The Ruins

     THE RUINS

I was looking up at the sky and thinking about how the absence of the moon makes the sky look so empty; like how a smile would look- empty and hollow on a dead man’s face. I wouldn’t call myself superstitious but i do associate the word dead with something scary and eerie, maybe it was all the stories we would hear as kids. These thoughts lead me back to my good old school days when the four of us-Diya, Jigmee, Arsalan and Damini(that’s me) used to be so interested in the afterlife that we were convinced that we could communicate with spirits. We all pitched in and bought a wooden Ouija board with a smiling moon on its black cover. I think it was the abandoned wooden shed with a broken window, covered with withered creepers and right next to the concrete birdbath that added to the eeriness and enhanced our experience of calling spirits. I always suspected Arsalan to very subtly move the coin in response to the questions we’d ask it. But the only thing I could never figure out was how the flame of the candle grew bigger when we’d get a yes from the spirit. The sound of my pestering ringtone brought me back to the realistic world of tangible beings. “bijlii!” shouted Jigmee like how a person with his earplugs shouts even though there’s perfect silence and he is completely audible. “You better not ditch us this time, Jaisalmer awaits!” yelled jigmee.

 The four of us would be at the same city after three years. Arsalan was landing on the third of October from London, Diya and jigmee were flying down from Mumbai, I happened to stay in Delhi so didn’t have to do the initial travelling. We’d planned for a road trip to Jaisalmer ages back, but somehow it never worked out. We’d always end up going someplace else. This had happened at least four times. So after waiting for nine years, now wiser and with more pennies in our pockets, we were going to Jaisalmer and stay in the famous Kali Haveli-a five star hotel, in style.

It was unusually chilly for an early October morning on the day we were leaving for Jaisalmer. Jigmee and I reached the Delhi Zoom Car stand right next to the McDonalds in Patel Chowk dot on 6AM.The overenthusiastic, nervous girl that she’s always been, Diya reached at least half an hour before the scheduled time. Arsalan as usual was half an hour late. Diya paced back and forth the straight road lined with cars that looked quite dull perhaps because they were cloaked with mist; she was frantically dialing Arsalan’s number which rang for what seemed like an hour but ended with a long silent pause. “I’ll kill him if we get late; we’ll have to cover four hundred and sixty kilometers today to reach Bikaner. What is he thinking?” rattled Diya. Diya was on her seventh round when Arsalan came running with his tiny blue backpack looking out of place around his bony shoulder. The backpack reminded me of the same one he used to have as a kid back in school. “You havn’t changed one bit you lazybones!” I shouted. Diya almost dislocated his shoulder jerking him with all her might. “Didn’t you take a cab?” asked Jigmee. “Yeah well the traffic was really bad. Oh god! Just imagine guys after nine years!!”said Arsalan.

Jigmee who was the soul and spirit of our group had been awfully quiet that day, he looked a little pale. He told us it was because of the stress levels at work that messed up even his digestive system that made him look pale. This was a well-deserved break for all the four of us.

It was the second day of the road trip when we had stopped for lunch at the Heeralal dhaba after we’d left Bikaner. There were trucks parked outside the dhaba and you could see and smell the chicken butter masala th truck drivers were hogging, although the blood red color of the curry was a little putting off. Jigmee walked out in the middle of the meal for a smoke while the three of forced down the impossibly green palak paneer and bubblegum chewy laccha parathas. After the most disappointing meal of my life(it felt like I was eating the rubber soles of a chappal) I and Diya walked down the road to find a giantic bush or a tree while the boys went into the shop next to the Dhaba looking for some tuck for the road. I saw jigmee walk towards the car with a broad smile with four packets loaded with food. “Oh god! Where is Arsalan again?!” this time even I lost my temper. “Call him” said Diya. “Answer your phone man” Said jigmee as he saw Arsalan slyly walk back to the Black Cruize. “I cant help it! Its not working. I can’t receive any calls.” “That explains it” I told him.

