RED

Golden is my favorite color. Oh I don’t know! When I write I feel like I’m talking to you, whoever you might be. When I say golden I hope the word doesn’t conjure images for you of Hollywood divas on the red carpet wearing gowns—long flowing, short metallic, backless, deep necked, of the same color. For me the only thing the word denotes is the color of the hills bathed in wonderful autumn sunshine.

It’s been exactly a month since I last saw them—through the window of a municipal bus. Nature and I locked in a desperate battle; I a part of the 30 ft. blemish moving at 50 km/hr in a futile attempt to destroy the beauty of the mar less hills. We were defeated and how so! The sunshine crept in from everywhere—windows, skylights, the subconscious mind, everywhere and flooded the rusty seats, the dirty green, half-torn, cheap leather seat covers, the loud Bengali family with half a dozen kids in tow; it flooded everything with the images it carried of the pine trees and wonderfully blue sky.

The hillside changes with seasons. The vegetation here is different—an equal mix of the sub-tropical and the temperate. Spring is when the slopes are dotted with flowers of every imaginable hue—yellow, pink, purple, white. In the summer you’ll come across trees along the roadside laden with lilac flowers. Autumn, well autumn in the town just means falling leaves; one doesn’t expect to see flowers the harbingers of life in this season of stunning death.

I must have been wrong about that thought for as soon as the bus moved along a sharp turn my eyes were caught in a tangle of red. A cluster of bright entities just about too big to be called flowers grew on a low-lying tree; its branches almost touching the top of the bus, gently as though whispering something from across another world. The thick leaves blocked the sunshine for a couple of seconds. The sudden darkness held me in a trance and even when the bus sped ahead leaving the whispering tree behind, my eye could still feel a shade of red hovering in space.

They were there at regular intervals—little red spots scattered all over the landscape; sufficient in number for me to call them the defining feature of the countryside in autumn and few enough to be a rare delicacy for the eyes. I kept my eyes open and my mind unconscious of all I couldn’t see. Beauty often forces you to do the same. We passed a little brook—water doing a hay-wire dance over wonderfully static rocks, and then just when I thought there couldn’t be anything more delightful I saw it.

My imagination has power over me; it controls me like the brain and the heart never can. So it was that when the half-hidden view of the old English manor peeking at me through a thicket of the same red flowers captured my imagination the urge that I felt to be standing on one of its neat little balconies felt almost like physical pain; a pain that could and would nag me till I did what the unrelenting master would have me do.

I spent the next few days at home making house calls at old forgotten friends, roaming the bazaar like the ghost of Christmas shopping, and enjoying the weather lying languid on the verandah soaking the sunshine. On the fifth day of my home stay I was doing the latter when a cloud came out of nowhere and covered the sun. I did not move from my position notwithstanding the growing cold in hope that it would soon move over. Soon came and brought with itself not glorious sunshine but other clouds and my make belief tropical paradise turned into exactly what it was—a two thousand meter high mountain town in late November.

Since I had planned the rest of the day around drifting to sleep on the carpet on which I lay outside and now thanks to the clouds the plan was spoilt, and I had no back-up save myself from boredom plan, and the pain at the back of my head was nagging me still I walked down to the bus-station and caught the first bus going downhill which didn’t take me all that long to do since all buses from here only go downhill. I bought a ticket for the town at the foothill though I knew I’d be getting off much earlier.

As a child have you ever stood near a tree and felt that the tree was alive? Touched its bark and feel that it was touching you back? Or whispered something—a child’s raw secret emotions into the ear of this patient companion? Did you when you were ever so small make friends with the stairs, not just any staircase but the spiral one in the long forgotten backyard of a long forgotten house in the neighborhood? Ever felt that certain inanimate things in this world are alive even though most are not?

I remember reading a book by Virginia Wolf in which a character realizes how when one is alone, one finds a certain expression in inanimate objects; how the object seems to imbibe your soul; to become you. I would have said the same for the house I now stood before only my soul doesn’t have this quality of beautiful mysterious magnetism that I felt. Maybe someone else had stood here a long, long time ago and had been one with the house till the house became her. I say her, for the building had a feminine quality about it, in spite of its rigid and severe lines of structure.

A two story Victorian style building, built probably around the late nineteenth century from the look of it. The silence seemed to carry notes of dialogue all the way from the silent house and I stood still at a distance trying to catch them. Just then, ever so slowly, something touched the back of my neck. I gasped and swinging my neck around wildly sprang ahead a couple of paces. It was only a branch carrying a big red flower leaning down away from the tree and now swinging because of my unwarranted motion. The same flower or was it a cluster of red leaves? I touched it and (could it be?) felt it touching me back.

As I moved forward I found myself wishing I’d worn something other than my bright purple-pink jacket. Dressed in the same I felt like a foreign element in the present color palate—grey skies, brown hills (funny how they go to being brown from golden with just the sun gone), a grayish-brown deserted house and red, bright red flowers all around. The flowers were everywhere—near the gate, in abundance on the slope adjacent to the house, some reaching out to its balconies, touching the windows. The house with the red flowers, what an enchanting quality it had!

