‘Truth is stranger than fiction’
This sounds super generic, but believe me, this is the best way I can sum up this story. A story so bizarre and peculiar that I am certain that it can’t come up from the pen of an author but rather from the mouth of an observer.
This happened around 50 years ago. It was a time of simple happiness, a time when rooster calls woke people up rather than the irritating noise of an alarm clock, a time when people woke up earlier than the Sun and went fishing rather than the till-10-o’clock beauty sleep and frozen meat breakfast. A time when the air was purer, the Ozone layer didn’t have an asshole and ‘my baby’ nicknames were age appropriate.
One morning, my grandpa’s sister suddenly woke up. It was still dark around, everyone still in their deep sleep but she could hear a noise… Not so loud so as to wake up the entire locality but still, vague and repetitive. Not a sound you expect to hear at such early hours. My grandpa’s sister was sleeping with her father and mother in one room, while my grandpa and grandma were sleeping in another room. Our house was a small two storied pukka house at that time, as we lived in a semi-urban neighborhood. We didn’t have that many people in our locality, just 3-4 families with the nearest being our next door neighbours.
Our next door neighbours were generational milkmen, selling milk to every house in our locality. They were quite rich, living in a bigger, fancier house than us. They even had their own cowshed, where they milked and took care of their 5-6 cows. They were our family friends since my grandpa and the head of that family, both of similar age, were friends since childhood. Both the families spent a majority of their daily hours in each others’ houses which speaks of the kind of relation that was prevalent in between the families. There was a feeble barricade between the entrances of both the families, which was more for show, than for use.
The noise kept continuing. My grandpa’s sister was now becoming anxious. ‘Just what can cause such an ominous noise ?’ She stood up and tiptoed her way out of the room, slowly closing the door behind her so as to not make any sound.
Coming out of the room, the noise grew louder although it was still unclear as to what was causing the noise. Still walking tiptoedly, she silently opened the front door and went outside. Outside, the noise was quite loud, and she finally figured out from where and from whom the noise originated. It was the sound of a cow wailing, as if it’s in a lot of pain, and it was definitely coming from our neighbors’ cowshed.
Being sure, she slowly removed the barricade from the entrance and went inside. The cowshed was on the other side of the house. As she was moving closer, the intensity of the noise kept increasing. She was still unsure as to what was the reason behind the cow’s wailing. As she reached the entrance of the cowshed, she slowly peered inside and what she saw terrified her to the core. The head of the family, her brother’s childhood friend was raping a cow, forcefully assaulting her, not heeding to the cow’s painful cries.
She couldn’t bear to watch anymore and ran home as quickly as she can. That morning, she told everyone about her observation and everyone felt disgusted. They decided to decrease their association with that family gradually and just keep everything under wraps. After a few days, news came that a cow had died in their cowshed. Everyone was crying there as they loved that cow dearly and in between their cries, they kept repeating that the cow was pregnant, so her calf also died with her which makes this even more heartbreaking. My entire family felt uncomfortable standing there, as they knew the entire story. And yes that was in fact the same cow.
It gets weirder from this point onwards. About a month later, the head of that family suddenly passed away. The local doctor said that it was a sudden bout of heart attack, that led to heart failure and finally death. It was strange as he was completely fit at that time. His cholesterol was within range, he had no underlying diseases and his facial expressions didn’t show any sign of struggle or discomfort.
Then, about 2 years later, the head of the family’s daughter in law became pregnant. Everything was going on fine when suddenly, her husband passed away. Sudden heart attack. When she reached her fourth week of pregnancy, her belly began to expand, not like a small belly bump, but like a balloon it started bloating. Tests revealed that her stomach was getting filled with water which was somehow drowning the fetus. The doctors tried everything; gave medicines, tried suction to remove the water, some even suggested acupuncture. Nothing worked. Two weeks later, she had a miscarriage.
From then onwards, this cycle kept repeating itself over and over again. Everytime someone got pregnant, who had even the bleakest relation to that family would suffer the same fate. Sudden heart attack. Miscarriage. I later heard from one of my relatives that as many as 20 people either died or had a miscarriage, who had either a direct or indirect link to that family.
To tell you the truth, when I first heard about this incident 2 years ago, I laughed. Being an educated, science student, all of this sounded like an adult version of the stories that my grandma used to tell me when I was a kid. Still the story stayed with me as in my mind, it was an excellent piece of fiction.
Until last year, when I went with my family to a distant relatives’ son’s wedding. Everything was as it was supposed to be : loud, flashy, overzealous. I was standing in one corner, with a glass of juice in my hand, watching the proceedings, when I heard my mother calling me.
When I reached there, she started introducing me to a girl, who, by the looks of it was in the last few weeks of her pregnancy. Mom said that the girl was one of the descendants of the family, who were neighbours to my grandpa’s family when grandpa used to stay in the village before shifting to my hometown. And then the story just flashed before my eyes. You see, mom didn’t know that my grandma had told me this story. I was visibly unnerved but somehow I composed myself, and in order to break the ice, asked a harmless question, ‘When’s the due date?’
Her response… removed any doubts that I had at that moment.
‘It has only been 5 weeks’