bridge.

Santosh Singh did his M. Tech from IIT in ’68. He was a very intelligent, clean shaven sarder who always used to come up with some “Blue Sky” ideas and used to feel sorry for the world in general and us in particular if we were not supporting his ideas!

Sumit Satsangi was from ‘68 batch and was a sportsman to the core. He used to sport a mustache to look like army personnel in deference to his boyhood dream which could not be fulfilled due to a mysterious attack of bronchitis during army selection!

I was from the ’68 batch as well and as far as I was concerned there was nothing to write home about me except that I was quite popular with the kids in our colony since I could flip them on my shoulder. And most of the ladies in the colony had the misconception about my ability to fix up anything except broken hearts (a few attempts met with disastrous consequences)! So I had free access to all the families in our colony for cookies.

It was during the early stage of industrialization in India and our company acquired a vast track of hilly forest land in a God forsaken place called Kansbahal in the tribal heartland of Sundergarh district in Orissa. Kansbahal was about twenty five kilometers towards Bombay from the steel city called Rourkela.

Our unit was sandwiched between the Calcutta-Bombay main railway lines on one side and the Calcutta-Bombay national highway on the other. Workers’ colony, called South colony was relatively big and was near the railway lines. The factory was situated just after the south colony. The officers’ colony was called North colony and was on the other side of the factory, near the highway and was having hardly fifty bungalows.

Most of the carnivores, except jackals and a few friendly neighborhoods wolves left the area when the factory was being set up, due to the destruction of the habitat. However, snakes and scorpions were not wiling to give up and were putting up a spirited fight! The whole set up was very picturesque but danger lurked after every sunset. Till late night during the full moon period, we used to hear the faint melody of tribal folk songs accompanied by the haunting beats of madal (tribal drums). There were occasional reports of human sacrifice during the sowing season which, however, could never be confirmed.

If we are now unsatisfied with our poor infrastructure, it was simply non-existent in Kansbahal during the later part of the sixties.

After spending six months in south colony during our probation, five of us had just moved into two adjacent bungalows in the north colony. As you entered the north colony from the national highway you would be quite impressed by a wide concrete road with perpendicular arterial roads on both the sides flanked by bungalows. On the furthest end of the first perpendicular road to the right was our club, the sole entertainment facility in our colony. Our bungalows were just behind the club.

That particular day we were a little sad since Ajit had submitted his resignation and we all went to the club to douse our sorrow. Ajit, Amlan and Santosh were only occasional drinkers and were soon in a different world after a few glasses of beer. Sumit and I were sitting on the two extreme ends of the bar table and were still in our senses being teetotalers and had just finished our eighth bottle of Coca-Cola!

Suddenly I was startled with a gruff voice from behind “Good Evening, Mr. Sengupta”. I slowly turned and was surprised to see the smiling face of Mr. Muralidas, our estate manager!
“Good Evening, Mr. Muralidas” I replied, still in a state of sock.

We were not in best of terms. Some how or other, Muralidas would always give us a raw deal whenever he could. We would also fight it out with the active support of our bosses. We were a constant source of headache for each other.

“May I just have a couple of minutes with you, Mr. Sengupta?” said Mr. Muralidas almost apologetically.
“Sure” I said while moving out to a nearby sofa, still wondering about his intention.
“It is sad that we are loosing Mr. Mandal” said Mr. Muralidas while seating on a sofa opposite mine.
I didn’t utter anything, knowing full well that condolence could not be his main agenda.
“Mr. Sengupta, I have a proposal” said Mr. Muralidas after a swig at his glass.
I was alarmed! “It couldn’t be Deepika! She is too young. Anyway Muralidas would never select me as his son-in-law, unless he believes in those funny scientific theory of opposite poles attracts and would like to postulate that for human relationships as well!” I almost thought aloud.
“As you know, we are having a serious shortage of bungalows. We had to accommodate you in bigger bungalows since bungalows for you, I mean for junior engineers, are not yet ready. We are now having a lot of requests for these bungalows for family accommodation” said Muralidas taking another swig from his glass.
I was tense but still did not utter a word. My less than average brain was doing overtime to read his thoughts.
“At the same time there is a large bungalow lying vacant for quite sometime. I wonder whether you and Santosh would be interested in moving in there” said Muralidas.
“Which one?” I asked tentatively.
“On the first row, second from the right as you enter the club road” said Muralidas in an even tone.
“You mean the haunted house?” I exclaimed!

The bungalow he mentioned was one of the best bungalows in our colony. Long before we joined, the then chief accountant Mr. Gurubox Sahani used to stay there along with his family. He retired from the service and the day he was supposed to leave for his home town, he died suddenly of a heart attack. It was the first death in our colony and he was cremated on the bank of Brahmani river nearby. Death was quite normal but the timing was very unusual. Company then converted that bungalow into an extension of the guesthouse. The first guest was one Mr. Antia from our head office at Bombay. Nothing happened till the evening. But the next day Mr. Antia was found in a state of shock and was shifted to guesthouse proper. It was rumored that Mr. Antia heard some unusual sound on the rooftop and was under the opinion that it was Mr. Gurubox Sahani’s spirit! Since then nobody stayed in that bungalow and slowly it got the dubious status of a haunted house. Anybody taking the club road after the sunset used to pass that stretch very quickly without looking at that bungalow.

“You are young engineers from IIT. I don’t think you believe in all that nonsense. Do you?” he asked sheepishly, working on my male ego.
“Why don’t you move in?” I challenged him.
“I would love to” he said with pseudo boldness “but you know your Bhabi (sister-in-law) is, unfortunately, very superstitious. More over Deepika is so young” he added, pricking my sentiment.

I could understand that Muralidas wanted to outsource the dirty work of throwing us out to a ghost. If we were killed it would be all the more better. At the same time I was quite tempted about that bungalow. I was sure that there was no chance of our staying in such bungalows in coming ten years. I had to only convince Santosh which I was sure I could.

“See, it is a very difficult decision. Let me talk to Santosh when he is in a good mood. Give me a few days time” I replied with an impassive face.

“Oh, sure. Take your time” said Muralidas. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to convince Santosh even if he tried turning cartwheels or belly dancing. [To be continued]