Around the Evening Fire.

CHAPTERS

1. Rest in Peace

2. A Story to Tell.

3. That Eerie Feeling.

4. The Betrayal.

5. Prediction

6. The Magnificent Tiger

7. Her Majesty’s Choice.

8. Hero to Zero

9. Justice done.

10. The Gift

11. The Change of Order

12. Uninvited Guest

13. Commitment and its synonym

14. The Encounter.

15. The Lost Uncle.

16. The Cash Box.

17. An accidental meeting.

18. The Paranormal Revenge.

19. Men will be Men

20. The Witness.

21. Pundit’s dilemma.

22. The Kind Hearted Witch.

23. Life on my terms.

24. The Temple Mouse.

25. Oh! What a miss?

26. A Breed Apart.

27. Cursing the blessed.

28. A Gentleman’s Game.

29. The First Case.

30. The Sinner

31. Free entertainment.

32. The Ghost buster.

33. The Return of the Predator.

REST IN PEACE

Anshu had spent his complete life in a small old town in the eastern part of the country. His home town was like all other old towns of India with narrow lanes connected to narrower ones, overflowing drains and roadside markets. Bounded by rivers on all sides this town was once the capital and a place of importance during the English rule in India. The bungalows of the Englishmen, their churches & cemeteries were still to be seen at various parts of the town.

Over the years the cemeteries which once housed the graves of the Englishmen had been defunct but the glorious graves with their obituaries engraved in stone were still visible. With the passage of time residential buildings had cropped up besides these defunct cemeteries. Once in few years the churches which owned the cemeteries cleaned them up and if their budget permitted then they were given a coat of paint.

The locality where Anshu stayed, had one such cemetery owned by the biggest Church in the town. Due to the efforts of the Church, this cemetery was well maintained and every few months the undesired growth of fauna was cleaned, the graves were repaired of their cracks, the tombstones polished, the boundary walls painted.

As children he and his friends played cricket in the field adjoining the cemetery. During a game they jumped over the cemetery walls to recover balls and occasionally when rains prevented them from playing, other games like hide and seek were played inside the Cemetery. Though they had heard stories about ghosts and graveyards but for them the Cemetery and its familiarity did not hold any such fears.

As these group of children grew up to be youths, the cemetery became a regular meeting place for them. They sat on the walls and gossiped away till late evenings. The cemetery was a place where they could assemble and talk their heart out.

Since childhood Anshu was fascinated with the designs on the gravestones. One had an aero plane made just above the cross making one think that probably a pilot’s grave, the other had an imprint of a gun indicated maybe the Englishman loved hunting, few others had verses writing on the tombstones maybe poets or writers. Some had beautiful creepers and flowers carved on the stones. Occasionally he would go there alone and read the inscriptions on the grave stones and move into an imaginary space.

Years passed the Church for some reason stopped maintaining the cemetery – maybe there was a budget constraint or the present administrators thought it was not worth it, but whatever the reason the Cemetery lost its charm. It was now covered with foliage, the boundary walls had developed cracks and the paints peeled off at many places. In the evenings nefarious characters like drug addicts, petty thieves made it their refuge. After sunset people stopped using the cemetery road not for the fear of ghosts but for the fear of these antisocial elements and their misdeeds.

Over the years Anshu had grown up and was a strapping young lawyer practicing in the High Court. He had earned the reasonable reputation as a good lawyer. One day while in court he heard that a PIL (Public Interest Litigation) had been filed before the court to give directions to convert the cemetery into a children’s park. Anshu first reactions on hearing this was positive, at least the locality will be cleared from the harassment of the antisocial elements who now frequented the cemetery. He then went ahead with his work and the PIL went out of his mind.

That evening after completing his work for the day he thought of going on a walk to the riverside. It had been a very humid and hot day and to add to their woes the power department had been playing truant the whole evening making it still more uncomfortable. It was a hot evening and he thought of taking a short cut and walking through the cemetery. The street lights were off, traffic had thinned down, Anshu walked along, his mind preoccupied with the next day’s court cases.

He crossed the road walked along the road parallel to the cemetery boundary. A mongrel resting on the wall of the cemetery jumped off at the site of Anshu and ran away. There was complete silence except of the sounds of frogs and crickets. As he approached the river side a gust of cool wind blew across. He sat on the benches at the riverside soaking in the cool refreshing air blowing from the river. The river was in full spate. The lights of the town on the other side of the river reflected in the water creating a mystical scene. The entire area was engulfed in darkness.

