Watch your Back

The beautiful city of Kolkata is famous for its colonial historical background. Most of the roads and lanes are named after the renowned British people, for example, Khidderpore was named after Lord Khidderpore, Dalhousie was named after Lord Dalhousie or Hastings an area named after Warren Hastings, who was the first Governor-General of Bengal then the whole of India from 1772 to 1785. This story is about one of the houses which were located at Hastings.

My old house was located in Hastings.

There are many old houses built by the British in Hastings. Rumours floated that some paranormal activities were noticed by the inhabitants who stayed at these old vintage houses.

In one such old house, lived a couple.

One night, it was lightening heavily though it was not raining. But the wind was blowing at a high pace. It was indeed a cold winter night. The shadow of the roadside tree, falling on the building looked huge and it gave a very eerie appearance. The five feet long antique clock rang loudly with its long pendulum. It was 2’O clock. Seema and Ramesh were deeply asleep with their eight-month-old child Manisha. The pendulum struck so loud that the entire house was jargoned by its sound. Soon Manisha, the little toddler started crying. Seema nudged Ramesh with her elbow and said softly “Ramesh, she needs milk.”

Ramesh did not move. He was in deep sleep with half of his mouth open and continued snoring. The child kept on crying.

Seema once again nudged Ramesh with her hands and ensured that he was wide awake this time. She said, “I’ve kept her milk bottle in the refrigerator. Please warm up the milk and give her the bottle”. Seeing no movement, Seema tweaked Ramesh on his arms, and with that, he woke up.  Since both were working parents both of them needed a night of sound sleep.

Ramesh scratched his head, his eyelids were still heavy, he somehow managed to get up from the bed and reached the kitchen. Since it was lightning there was enough light in the kitchen and Ramesh didn’t switch on the lights. He opened the fridge door and bent down looking for the bottle. To his dismay, he was unable to find the bottle. Finally, Ramesh thought of calling Seema but suddenly someone tapped his shoulder and handed over the bottle from behind.

He was about to warm the milk but he noticed that the milk bottle was already warm. Ramesh didn’t look back as he was happy to see the work done and murmured, “Why did you wake me then when you had already prepared the milk for our child? Tell me?”

There was no reply, he didn’t look back but felt that the temperature of the kitchen had suddenly become very cold. Sensing the sudden change of temperature, he felt a little absurd. Ramesh did not give much heed to it, he rubbed his eyes for a clearer vision. He was about to enter their bedroom but noticed that Seema had reached before him and was already in bed. Ramesh carefully made the child hold the bottle. Soon the child stopped crying and continued drinking milk.

The next morning while reading the newspaper Seema poured tea into his cup. While watching her pour the tea, Ramesh thoughtfully asked her, “why did you wake me up last night, when you had already prepared the milk for Manisha?”.

Seema couldn’t understand. She frowned and asked, “What are you talking about?”.

To this Ramesh explained that last night, when he was unable to search for the milk in the fridge, she tapped him from behind and handed over the warm bottle of milk to him.

Seema laughed and said, “you need some more rest dear because I slept right after waking you up.”

Ramesh couldn’t believe his wife. But he was very sure that someone did tap him from behind. Ramesh very well remembers that he did not light the gas and preheat the milk. He wished that he should’ve turned back. He always wondered, if it was not his wife, then who was it?

Today when I look back and think, I feel these stories must have been told to young children so that they don’t barge into any neighbour’s property. The story did sound interesting to me. So next time, when you are being asked to wake up and serve milk to your child in the mid of the night and if by any chance, someone taps you from behind, do look back and see whom it was before coming to any conclusion.

Sweta Gupta