As the early teenage years are etched distinctly in everyone's mind, a few memories have left their indelible footprints on my memory lane as well. The incident I am going to narrate is of the days when I must have been in 7th class.
My father was Deputy Chief Engineer at UP State Bridge Corporation Ltd, Lucknow. The house we lived in at that time was in a colony provided by the government undertaking UPSBCL. That colony was maintained in a building which was a three-storied apartment with 6 houses on each of its 1st and 2nd floors. On both 1st and 2nd floors, our colony’s apartment building had a common staircase in the middle with 3 houses on both sides of the stairs.
While there was a common terrace on the 3rd floor, the ground floor had well-maintained beautiful lawns in front of each set of the 3 houses.
All the houses in that colony had only 2 rooms in each. Our house, which was house number 4, was first in the second set of 3 houses on the first floor. Between our house and the staircase in the middle of the apartment building, there was another room with an attached washroom, a separate balcony and of course a separate door for entrance or exit. This additional 1 room with the attached washroom and a balcony was there on all the 3 floors of the colony. The reason for building such rooms was obviously to provide an ad hoc accommodation space for any visiting officials of the company.
There was also a door in the second rooms of the houses built near the stairs on both 1st and 2nd floors which opened into the additional rooms on these floors. But these connecting doors had always been kept locked by the company.
As our house, house number 4, was in the corner it too had this additional room on our floor attached to it and as already told the connecting door was kept locked. Now, perhaps because my father was the most senior officer in the colony, the connecting door between our house and the additional room was soon unlocked and made available to us as the 3rd room in our house. While we, 3 sisters, took it as a luxury, our friends in the neighbourhood eyed us with mixed emotions of jealousy and respect. Jealousy from those who considered us their equals and respect from those who were aware of our father’s seniority status and therefore looked upon us with a feeling of distinction and respect.
In my family, there were 6 of us- 2 parents, the 3 daughters and 1 domestic help Sukhlal. The 6th person, who I have just introduced as the domestic help, had been in the family longer than any of us, the 3 children in the house and hence was more of a family member than just a domestic help. All 3 of us used to address him as Sukhlal Bhaiya. My eldest sister, Charu Didi, was in college pursuing her graduation in Science. My other sister, Parul Didi, was studying in class 9th in one of the multiple schools operated by Aligarh Muslim University situated in Aligarh.
My mother had 4 brothers and 2 sisters with each having their own family except one of my aunty’s who was yet not married. So my maternal grandparents, who used to live in Aligarh, had a huge family. It often happened that there would come up one or the other family event in my mother’s immediate or distant family. As a result, she, who is the eldest of her siblings, would get called to be part of the family gatherings in Aligarh.
Now that Sukhlal Bhaiya was well-trained to take care of the needs of the household and my middle sister was already staying there for her studies, my mother had little inhibition to make occasional trips to Aligarh. All the more we used to look upon these trips as the opportunity for my mother to check on the well-being of my sister. So, it happened that once my mother had gone to Aligarh to attend to some urgency in my maternal parents’ house. As the rest of us could not be spared from our obvious engagements- Charu didi and me from our respective educational institutions and my father from his office, my mother had gone all alone by herself.
At the time of the incident, which I am about to narrate, there were only 4 of us in the house- my father, Charu didi, Sukhlal Bhaiya and me. Bhaiya was responsible for all our domestic needs so he used to take care of our meals and the cleanliness of the house. In the mornings, he would prepare our breakfast and pack our lunch boxes for the day. After breakfast, my father would leave for his office and we 2 sisters for our educational institutions. We would come back home only in the evenings at our respective home times. All through the day, Sukhlal Bhaiya would stay at home waiting upon our return. Occasionally, he used to keep some goodies ready for us to have in the evening snacks.
All was well, until one evening when we came back home, we came to know that there was somebody stationed in the room annexed to our house, which was now the drawing room of our house. They were 2 adult males, who seemed exceptionally quiet and a little too authoritative for our comfort; making demands for food and other supplies from Bhaiya but making no attempt to speak to the 2 of us sisters or inquire about the well-being of the house or its owners.
In suppressed tones, we enquired about them from Bhaiya. And all he could tell us was not sufficient to fend off our curiosity. As per Bhaiya they were my father’s acquaintances and had visited us to meet him. With little choice, we mutely accepted the strange visitors as some distant paternal relatives and waited for my father to come back from his office.
The way those 2 men were smoking and talking to each other in hushed voices made us feel uncomfortable. Also, the way they were ordering Sukhlal Bhaiya around and demanding things from him left us, the 2 sisters, curiously intimidated by their presence in our house.
Now that I think back about it, I wonder why we didn't go and demand their identity. I still believe that my elder sister who is almost 7 years older than me had asked them to introduce themselves and if I am not wrong their answer, whatever it was, had left us even more bewildered than before. So, we had little choice but to wait fervently for our father’s return.
Eventually, the fortune favoured us and our father returned from his office. We, the aggrieved 3, accosted him with a justifiable note of curiosity mixed with annoyance for the strange visitors relaxing in our drawing room.
My father, who was usually a short-tempered person, felt intrigued. Fuelled with zeal to unravel the 2 mysterious strangers who had so far been enjoying the hospitality they had so unwelcomingly demanded of the poor souls, my father charged towards the drawing room.
As he closed the door after entering the drawing room, we were left waiting for his return in anticipation. To ensure all was ok, my elder sister sent Sukhlal bhaiya with a tray laid with water and snacks. Mostly, it was to check upon the proceedings inside the room and also because our father had just returned from office and we knew that he might be thirsty.
When Bhaiya stepped out of the room smiling, we stared at him with questioning looks. Soon we were told that Father had sent him back without allowing him to offer any of the tray’s contents.
Minutes later, we heard the sound of the exit door of the drawing room which was being latched by my father. As he emerged from the drawing room we looked towards him expectantly. My father simply denied having known either of those two people. He told us that they were none but some unknown trespassers who he had just shown out from our home.
Considering the way he was worshipped by the people around me, I, the youngest of the 3 children in the house, used to look upon my father as some super-human being. I therefore literally hoped that my father would have executed those 2 strangers for having trespassed in our house but no such thing happened.
My father, just as the gentleman, as he had always been, did not seem much moved. He simply instructed Sukhlal Bhaiya to not entertain any visitors unless so instructed by our mother or our father himself; after that, he instructed us all to get back to our usual chores while he began his evening routine of relaxation and watching his favourite evening shows on the television.
As for me, I kept discussing that evening for many days to come and with what colours we narrated that evening again and again to our mother upon her return!! Till today, I wonder and what intentions they had behind their strange visit to our house!!!
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