I hated our ancestral house. It was an Assam-type house that had stood the trials of time. My family was attached to the sentimental value of the home and refused to sell it, but now it lay in disarray due to the lack of care.
After my koka and aaita (Grandparents) died, the condition of the house deteriorated. I had asked my parents to sell it, but they refused. Instead, they pestered me to move there and fix the house and to my utter regret, I gave in to their incessant requests.
It has been two days since I moved to our ancestral house. The past two days have not been pleasant. On top of my work, I have had to find extra time to fix the decrepit house but the only thing that has been bothering me was the Nayantara (graveyard plant) plant near the bedroom window. It had been almost twenty years since I last saw it. The plant should have been dead but there it was, near the bedroom window, still bearing pink flowers, a source of beauty in a yard brimming with weeds.
The Nayantara plant had unearthed repressed memories and I had buried them for a reason. These memories had haunted me for much of my childhood and now I refuse to suppress them further, I must confront them.
Eighteen years ago, I used to stay in this house. It was a joint family comprising my parents and me, my grandparents, and my mother’s younger brother. My mama (mother’s younger brother) had a very passionate affair with a woman from another religion. He was smitten by her and went against the family’s wishes and married her. In a conservative society in the 80s, in Assam India, it created quite a ruckus, but my mama stood up for her, and eventually, the family accepted the marriage. The lady he married, my maami, eventually converted to our religion and changed her name to Runima.
My mama and Runima maami had a relationship brimming with love and respect. As a child, I adored them and they in turn adored me. Runima maami was quite fond of me and treated me as her daughter. She was the light of our family, but she was stricken with grief as she could not conceive. My mother told me that Runima maami was obsessed with me. She would repeatedly tell me, “I will take you. You are like my baby. I will take you”. She used to say these words with such affection that they left an impression.
Within two years of their marriage, Runima maami suffered from sudden health complications and passed away. The bright candle of my mama’s life was snuffed, and he was stricken with the kind of grief that makes me shudder to reminisce. A pall of gloom had descended on our family; I was still a child unable to process the severity of the grief and went about my day as usual.
It was on the tenth day of the rituals and there was a small feast held in the memory of Runima maami. The entire family sat outside, huddled together in the dim glow of two lanterns, and I went to Runima maami’s room to sleep. I still cannot fathom why I had gone to that room to sleep but I did.
Soon, I heard a knock. A faint tap. I paid no heed and kept trying to sleep. The taps became a little louder, so I went to investigate. I removed the curtain from the window to see if there was someone but there was nothing. I returned to the bed only to be startled by three loud taps. The taps almost seemed friendly, perhaps like a calling, and in an impulsive decision, I decided to open the window. A wave of cold breeze engulfed me as soon as I opened the window but to my surprise, everything was calm outside. It was an unsettling eerie calm, the leaves of the trees did not move, and neither the chirping crickets made a sound. It was dark and not even the fireflies were visible tonight. I bought my tiny torch and pointed it outside and what I saw still fills me with dread. Every tree stood still, and their stillness seemed unnatural, almost as if they were forced to be still. Only one plant kept oscillating back and forth, the movements seemed unnatural, as if someone was physically moving it, and that plant was the Nayantara plant that Runima maami had planted when she first set foot in the house. I felt a chilling cold on my cheeks, the cold felt unnatural, it felt like fingers caressing my cheeks and I was transfixed. I do not remember how long I stood there but I remember my mother pulling me away from the window, shutting it, and then scolding me. As the window was being shut, I saw from the corner of my eye that the Nayantara plant now shivering violently. My mother gave me an earful that night and took me to another room and put me to bed. Soon, I forgot about that incident. Then something else happened after three days.
My mama was very close to my mother, and she was very affectionate with him. My mama was broken by his beloved wife’s death and that night, he had gone to sleep as usual on their bed. That night, my mother went to fetch some water to drink and crossed my mama’s room. A chill had descended that night which was unusual as winters still had announced its baleful presence in Assam. As she passed his room, my mama woke up suddenly, his eyes had turned a shade of crimson red and resonated with a cold fury, and he charged at my mother. My mom could not discern what was happening and instinctively ran to the kitchen, and my mama followed her growling and screaming, like a feral dog. He cornered her in the kitchen and was about to pounce on her as my mother broke down in tears. Almost akin to the lifting of a trance, my mama whispered ‘No, no, no’ and the red hue in his eyes disappeared. Wordlessly he returned to his bed and fell asleep. He seemed defeated.
My mother narrated this to me after I grew up and I rationalized that the trauma of Runima maami’s death must have triggered my mama and his mental health must have been affected. Years have passed since those incidents; my mama remarried and has a family now. My mother too moved on from these incidents as years passed.
The reader must be wondering why I am writing all of it down after all these years. It is because I am standing in the same fateful room now and for the past hour, there have been incessant taps on the windowpane. The taps have grown in fervour after every minute and through the glass, I see the same Nayantara plant fluttering. The night is eerily quiet, the overgrown weeds are as still as a dead body, but the Nayantara plant moves. I think I will open the window. It’s time.