From the corner of his eyes he saw a man walking towards him. He looked around and saw the silhouette of a man briskly walking towards him. As the man came near him he could see that he was wearing a black suit. He found this a bit strange, why should somebody be dressed in a suit in this sultry evening. Maybe he was returning from a party thought Anshu. The man came near him and sat on the stone wall near him.

Anshu looked at the man, he was about 6 feet, well-built and sported short black hair with streaks of white. His suit was crumpled, his face was visible enough for Anshu to see the facial wrinkles. He just sat there with his face towards the cemetery. Anshu felt a bit uncomfortable in presence of this man.

Gathering courage he asked do you stay in this locality. The man replied yes, with his fingers pointing towards the cemetery. He had a gruff voice which startled Anshu. He introduced himself and expectedly looked towards the man for his introduction. The man took some time and said my name is Mratin Brown and I am a war pilot. His mind told him that he had seen this name somewhere. He tried hard but was unable to recollect.

To continue the conversation he said I have been living here since last 30 years, I have never seen you here. Martin did not reply he just shrugged his shoulders indifferently.

Anshu was feeling more and more uncomfortable. For the sake of interacting he said the Government is proposing to convert the cemetery into a children’s park. This will be good for the people living here What about the dead those who are living in the cemetery since ages, where will they go Martin asked.

He found the answer both humorous and bizarre. He said why don’t you ask the Government.

For the first time Martin stared at Anshu. The look of Martin scared him, his eyeballs were almost white. The eyes looked like deep sockets. Martin laughed reveling his stained brown teeth. He said I was just joking. The look on Martin’s face scared Anshu.

To wave off the fear in him he started asking questions to Martin. Have you ever fought a war? he enquired. Off course I was a pilot is the second world war.

Had his general knowledge been good he would have recollected that the Second World War was fought in 1939 and a serving pilot in this war would now be on the wrong side of 80 which definitely Martin did not look like.

Martin then asked Anshu you are a lawyer, why don’t you advise the Government to restore the cemetery like before when you with your friends played here. He was startled and impulsively asked how did you know that as children we played in the Cemetery. I have seen you and your friends, Said Martin.

So this man actually livid in the locality. Maybe he was one of the few remaining Anglo Indian families left in the town. The thought that Martin lived in their locality relaxed him.

Martin then said many men of valor have been laid to rest in this cemetery, it would be unfair on the part of the Government to displace them. Anshu nodded in approval. Martin asked have you seen the grave on the left corner, it belongs to Dr Broad, he relentless worked towards saving lives of people of the town when an epidemic broke out killing thousands, does he deserve to be displaced.

For a moment there was silence as if he was recollecting then Martin said have you noticed the large grave with a lot of carvings on the tombstone near the gate, it belongs to Mr Hampshire, he made the first English medium school for Indian people, he was a great educationist. Anshu did not know how to counter Martin.

Martin went on and on re-counting the deeds of the great men buried in the cemetery and in the end said these men of repute deserve something better. In the end Anshu felt said and ashamed, how could he support a movement to remove the graves of such great men to make way for a park.

While he was thinking about this he felt an eerie silence, he looked up and Martin was not there anymore. He looked around but could not see him. Maybe he had crossed the street and walked into the darkness. Suddenly the power was restored and the street lights were on. Anshu walked back home with Martin’s views rumbling in his ears.

Next morning he enquired with the local people about the whereabouts of Martin but nobody seemed to know him. Then it abruptly struck him, he ran towards the cemetery went in towards the grave with an aero plane. The grave stone was covered with creepers. The frantically tore the creepers with his bare hands. On the grave stone it was mentioned

"Pilot Martin Brown

Born 20th February 1912,

Died 27th January 1942."

An inscription read served the country with dedication.

Anshu made up his mind to fight for the restoration of the cemetery, a case that he won a decade later. He closed the file labelling it Rest in Peace

A STORY TO TELL.

After battling the muddy roads for about 2 hours our vehicle seesawed at a pathetic speed and finally reached the sanctuary. The huge gates with statues of elephants on both sides welcomed us. On one side was a forest office, a two room concrete building paneled with bamboo to give it an environment friendly appearance. I thought that they could have made this office building in bamboo and saved costs or they could have kept is as it is and not spent extra on paneling it. Anyway the logic of getting it paneled did not make sense to me.

