CHAPTER FOUR:
LET’S PLAY ANTAKSHARI!
I was expecting, rather hoping, that I would find my house dark with all the lights out, indicating everyone was already asleep, since it was past midnight. But as I came close, I could see light from the living room. I had a spare set of keys, to sneak in late in the night, without needing to wake everyone up. But the door was not locked, so I pushed it open and stepped inside.
My brother was standing in the middle of the room, facing the television. In his hand, he held the remote control to the tv, and he was flipping through the multitude of channels, trying to find one worth watching. I stopped at the door without making any noise and observed him for almost a minute, during which he skipped some fifteen channels.
– “Dada, thik achhish to?” (Brother, are you fine?)
Without even turning around, he shrugged and nodded his head vehemently;
– “Arre.. I told you, this is nothing for me. Don’t be so concerned.”
At least, he sounded normal, although he kept on flipping the channels with the remote. Before I could say anything more, he continued, still not looking in my direction;
– “But, I think your Boudi has gone mad!”
– “What? What are you saying? Where is she?” – I wasn’t sure I heard correctly.
He turned around briefly, and continued almost indifferently;
– “She is upstairs, in the bed room. Go and check if she is fine.”
I was a bit alarmed;
– “What are you doing here then? Why are you not upstairs with her?”
He maintained his calm and replied;
– “She is talking nonsense, I couldn’t answer her questions. So I told her I will send you, and came down to look for you. Now go quickly!”
I sighed, and with a great amount of concern, walked up the steps to the second level, to the bedroom of my brother and my sister-in-law. My brother continued to stand in the middle of the living room, remote control in hand, as he kept switching the tv channels. Just as I was on the fourth step, the phone, which was on the showcase in the living room, started to ring. It was unusual to get a call at this hour, but I quickly scampered down and went to pick it up. My brother was still playing with the remote, unperturbed by the shrill noise of the telephone.
– “Hello?”
– “Mota? It’s Sintu. I was worried about your dada and Boudi. How are they? You should have called me.”
– “Sintu, it’s not even 5 minutes that I came in, dada seems okay, he is right here. Boudi, apparently is high but I am yet to see her. Let me go and see her first. I’ll call you if I need something.”
– “Okay, don’t hesitate to call me. Goodnight!”
I hung up and resumed my walk upstairs to their bedroom.
The bedroom door was ajar and the room fully lit up. Their bed was luckily to the left, and not visible from the stairway. I hesitated a bit, after all, it was their bedroom, and softly knocked on the door;
– “Boudi?”
– “Ke? Raju?” (Who? Raju?) she answered, “Come in, come in”
As I stepped into their bedroom, I found her on the bed, with the mosquito net properly arranged, but she was sitting straight up on the bed. She looked very happy when she saw me and blurted out;
– “Where did your brother go? Call him, call him. Let the three of us play Antakshari all night!”
Antakshari was a popular game, which involved singing songs starting with the last letter of the song sung previously. However, the proposal of playing Antakshari all night, was definitely a bit weird, so I tried to act sensible;
– “Boudi, it’s already past midnight, now is the time to sleep, not to play Antakshari. Why don’t you lie down and get some sleep? Let me get dada to come and get some rest as well.”
But she completely rejected my advice and demanded that I call my brother immediately, and since I was experienced in hosting Antakshari shows, I should declare the rules, or my brother would most likely cheat. I was totally dumbstruck and didn’t know how to respond. My own head was heavy from the amount I had consumed myself, but I felt this sense of responsibility that drove me on. I decided it might be best to bring my brother back to his bedroom, and let him handle his wife. But as I turned towards the door, there was a power cut, and the whole house plunged into darkness.
Power cuts were pretty common those days, and we were all used to grappling for things in the darkness. It might be because of the siddhi I had consumed, but that night, the darkness that descended in that room, was the darkest of all darkness I had witnessed in my life. I couldn’t get a sense of where I was, which direction I was facing and I couldn’t even see my own palm in the dark. I heard my Boudi, sitting in an upbeat mood inside the comfort of her mosquito net secured bed, shouting instructions at me;
– “Raju, go downstairs and fetch a matchbox, it’s on the showcase next to the telephone.”
I tried to tell her in a feeble voice, that I could not see anything and didn’t even know which way to go, but she continued, in a matter of fact manner;
– “It’s very easy, go straight out of this door, then go down the stairs, there will be a turn at the mezzanine level, turn left and continue walking down straight. Then, to the left you will find the living room. Go straight a little and turn left to the corner of the room, the showcase will be to your right, in the corner!”