The building was rectangular, much more in length than the front would have had me think; a number of similar balconies—about six or eight on the top floor and the same number of couplets of a door and a window on the ground floor. By the look of it, it seemed more probable that the house was a public building like a small hotel or maybe a hostel, than a private home. The grayish-blue paint on the woodwork of the doors, windows and stairs was worn out and flaking with time.

I stepped on to the porch; my footprints on a thick layer of dust. Wonder how long it would be before they disappear beneath a new layer. I tried peeking through the window but the glass had become stained heavily. The door was jammed. I ran my fingers along it and could feel the rough scraps of worn out paint.

It’s only for a little while that touching and looking at jarred doors and ivy covered stonework can preoccupy anyone so after a while the enchantment wore off and I became inquisitive about what lay inside. In all probability it would be empty save maybe a few pieces of broken down furniture, I thought. Yet my imagination would have me stand there, right next to that bay window in the right hand corner and reach out to that wild rose growing near it. The slope on the left side of the house seemed mountable. What with sufficient vegetation to catch hold of, it was easy for me to climb up to a terrace at that end. The window here was not barred. One vigorous push and it gave way.

Te Dum! What a magic trick! Now she stands in the midst of blooming life—a twig stuck to her hair, flowers all around her and a thicket below her feet. Your heroine approaches a window, nay a portal and of a sudden she is standing on a dead floor in a dead hall where even the air seems dead. As for the dust, all of it appears to have already settled a long, long time ago and now even that little activity of dust particles floating about in the air and gently settling down was now impossible.

I thought climbing through the window would have landed me in a small room but instead I found myself in a hall. That’s what the entire first story was—wood, dust, a couple of cast iron bed frames in far flung corners. The latter I looked at closely; metal, rusting metal frames with metal springs in the centre. I don’t know why I felt disgusted by those springs, the vulgarity of an exposed skeleton when the flesh and life are gone. A washbasin half full of muck. Half full or half empty? Depends on the time frame I guess. There was a cracked mirror on the wall above the basin. A girl dressed in jeans and jacket against the background of a century old deserted house; even the mirror seemed to be laughing at the absurdity of the image.

A small cabinet next to one of the beds; nothing in it except a few glass bottles—dark with their labels yellow, stiff and ready to peel off. One read morphine. Others too, medicine names, some indecipherable. I sat with my arm resting on the bed, wondering who’d lain there. So many medicines; she was fighting for her life perhaps—the female I had attributed the character of the house to.

A faint noise slowly superimposed with my daydreams, a noise something like the sound of broken cable connection. The two separated; one slowly faded away and the other made me realize it was raining. I rushed to the window only to behold a sky growing darker by the minute. To make matters worse there were no signals on my cell phone and I had no umbrella. The rain had subsided. What followed was a dispute with myself whether quickly running off to the road and waiting for the next bus going uphill was the best option under these circumstances. Realizing there were no other options I had no sooner put one foot out of the window than something white, crystalline hit me on the foot. A hailstone! Others followed—of the size that even staying put in this forlorn place seemed like a more viable option than going out.

Though I take pride in having a rather sturdy disposition not easily affected by events that normally startle others, yet I couldn’t help the feeling of alarm that was steadily settling in my mind with the growing darkness and cold. It wasn’t exactly night yet but the twilight zone. Something moved behind me. I turned around with a start. It was only the shadow of a tree and yet what a shadow! The tree was alive, its branches swaying like an orchestra instructor. Everything else in the room was disappearing under a sheath of darkness.

This wouldn’t do. I knew I had to find a light. I opened the cabinet and started shifting the bottles hoping to find, I don’t know, a candle perhaps? If there was kerosene at least I could light a fire to keep myself warm. Suddenly there was a crash, only it didn’t sound like a crash but like a scream. A glass bottle scattered all about my feet, spilling a dark liquid. This little event startled the remaining of my nerves and I darted away to the opposite window.

No matter how hard I tried to tell myself what I heard was no scream yet the truth is my ears were still ringing under effect of that terrible sound. My fears were getting the better of me; I thought I was imagining sounds. There was a yellow light visible through the thicket, like that of a lantern. Were the ghosts of the house playing with their victim, giving her hope so that the horror is all the more dire? I forced the window open and shouted with all the strength I had; once, twice, thrice, each time louder than the previous. I felt stunned by my own voice tearing through the silence. My voice, was it my voice so loud that the vibrations could be felt long after I had stopped?

The yellow light moved. Someone shouted through the silence “koi hai?” “Yahaan” I shouted back in answer. The voice came nearer. It was a man with a lantern and an umbrella. I told him to wait there and hurriedly skidded down the same way I’d come up. It was rather slippery thanks to the rain and I dare say I must have hurt myself during the descend but was too startled at that point to notice.

My rescuer turned out to be the owner of a small roadside stall who lived with his family in a tiny comfortable little house round the bend. I concocted some story about being a magazine journalist doing a report on old British houses in the hills. They were simple people--the man and his wife and I think they did buy my story. I was only to glad to accept the accommodation which the well meaning couple offered me for the night.

