I will be soon moving away to college. And it gets me thinking about things I have always takne for granted. Lets see, like my house for instance. It has always been there for me. Through thick and thin, standing solid in the unbearable heat of the summer noon, or the raging thunderstorms of the monsoon or in the shivering teeth-chattering cold of the winters here in Patna. Its an old house. Its not centuries old. But still older than homes build around it, one of the oldest in the colony that I live in. My grandfather had it built when my father was still in college. My house is interesting, as houses go. I can never think of it as a structure built out of bricks,involving cement and paint and all other things. It has character and a personality of its own. I have lived all my life in this house( seventeen years to be precise). Since I was five till today that I am twenty-three, I still call it my abode, my sanctuary. I feel for it as I will feel for an old uncle or maybe a dear loved friend. I am in love with its every brick, every knook and corner. People who like to move around might think how I survived in cooped up in one place for so long. It's hard to explain but it feels different in every era. My school years from std one to tenth, it had a different atmosphere. In high school the house provided a differnt ambience. In college yet again it made me feel differently and today when I am preparing for my masters it feels different. Always new, always unknown.
The house has two stories. The upper one is occupied by my uncle who came to Patna when he retired as a mining engineer. He used to live in Nagpur before he came here. But he's another story for another time. Now some people might call my house a little scary as its old and old houses look quaint which in some cases gives it an air of mystery which in turn is related to being scary. My uncle came to live with us almost six years ago. The upper story(unoccupied before) was mostly used to store things. There was a lot of tras as one might find in an attic. Things that we would need and use, things that we dont use and might need at a later date and then again things that we would never need but which we were hesitant to throw away. Now, you must understand, that though the stories related with the house are not legends and not ,but they are all mysterious.
The house when built, stood alone in a wide open area. There were not many houses surrounding it. The loneliness, made it pleasant to some and fearful for others. For some it would be wide open expanses where freedom ruled and to others it might look far from civilization lonely and scary. (To me it has always been the former, until recent times when the colony has become over crowded with apartment buildings springing up in all directions.
My grandparentslived alone in the house with a small boy for a servant. It may not be right to call them lonely as they always had one grandchild or another staying with them for education purposes. It was my cousin, Seema Apa(for people who dont know what "apa" is, its the way you address any elder sister in urdu), at the beginning. She was at school in Patna and lived with our grand parents. My grandparents lived on the ground floor, but she lived on the upper one. Strong in heart and mind, it was not easy to scare her but she relates some spooky incidents that she encountered while she was here at school. Now there are two houses in teh same compound. One is my own and the other one belongs to a relative whom we call, Mumtaz(that was her name) Aunty. As far as I can remember it has always been there infront of her house, but at that time it was just being build. She relates that there was a ladder leaning at the side of the house up till the terrace at the top of it. It was a night when the moon was full enveloping everything in its silver light. You could see everything so clearly. She was studying in the room overlooking Mumtaz Aunty's house, when suddenly she noticed these dwarf like beings climbing down the ladder. When they reached the bottom of the ladder, they vanished, to her utmost chagrin!!!
