THE APPARITIONS
THE MADAM
FICTION
081216
updated 081216
this is some thing that I always wanted to do - write fiction. i think many people go through such a stage in life and most get over it with time. but i still have the hankering even in my late fifties- could be it is that i have not seen what is what and the novelty has never been lost! so now that the net is there why not give the virtual world a try?
prologue
There is an old, rather crude saying in Malabar - "malarnnu kitannu, melottu thuppuka" meaning you lie supine and spit straight upwards. The result is that the whole spittle comes back on to your face. What I am doing is probably exactly that. I am aware of this fact and would have kept quiet. but there is a limit for human endurance and i feel i must speak out.
fiction
STATUTORY WARNINGThe characters and the incidents in this story are purely fictional and any similarity to any individuals or incidents in real life is pure coincidence.
it was some time in early 1992 I was in the sitting room of a house in chennai. I think, rather than a sitting room, they call it a hall in the local parlance. There were two bed rooms to my left side occupying the whole length of this hall. To my right was the kitchen followed by the bath cum toilet.
I was trying to make myself as little a nuisance as possible and had hit the sofa cum bed in the sitting room where I used to sleep in the night even though it was just past 2200hrs or so. Lying supine on the modified bed in one corner, I had the whole room in my visual field. I was wide awake and staring into space in front of me.
It was then that the head of the family along with his wife appeared in the foreground. They had come out of the bath room probably after carrying out their ablutions before going to bed. I don't remember what exactly the husband was doing for the woman's action took all my attention away. This female was staring at me with a funny smile on her face and she made a gesture at me.
It was a crude vulgar gesture that one would expect a prostitute to make to her would be clients. but even a prostitute, I am sure, will not do it to her brother - if her husband asks her to do so.
I cannot conceal my feelings; my face must have looked like an empty tin can run over by a heavy truck. (don't worry; the simile is not mine. I have borrowed it from a very old Malayalam short story i had read ages back). i was dumbfounded.
the couple then walked across the hall into their bedroom.on the other side ; that night their love making must have been very passionate.
epilogue
Prior to release from service one is eligible for a choice posting and other considerations. this is mainly with a view of smoothening the transition into civilian life. But that is under normal circumstances, and my circumstances almost invariably were never normal.
The disciplinary proceedings dragged on throughout the year 1991 and lasted till the ides of march 1992. my contractual period ended on march 25, 1992 and one fine morning I found myself without a job and with no where to go. I was completely stranded.
I perforce had to move out. So I booked my paltry possessions to madras (present day chennai) and the railways kept it with them for the next six months - that is exactly what happened and it is not at all an exaggeration!
i myself moved to chennai and invited myself into a house there. I requested the owner of the house to find a house on rent for me to stay and he readily agreed. And I decided to stay on in their house till I could find a house for me to stay.
It was very wrong on my part to have plonked in that house without even asking them permission; but it never occurs to you that you are a filthy worm. I don't think even some one with fingers sloughing off from hansens would feel that we are abominable creatures. It was early 1992 and it was gradually becoming more and more clear day by day that I was not very welcome there. The night scene described above was probably the climax of it.
I am a bloody bastard; I refused to take cognizance of the incident and continued to stay there in the hope that I will be able to find a house soon and move in there. But nothing happened in the first fortnight or so of my stay and so I started off on another of my aimless wanderings.
Few days later when I telephoned them, from Madurai I think, the people of this house said they could arrange a house. I am afraid my wanderings were unsettling certain vested interests with whom these people were in league even then (I have heard the madam commenting about the notorious identity card of the Indian gestapo some time earlier) and that probably was the main reason for asking me back .
I did find a house sooner than later; but that was kind courtesy a poor tamilian girl and nobody else - she had hanged herself in that house and nobody would want to stay with the "ghost". I stayed there for one year a couple of houses to the left of the particular house I mentioned, all the time doing my own cooking or eating at saravanas.
