An Interesting neighbor I have had
Debrupa Chakraborty
(Class IX-DPS, Haridwar)
My
story starts on a very lazy afternoon. When my family and I were stretched out
in the verandah enjoying sweet -warm sunshine of a wintry afternoon in the
beautiful city of Nainital. Our cottage was perched on a hill in such a way
that despite being connected to the city it was connected to the paradise. From
our entrance one could see the hustle and bustle of the main city; tourist,
street hawkers, officers, school going children thronged the road. But I never
cared for the main city because my life was in the verandah which overlooked
the mountains. One could see an endless stream of mountains from there, some
green with pines and deodars while the ones further whose only tops can be seen
were white like a blank canvas .It felt that someone has spilled orange and
yellow color on during the rising and setting sun . I am sure that it was not
the case, but this is what I felt at that time. I was 6 an age when even the
smallest possible happening seemed to be magical. We never stayed at a place
for long. Because my father who worked at a private firm then, got transferred
regularly. We came to Nainital after a long and dusty stay in Gurgaon, because
of being transferred so regularly we always stayed on rent. This time too we were
on rent and our landlady owned not only one we were occupying but one more small cottage. One which she occupied herself.
Our landlady was an interesting character bent with age and energetic by
character. She had fluffy white hair like a white sugar candy. Wrinkled like a
crumbled paper. Always wearing a white sweater. The overall appearance made her
look like a snow ball walking here and there but I never told her that or never
actually got the chance to tell her that, because we had to leave that place in
a very short notice indeed. In the afternoon when we were enjoying sunshine. Our
landlady came to give us a visit. She often did that and we never found it
wrong. She was very friendly with a knowledge of thousands of house remedies
which she was eager to share with us. Even
if we found her remedies a bit… well to much to bear, we never told her that.
Like the one she told me when I had
caught conjunctivitis, “listen dear, do this remedy and you will never have
conjunctivitis again, boil a glass of water with red chilies ,black pepper and
green chilies and when it is boiling hot spill the whole content on your eyes
and your conjunctivitis will get washed away in a second”. I was at a point to
tell her that with conjunctivitis washing away my eyeballs will also be rolling
on the ground if I tried washing my eyeballs with that solution, but I stopped myself
because she had brought Burfies for me, which were my favorites. This time too
she had brought the finest Gulab jamuns and Burfies. But I was too lazy to go
and have one. So when mom asked whether I would have one I said “no, I will
have in the dinner.” Mom kept the plate on the dinner table and came out to
chat with our landlady. She seemed very restless that day and asked us to have
sweets saying that they are the finest in Nainital, ants might eat them, some
other insects might harm them, and we kept consoling her that our cat Goose
will protect the sweets. I told her that my cat was very obedient as I have
trained her she protects my things especially my sweets with utmost sincerity. But
she kept mumbling that we should have them; at last she got up to go back said
that she was sure that we would have them in dinner. And we consoled that we would
help ourselves on them. When at evening we came inside our dining room to my
parents surprise and my horror Goose had eaten every sweet and was ravishly
licking the plate. I shoed her giving her a nice scolding. She sulked in one corner
and I in the other corner. My parents consoled both us and asking me not to
tell our landlady that after all we were not able to have the sweets. She would
feel sad. I thought at that precise moment I was the saddest person but said
nothing and nodded in consent. After dinner we went to sleep but woke up at the
stroke of midnight bell when heard a tremendous metal clank from our landlady’s
house. At first we tried to ignore because it was every day that we heard these
types of sounds from our landlady’s house at night. We thought that the old
lady might be trying to shift something .But today is was different. The sounds
were accompanied by fiery sparks which we saw from our window .So we ran
outside to witness something that I am sure I would never witness again. We saw
her with a big ‘Degchi’. In which she was making some kind of concoction
emitting red and green fiery sparks. She was not bent at all but quite the
opposite and with great vigor she was moving a great spoon with tremendous
speed in the light of full moon. She suddenly scooped a glass out of nowhere
and scooped an amount of that solution and drank the boiling fiery concoction. I
was at point of yelling at her not drink that from behind the screen of
curtains from where we were watching. But my mother stopped me; at that precise
moment to both our amazement and horror she grabbed a broom and laughing like a
maniac she climbed it, up she went against the black background of the wintry
night. Accompanied by non-other than our cat Goose who was sitting at the rear
handle of the broom!!
I never found out whether
our landlady wanted us to accompany her like our cat did. Because if she did we
would never have had enough space on the broom, or did she made some other
arrangements. Well my father got us out of there on the first priority.
I sometimes wonder is our
landlady still flying or making those special sweets of her to get her tenants
fly around with her.
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