In our college hostel, for faculty members staying away from their families, there was a long dining table with chairs placed on each side. A strapping six-foot Tibetan, Mr Thapa was the college drill master. He used a particular chair at one end of the table. Humble to a fault and soft-spoken, he was staying alone in a rented house outside the college. He was wont to bend his elbow on weekends, of course well aware of where to draw the line on his consumption.
Once, there was a long spell of holidays. Most of the staff went home to spend the getaway with their families. Thapa however enjoyed late night binges of soaking and glutting that pulled him apart at the seams with one half of his body turning numb.
The following morning, shocking news of the drill master’s sudden demise flew apace in our college. That day onwards none of the members of the faculty dared near, let alone occupy the chair that was the favourite of Thapa. May be fearing they too might peg out if they sat on it. For months the chair remained unused. So deeply ingrained was fear in their minds.
At one of the quarters in the sprawling township of our vast steel factory, its occupant, a senior supervisor, met with a tragic end by self-immolation after seeing off his family home. Following the blood-curdling death, the capacious three-room house remained vacant for months since all those given the house as per their seniority in the list did not want to occupy it.
They preferred to stay in a rented house away from the township. A senior foreman was given the house even though he figured at the bottom of the list. He moved in with his family to the utter surprise of all others, in defiance of outmoded social beliefs.
As far back as my memory slides, a big spacious bungalow, on the main road in our densely populated residential colony in the Madras of the early fifties had been left unoccupied for years. Enclosed by a vast compound, it stood at the middle of a row of houses on one side of the road with a ‘To let’ board fixed permanently at the gate. In the neighbourhood it had earned the reputation of ‘haunted house’ since one of its occupants had once mysteriously conked out.
Fears of mawkish sentiments grip the minds of people and remain deeply ingrained in them once the user of a place or an object turns his toes in an eerie manner. We advance technologically while being far behind the times in social beliefs.
H Narayanan
Email: nanan2105@gmail.com