During my young
days, something that scared me most was a fire. It had to something with a memory
that is permanently etched in my mind. On one of those days, when I had come
home from school, I had found everyone in the house collected in the backyard
and looking towards something far ahead. I could see nothing because of a thick
tall hedge that was planted along the fence of our house. All I saw was heavy black
smoke that had ballooned in the sky like a giant black ball. I begged everyone
to lift me up and show me what was happening. No one really complied with my
request as they were too much engrossed in watching something that was
happening. Finally, my father, taking pity on me, lifted me in his strong arms
and I still vividly remember what I saw, even when so many decades have passed
since.
Our house was
situated at the far end of a stretch of a wilderness area that mostly consisted
of low earthen mounds interspersed with low rocky outcrops and quite a few thorny
“Babhul” or Gum Arabic bushes scattered around. At the other end of the
wilderness, began the low rocky foot hills of Western Ghat Mountains. As I
recollect, some people connected with milk business had established a huge
cowshed or a barn that was popularly known as "Gavaliwada," near the base of the foothills with scores of bovines tied
inside to wooden poles firmly fixed in the ground. I remember my mother
complaining to my father before this incident happened, about the foul smell of
cow dung hanging in air all the time. The entire barn structure was supported
by wooden poles with woven bamboo mats as substitute for walls and thatched
roofs. Apparently, some shepherds also stayed there alongside, though in separate
huts of similar construction. On that fateful day, this entire cowshed complex
was lit in bright red orange flames that seemed to touch the skies. So vast was
the fire, that I watched it spell bound, before my father put me down again.
Readers may not believe but the fire created such a scare in my young mind then
that for months later, I would see the flames in my dreams and would wake up
crying.
Being near such wilderness
area and also in the vicinity of an irrigation canal, our house was often
visited, by a few uninvited guests of a creepy kind. On many a days, I would
see the wavy tracks left by some giant slithery visitor left in the soft clay
in our yard. At least four or five times every year, these guys would cross
their limits and would be found taking refuge under the moist soil in the area
where a few banana trees used to thrive on wastewater in our backyard or amongst
stone piles created for no specific purpose that would be lying around. My
father usually shot them to pieces with his twelve bore gun. I was always
scared of these guys then, but now I think that the main reason for my fear was
my great grandmother, who would threaten and warn me about not going into back
yard, where she used to grow vegetables; as if it was infested with snakes.
At a slightly older
age, one of my uncles once took me against my mother’s wishes, to watch some horror
film that had vampires in key roles. After watching the film; I was scared of
vampires to the core. For long length of time afterwards, I sincerely believed
that I would come across one of them with arms spread across with a scarlet
robe hanging from them and glistening silvery fangs projecting out from its villainous
mouth. I even dreamed of these characters sometimes.
I am aware that
readers may ask me as to why am I recollecting and describing these childhood
scares, when they are so much out of place and now irrelevant. Living in the middle of the city,
I must be now free from all such scares. Dear readers, nothing can be far from
truth. To be frank, I am as scared even now, as I was then. My ventures in
scare lands continue as before; only the
causes or reasons have changed.
My biggest scare
today is the traffic around my house. It so happens that just outside my house,
there are traffic controlling lights that keep on their green-amber-red cycles
throughout the day. This in theory should be a pleasing proposition, because it
is supposed to bring orderliness around. But it does not, believe me! Adventurous
riders and drivers of Pune consider it below their dignity or pride to obey
such silly orders that too are given by a mere machine in form of blinking of
some idiot coloured lights. Come red or green, they simply march ahead. Another
peculiar feature of these young explorers is that whenever they realize that
they need to slow down to avoid a crash with the vehicle ahead, they vent out
their anger on their vehicle horn. Sitting in the house, these horn sounds give
me a feeling all the time. that I am watching
a Z grade movie with an equally horrendous sound track. Yet all this would pale in comparison, when I
am actually on the road, driving my car. Usually I get dry lips and sore
throat, the moment I take my car outside my compound. Like the molecular motion
discovered by Einstein, modern two wheeled molecules whirr and breeze past my
car from all directions; from front, back and sides of the car. I have since
given up my silly old age notions like being on wrong side of a road, giving
proper driving signals or not cutting corners while turning etc. etc.
Mu second big scare
these days is the crowd on the streets. You can go anywhere, streets, shops,
restaurants, cinema halls, book-stores; the places are always filled with
people. I often wonder, whether it would be good thing not to allow people out
on the streets after mid-night, like they used to do a few centuries ago.
People drive at midnight like crazy, shop and eat at well past midnight. I feel
terribly irritated, when I am woken up at 3 AM by loud talking and laughing of
crowds merrily walking on streets, as if it is day time. I often wonder why
these people do not find 12 hours of a day enough for their activities and
leave night time alone, for people, who want to get some sleep.
There are some
minor scares too. One is about eating out. There are so many eating joints,
snack bars and restaurants near about my house that I have lost the count. They
all however follow one standard, of dishing out tasteless, oily stuff that is given
some high sounding French or Italian or at least Yanki name. Even for Indian dishes, the basic brew is
always found to be the same, only the additives like meat, chicken or eggs are
changed. The restaurants also seem to have a wrong notion that all over India, only
Punjabi food is loved and eaten. I have become so much averse to eating out
these days that I try and avoid it as far as possible.
Every morning I go
for a walk. Just round the corner, there is an area on the side of the road (that
includes portion of foot path too) used for storing garbage heaps for onward
distribution. Every morning, I see mini mountains of the collected garbage. It
so happens that we have there, a very efficient supervisor, who manages to get
the place devoid of any garbage efficiently managing the staff. Last year, there was some problem with onward
garbage disposals, with the result that mini mountains of garbage that I see
every day, had changed to midi-mountains extending their bases to road proper. I
am really scared these days about the garbage and often wonder, what would
happen, if the super-efficient garbage disposal staff is unable to do their work
of moving the Garbage Mountains. I shudder even to think about what may befall
on us then.
I can go on and on,
but would rather restrict myself to my main tormentors of today in this tour of scare
land. Readers must have realized by now
that I have always been a much scared person; as a child or as an adult. Only the villains
keep changing all the time. There is no escape really.
24th
October 2015