Our phones showed two routes to jaisalmer from Hazratpur, the left was the shorter route. It said it was 280 kms from the left route and 340 kms from the right route. We decided to take the shorter route and save time. There were a few shops at the beginning of the road but I couldn’t see anybody inside the shops. Maybe they were inside cooking. It was around four in the evening by the time we had gone a few good miles into that route. “why can’t I see anything?” cried Diya. We all had fallen asleep, Arsalan was the only one awake, and he had to be as he was the driver. “I am following the map, it says it’ll take us another half an hour to the main road.” All we could see was miles and miles of dry and cracked ground. There was nothing around, not even builings, trees or people.

There was no sign of life. “Is anybody hungry?” asked jigmee. “My stomach’s been rumbling and Im really thirsty. Diya can you pass the water?” I asked. “We’re all out of water” said Arsalan. “I see smoke there. Can you guys see it?” Diya screamed in her high pitched voice. “Oh yes!” said Arsalan, “let’s do one thing, let’s leave the car here and walk towards the village that way we’ll save fuel and don’t have to worry about the car getting stuck. We’ll definitely get something to eat and some water.” As we were walking towards the smoke that seemed to be coming from a village, we noticed how deserted it looked. This village was in the middle of nowhere. You could hear the creaking doors because of the wind even from a distance. “S**t man, maybe we should go back. I have a bad feeling about this” said Arsalan. “Don’t be such a sissy man, c’mon! It’s just an old village. I could see the fear in Diya’s eyes, she was crushing jigmee’s palm. As we went nearer and nearer we suddenly realized that we couldn’t see the smoke any longer. Now all that we could see were old abandoned brick houses that didn’t have roofs. Not one house had a roof or any doors. There was not another soul other than the four of us. I started wondering what the creaking sounds were. Diya and Arsalan looked equally scared. “Bijlee, let’s go in and see whats inside.”said Jigmee with a ghostly smirk. “C’mon, let’s go guys!” I said excitedly. It was creepy but I was more curious than scared unlike those two who stood at the door and watched us as me and jigmee turned the flash lights of our phones to examine one of the houses.

“There’s something written here” said Jigmee. I went closer to see if I could read the text. “Looks like a signboard. Tourists who visit this area after sunset have reported experiencing a strange atmosphere which is filled with anxiety and restlessness.” I read out from the dilapidated signboard. Just as I was reading this, I heard a child’s laughter coming somewhere behind the signboard. Diya and Arsalan were screaming by now, Diya holding arsalan’s freezing hands begged both of us to come back. The laughter had stopped just in a few seconds. When Jigmee and I stuck our necks behind the signboard, there was nothing, absolutely nothing. I was done; I started feeling the creeps now.  As we were walking outside the house, we heard footsteps running toward the other room in the house. Jigmee ran after the sound and into the pitch darkness as if it was an involuntary action. “ I know them, its fine”, there were whispers. The first impulse for all of us was to shout “Jigmee!!”. All the three of us held hands and walked towards the other room. “I got you guys bad! Hahahaha!!” laughed Jigmee. “How was that funny? You almost gave us a heart attack” cried Diya. Arsalan pulled everyone out of the broken house. We knew there was something not right. It wasn’t fun anymore. All the four of us ran back to the car. We forgot about our hunger and our dry throats. With my shaky hands I somehow pushed the keys into the keyhole and started the car. I slammed the accelerater and could hear the roar of the engine as the car took off in full speed. We were out of the spooky lane and into the main road in an hour.

It was Jigmee’s turn to drive now. I and Arsalan sat at the back seat hugging each other. His embrace felt really cold but at the same time was comforting. Arsalan was fast asleep. I started noticing the familiarity of his bag, the memories of our childhood started flooding in again. I opened the bag to see if he still carried those round colorful candies in his backpack. To my surprise all that I could find in his backpack was a picture of the four of us. I looked at the picture for a while, my grasp became weak.. “Hey can you stop the car, I need to take a leak” said Arsalan who had just woken up. I was still trying to figure out when he got the time to print out and frame that picture, it was taken on the first day of that road trip, when I heard a shout from the front seat. A phone was passed onto me “hello, hello, did you hear what I said? Arsalan passed away on the 1^st of October.”