I was hoping that my eyes would adjust to the darkness in a matter of minutes, if not seconds, but for some reason, it remained pitch black. But knowing it didn’t make much sense to argue with my Boudi then, I felt the walls around me and somehow managed to reach the door. I swear, despite keeping my eyes wide open, I found that they could be completely useless at times like this. I cautiously made my way down, holding onto walls and ledges, stumbling a few times and spraining my ankle once, as I missed a step and almost slipped down the stairway. But I clung on, and finally managed to reach the living room. I couldn’t see my brother in the dark, so I called out for him and didn’t get a reply back, so I kept feeling the walls and eventually reached the showcase. I dropped something, as I fumbled around for the matchbox, but managed to find it and with one stroke, the whole darkness was suddenly challenged. The first thing I noticed, was that my brother was still standing in the center of the room, remote in his hand!
The matchstick I had lit, went out and I lit another one and found a candle on the window sill, next to the showcase. Once the candle was lit, I asked my brother what he was doing, and he calmly answered;
– “Can’t you see? I am waiting for the power to return”
– “You should go up and talk to your wife and convince her to sleep. I tried….”
My words were interrupted by the shrill noise of the telephone ringing. I walked with the candle in hand and picked it up. My brother stayed glued to his spot, in the middle of the room.
– “Mota? This is Sintu… what is the situation at your home? How are dada and Boudi?”
– “Oh Sintu, Boudi is a little high. She wants to play Antakshari.. dada is still here, he looks fine. I will call you if I can’t handle them.”
Sintu was saying something, but my brother suddenly whispered at me;
– “Bhai, you and Sintu get high everyday, I know. Ask Sintu if he can suggest something… you know, that will normalise the condition of your Boudi”
I was about to protest on that ‘you get high everyday’ comment, but decided that it was not the time. So I asked Sintu if he knew a remedy to take the edge off my Boudi, and bring her back to normalcy. Sintu paused for a moment and shared his knowledge on what to do when someone is out of control after consuming alcohol, weed and even harder drugs. He also told me all the things we shouldn’t do in this situation, to avoid making things worse, but ended this advice session with remarkably useless words;
– “Mota, I know what to do for alcohol, weed and all such stuff, but I am not sure about Siddhi”
I hung up the phone and explained this to my brother, who seemed disappointed, and asked me how bad was the condition of his wife. I told him that she was a little high, but that was normal. What she needed now is to get some sleep, and it would be in the best interest of everyone, if my brother saw to that and persuaded her to go to sleep. She would be fine after a few hours. My brother than looked towards me and said;
– “Bhai, I am also worried about mother”
I suddenly realised that it had not even crossed my mind, to ask about my mother. Since my father was not home, my mother had slept in the bedroom downstairs, all by herself. This room was just next to the living room, with its closed wooden window facing the stairway. When we needed to wake them up for something, we would usually knock on the wooden window and my mother or father would hear it and open their door for us. So, after my brother reminded me, I walked a few steps and knocked on the closed wooden window a few times. There was no response.
-“Do you think she might be dead?” my brother asked in a low voice. I turned and snapped at him;
– “What rubbish! She must be sleeping, something that you and Boudi should also do. Stop talking nonsense!”
From a distance I could hear my Boudi’s voice;
– “Where did you guys go? I am all alone in the dark and I think there is someone under the bed!”
We looked quizzically at each other and I told my brother that if he was not going, I would go up and place the candle in their bedroom, so Boudi could at least feel safer. Just then, the phone rang one more time! It was Sintu, again;
– “Mota, how is your brother? And your Boudi?”
I almost shouted at him and reminded him that it was barely five minutes since our last telephone chat, when I asked him for remedies. Sintu laughed at me and replied;
– “You are stoned! That was over an hour back. I am sitting right next to the phone and waiting for your call. How are they now?”
It occured to me that Sintu himself had enjoyed a few glasses, and it was probably expected that he was also high, and that had probably made him over concerned, making him call me three times already. I warned him with a stern voice;
– “Sintu, everything is fine here. Let go of the telephone and go lie down on your bed. Get some rest, my family has me here, but if you are out, who will take care of you?”
Sintu admitted wryly that he was indeed wasted, and promised me that he won’t call again. He even told me that he was feeling helpless and was almost at the verge of waking up people in his house, but decided to call me instead, and now he felt much better. He concluded by assuring me that he would be fine, or so he thinks.
As I hung up, I thought for a moment and kept the telephone receiver away from the socket this time, so Sintu couldn’t call me again. Sintu can handle himself, my dada and Boudi cannot!