While taking off my shoes I realized that there were drops of blood on my socks. In my panic I hadn’t even realized when I hurt myself. I tried looking for cuts but couldn’t find any. Strange how discrete little scratches can sometimes be! It was not until I was well tucked in a small living room sofa—my bed for the night that I was composed enough to realize that my cell phone was not with myself. It was too late, my nerves were shaken, besides I was sure I’d left in the old, forsaken house. I decided to go back for it the first thing in the morning.

The next day by the time I left (not before being coaxed into having breakfast at the roadside dhaba owned by the family) the morning had ripened and the sun made everything seem lie it once had on a certain fateful day.

With the foreboding spirit that seemed to have disappeared the house had gained a different quality under these conditions. There was a certain inexplicable but certain sense of detachment between the mysterious red flowers and the building. I stepped on a dew petals scattered by last night’s storm. They lay on the ground, wet and warped, yet not dead somehow.



The cell phone was there, lying on the ledge of the same window I had stood looking through yesterday. I walked over and picked it up marveling at how panicky I got the day before over a situation that hardly warranted that reaction. The window was still open. I gently closed it again and turned around.

Then I saw it! Right next to the window I climbed in through—the medicine cabinet standing in the midst of a pool of blood. Blood, red, thick, dark blood, there was no mistaking it. Randomly spread about the pool were pieces of the broken glass bottle. It came as a flash. So that’s what the bottle contained—blood. That explained the stains on my socks from last evening. I gingerly moved forward with my heartbeat slowly accelerating.

A loud thump that felt like a hammer beating upon my heart told me as much as my eyes did that the blood hadn’t been contained in the bottle. It was in fact still dripping drop by drop from the cabinet. All those bottles had they all broken? How? Was there a pool of blood inside that thing?

I looked around all around, in slow motion, expecting a bigger surprise than the on I was already face to face with. My senses were sharpened. I could sense every little movement in the vicinity of the house, could hear every little wisp of wind. The sinister quality of the house was back. It was in fact laughing at me, closing up on me…

I moved closer still though I didn’t want to. Catching hold of the cabinet handle I stood still for what seemed like a very, very long time. My hands were shaking; the bloody drops were falling in rhythm to their vibrations which were in turn synchronized with my amplified heartbeats. I took a deep breath and jerked the drawer open. What I saw inside took my breath away.

Nothing! Just the same old bottles. There was no blood inside, just a layer of dust, a very dry layer of dust. Where did the blood come from? My eye caught a scarlet drop on the wall behind.

How I left the bleeding house and came back home safely is still a blurry chapter of my memory. All I remember is the feeling that a red veil had fallen over my eyes (or was it my mind?) for the entire of the return journey.

It was week later that I discovered some clues as to the identity of the house. I approached an old government officer—my grandfather’s colleague. He was a kindly, wrinkled old man whose nose twitched in a funny manner every time he spoke. “Used to be lovely that place,” he said “Too good a building to be used as a hospital, a very out of the way hospital too. It must be in ruins now.” He edged closer and whispered in a secretive tone “That place is said to be haunted. You’ve heard the scandal about it, have you?”

“What scandal?” I asked. “They say there was this young couple at the time of the Second World War, or was it the first, I’m not too sure. Well it’s said they were very much in love when they got engaged. Then the war took place. The boy was enlisted and he left for the line of duty. The girl waited for him. A year passed by. He used to send her letters at first but after a few months they stopped. A couple more years past by, and then a couple more. His folks believed he died in action. The girl refused to believe them; she loved him too much to get married to someone else. She became a nurse in this hospital. One night she was the only nurse on duty, the doctor was away and the hospital was pretty abandoned. Two cases of road injuries were brought in. Imagine her surprise when she recognized one of them as her own lover. He was changed a lot but as to his identity she did not have any doubt. She tended to him with an overflowing heart. Soon he gained consciousness enough to speak. However he did not recognize her, instead he thanked her for taking care of him and chatted to her about his wonderful wife Stella back home in Scotland and his beautiful children. The nurse didn’t say anything. Soon she gave him his dose of medicine. He never woke up in the morning.” At this Mr. Sah paused and looked at me for some reaction. Seeing that my face was blank he said as an explanatory after note “You see she poisoned him”.

“No. Not poisoned. She made him bleed to death” I said. Mr. Sah laughed and his nose twitched. “Well sounds like you’ve heard another version of the story”. I didn’t tell him I had heard another version. The house had narrated it to me.

What is it that seperates the color red from all the other colors? Is it that it is less natural in some way than the green of the hills, the blue of the sky and the brown of the forest? That is what I would have said a month and a day ago. Now I believe all other colors exist on the surface. They may be beautiful but their beauty is an exterior that can perhaps be touched. The color that has been the sovereign of our attention here though runs deep. You feel you could dive into it--further and further in search of the secret it seems to harbor in its heart, till it devours you completely.

I feel this everytime an image flashes in my head--the image of a charming yet menacing building with creepers on the walls and surrounded by flowers. flowers red enough to make your heart bleed.