We were five of us and the driver. My lawyer friend Som who had arranged this outing went into the office and spoke to the officer in charge while we got out of the vehicle and stretched ourselves. Huge boards stuck up on the gate informed us the Dos & Don’ts in the sanctuary. After sometime Som came out with a forest guard in tow who guided us through the gates into the sanctuary. The inside roads were much better than the approach roads that we had covered. On either sides there were rows of deodar trees and other vegetation. The guard informed us that the sanctuary was unique in a way that it had almost all types of vegetation. Occasionally we heard the sound of the flying squirrel but could not locate the elusive animal. Finally after about 20 minutes we saw a beautiful palace. The guard told that this was the hunting lodge of the erstwhile Maharaja and had been now converted to a Forest lodge.

Our vehicle came to halt under the portico. The manicured lawns and the pots with Marigolds in full bloom welcomed us. As we got out, the guard went inside and came back with an elderly gentleman. Two other people perhaps gardeners carried our luggage.

The elderly gentleman in his sixties was Mr. Dash, the Manager of the Lodge. We entered the hall which was large and impressive there were a couple of antique sofa sets with beautifully carved center tables, but what impressed me was the neatness of the hall – a fact generally not attributed to Government guest houses. The well maintained garden and the hall were clear indications that Mr Dash was dedicated to his job Once inside we made ourselves comfortable on the huge old fashioned sofa sets. The Manager told us that there were only 4 rooms in the lodge and we had booked 3 of them. The other one was vacant. This came as a surprise, the façade of the lodge looked as if it could accommodate much more than four rooms, but then there was a story to this which the Manager was to tell later.

Mr. Dash was a nice gentleman, he spoke impeccable English which was surprising. Latter we understood that his command over the language was because of his schooling in a missionary boarding school – regarded as one of the best in the country.

The walls of the hall were lined up with stuffed animal heads mounted on polished teakwood shields. Below each head was mentioned a date indicating the day it was hunted. In one corner there was an old rifle stand which in its heydays would have held 5 to 6 functioning rifles but today it held only one nonfunctional gun as a show piece. I had never seen a gun stand before and this one attracted me.

Mr. Dash joined us and the gardeners brought tea. Everything starting from Mr. Dash to the hall’s décor and now the tea was unique. The tea was served in sparkling white crockery unlike what we generally see in Government run rest houses – another surprise. He told that he had personally bought these cutlery from Kolkata and only used them during VIP visits. We understood, Som had properly used his contacts and we were VIPs.

After a good and refreshing tea, my friends retired to their rooms for a quick nap. They were more interested in seeing the jungle and the animals but my interest was in the antiques and the palace and the stories therein. I started a conversation with Mr. Dash. I enquired about the Maharaja who had constructed this lodge.

Mr. Dash was a perfect story teller narrated a story.

This lodge was constructed about 100 years ago by the grandfather of the present king. The Maharaja had returned from his visit to England and wanted to construct a hunting lodge like the one he had seen there. An architect was employed to fulfill his dream. The original design had 4 blocks with a central courtyard. The king spent a lot of time with the architect in finalizing the design. Gradually the architect developed a close rapport with the King. They used to spend long hours together discussing the integrities of the lodge. Slowly the architect became the king’s most trusted man and at times influenced the king’s decisions in effectively running the state. Strangely one fine morning the architect committed suicide by hanging himself from a tree. The death of the architect depressed the king and he did not take any further interest in the construction. The building remained incomplete. The Maharaja rarely visited the lodge. After his death his son, the present king’s father took some interest and the lodge was finally habitable with only the front block fully constructed.

Mr. Dash concluded that is why it looks huge from the front where as it has only 4 rooms as the full building could not be completed.

My next obvious query was is this palace haunted maybe the spirit of the architect. Mr. Dash replied I have been staying here for the last 35 years and have not seen one.

Since you are well educated why did you choose to stay in this forlorn place? You could have got a better job outside. I asked. Mr. Dash stared at me and said when I was offered jobs I did not take it and when I wanted to take up a new job I was not offered any. Very comprehensibly answered, I thought.

Have you worked with the Maharaja? I enquired.

He laughed and