After one year of eating and sleeping I packed my bags and shifted to trivandrum. Thanks to some one's kindness I could soon shift into a rented house. In those days I used to draw the kerosene oil allotment of this family and cook on my kerosene stove - the gas connection and all came later (do they regret it all now? I wonder!)
How much I wished I had the sense to come to trivandrum initially itself rather than put up with the ignominy of my stay in that chennai house. But whatever has been done cannot be undone. I had learnt the lesson and that too the hard way and am determined never ever to make such a mistake again.
The next time I had been to chennai was a couple of months after my arrival in trivandrum. I carefully avoided going any where near the Madam and spent the night on the railway platform of madras central.
I am afraid the chennai couple were emboldened by the fact that now that I was out of the army I was finished. There were even suggestions of me doing security duty at their residence in their native place and the noveau riche tipping me! My old uniform would have come in handy then. it is typical of the noveau riche - they feel they can buy any thing and even any body with their money.
well; i was not exactly grounded and i took off again. that meant there is still possibility of extracting some thing from this character - of course not any where near the level of the green card holders but the positive point is that yours faithfully has no family. when there is a free meal without any strings attached, why not inviite yourself! And desperate attempts were on by the madam to hook on to me again.
I got a job and settled in Alleppey and was getting on fine. The madam made a trip to alleppey but luckily by that time I had moved out and the madam could do no damage. The result - I had a clean slate in Alleppey. I only came to know about the madam's visit from a professor who had later on come to trivandrum from alleppey to do a course at SCT.
in trivandrum i had clicked on very well with the boss initially and was on course for getting an MD that would have brightened my prospects. but there was a catch - my getting the post graduate degree would have sabotaged the indian gestapo's carefully chalked out plans. the dementia hypothesis, the main pillar on which the facade of my insanity is erected would have crumbled like a cookie if i got an md degree. So i had to be stopped one way or other.
but the Gestapo has to have an excuse of sorts to intervene in my affairs and make a mess of my life and spoil my academic career. and that is where an obliging NoK with no scruples what so ever comes in handy there.Who else could be a better candidate for the post than the brilliant madam!
I have reason enough to believe that the madam was one of the persons if not "the person" the so called NoK, who was, and still is, hand in glove with the indian gestapo. in fact two of my old acquaintances who had met me in those days had mentioned the madam's name to me in the above connection. And I would not the surprised if the madam had a part in the happenings in trivandrum in 2003 - the madam is capable of any thing.
and indeed the madam became a real pest. I remember getting a letter from the madam while I was in trivandrum. I never opened it and had it put in an envelope and mailed it back to the madam.
Later on, for once, while in trivandrum, I got a telephone call. The caller told me that she was calling me because the madam had directed her to telephone me. The madam was pestering an old woman in order to appease the gestapo.
Then in 2005 at a critical juncture in my life the madam appeared at my door - the appearance of the apparitions had always been the harbinger of doom. I refused her entry and had shut the door on the madam's face. But later on when I opened the door the madam was still there. There is a limit to which even I can be rude (the madam had three others from her family, all females, with her, and there were no male members with them) and I had to perforce admit her into the house. They stayed in the house for one day.
Incidentally, I had only one toilet in that house and the course of conversation I came to know that they never had gone to the toilet during the whole of their stay of more than twenty four hours. The yuck factor probably, for it was the same toilet I was using! I am sure the first thing they would have done after getting into the chennai bound train would be to rush to the toilet of the third class compartment they were travelling in.
later on that is once these people left, i found a faked cooked up copy of a letter (about which i had raised some issues) planted in one of my old brief cases. unfortunately i had shown them the original version i had preserved, for otherwise one could have expected some real funny incidents!
Mission accomplished the fraternity returned. Luckily that was the last I saw of the madam; and that was in 2005.
All i remember about the madam now is the grin and the gesture of that night in 1992. and that i will never forget. It was an eye opener; better late than never! Thank you madam; thank you sir.
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viceman
081216
updated 081216
