Night Hunting :

(Prologue) 

And taking my heart in my head, I knocked on the window……

Sorry, this is not the way to begin a story, I reckon. So, let me begin at the beginning.

On a starry night when there was a bright silver moon out in the sky, I was out on a mission. As the moon cast a hypnotic spell over the tall trees and the gurgling stream passing underneath, lending a magical feeling to the atmosphere, I knew that I had to accomplish my mission that very night or never. 

I had been hiding in the cowshed for nearly an hour. In the dark, I could make out the silhouettes of the cattle. They were very quiet but for the occasional swaying of their tails to drive away the swarm of flies on their heads or backs. 

I found the stench of the shed unbearable and the wet ground beneath my feet behind the haystack where I was hiding, unnerving. Mewong was famous for its leeches and anyone with any knowledge of the blood-sucking monsters, can tell you that leeches love wet places. 

I kept feeling my ankles and knees continuously, scared that a small reddish blood-sucker would be stuck somewhere. I tried recollecting the name of the Hindu God who, so I learnt from my late mother, protected anyone in trouble. It was just then that I heard someone entering into the room above. 

"No, I'll be leaving for the city early in the morning," I heard her tell someone softly before closing the door from inside. The thought of the door gave me goosebumps again. But at that hour of the night, I couldn't think of anything else other than the house owner's pretty daughter, Yeshey, the lass who had stolen my heart at first sight. I waited for her to get into the bed, 

The movements of her feet on the wooden floor above were somehow comforting and helped subside the loud hammering of my heart. I imagined her loosening the belt around her waist to disrobe before easing herself into the bed, and, most probably, pulling the blanket up to her shoulders as well. 

Soon a pin-drop-silence engulfed the whole area including the room above. I made some quick mental calculations. The village lad came at around 12 the previous night. Most probably, he would come at the same time tonight. If I had to get under the blanket beside her, I had to do it right then. 

I stepped out of the shed stealthily and looked up at the uneven stone wall leading up to her room. It couldn't have been any higher than ten feet above the ground. From where I was standing, all I needed to do was to place my feet carefully on a few of the protruding stones and I could get hold of the window sill within no time. 

The climb up was not as difficult as I had envisaged. The moonlight made my task easier. As I pushed myself up clinging on to the lower part of the yellowed window frame, my right foot slipped. I could have fallen down with a thud had I not caught hold of a bamboo fixated into the mud covered stone wall just in the nick of time. Beads of sweat were trickling down my cheeks by then. I stood still in that precarious position with my right hand clipped into the wooden base of the window frame for nearly a minute or two before placing both hands on the sill and pulling myself up and out of danger. 

Standing outside the window, I decided to KNOCK then. 

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                         (Part -1) 

I was a frustrated youth not doing anything worthwhile with my life when I landed up with a job in the hilly town, Mewong. Mewong, by the way, was not very well known to people in our part of the world. 

My parents, my siblings, all my relatives, were totally against my taking up the job. My friends were not very encouraging or enthusiastic either. The lifestyle would be hard, they said. The place itself - horrible. The food - horrid and there might not be any electricity. Someone even went to the extent of stating that the Mewong people were man-eaters. He had heard it from a relative. But I had already made up my mind. So, at the fag end of the year, I left for Mewong. 

It took me almost a week to get to the Regional Office where I was asked to report though it couldn't have been more than seven hundred kilometers away from my own place. The Regional Officer looked at my appointment letter and directed me to go further up to the Headquarters to find out about my place of posting. 

I had to wait for the next ten days to know that I was going to be sent to a very remote place. Finally, I arrived at my destination almost two weeks after my departure from my hometown.

I had already been informed by the Director that there was a Science teacher from Pune, Mumbai, accompanying me in the vehicle provided by the Department for our journey to Jangsa village. We were going to be working in the only school in that village. 

To cut a long story short, we got to Jangsa by noon. We were introduced to the Headmaster and offered tea and biscuits. Temporary arrangements were made for us to stay in a room some two hundred meters above the school. After a week, we were shifted to a house, a stone's throw from the school. 

Mr. Shivaji Rao, for that was the name of the Science teacher, and I became friends. He was a good man and loved cooking, something I detested more than anything else. After school, he would change into his pyjamas, turn on the transistor to listen to the news and start cooking while I tried to wash the rice and peel the vegetables.

After a few months, there were some differences between the two of us. I thought that he was stingy. As we had decided to go Dutch over our monthly expenses, he once rightly asked me to pay fifty paise as he had purchased a match box for a rupee. I also found his way of dressing, using the same dress for a week (due to the extreme cold), his habit of being unkempt - loathsome.

Shivaji, on the other hand, was a decent man so, he preferred to keep silent against the allegations. By then, I had made a few local friends. Besides, the students were getting fond of me. I decided to shift to the house opposite and stay in a room all by myself. 

On a Saturday, I went with a student to that house in the afternoon and met the owner, Norzang. She was a very nice lady and informed me that they would be happy to have me as their tenant. 

On the following Sunday, I asked four students to come to where I was staying to help me with the packing and shifting. Shivaji looked hurt and spent most of the day washing near the stream. The fault was entirely mine, I admit, as I had not given any prior information to him about my intentions. 

On Sunday, Norzang asked me to spend that night in the dingy room at the bend of the staircase below. She also informed me that her daughter was not at home and therefore, she couldn't inform her (the daughter) about my shifting. It transpired that the small dimly-lit room was where the daughter usually stayed. 

I told her not to worry, went down to wash my hands and face from the stream nearby. On returning, I bade the students good bye and decided to have an early dinner like I told you earlier. 

The new place couldn't sleep well due to sheer exhaustion. Hardly had I closed my eyes when something thrust its head in through the door. I sat up helplessly in bed and searched for the torch under the pillow. I also made sure that the blunt sword that a student had given me 'for protection' on that day itself, was under the pillow as well. In the torch light, at first I mistook it for a bear. Jangsa was a sleepy village with hills all around. There were times when a bear would come down to the village for the apples in the orchards. 

I leapt out of bed to see if I could save myself by pressing against the solid, wooden door. Hurt, the beast started whimpering and ran down the steps. I heaved a sigh of relief. After the dog was shooed away, I got back to my room and thought of latching the door. It was only then that I found out that the latch was missing. 

God! Of all the places, why did I have to stay in a place like that?

I looked for the chair and placed it against the door so nothing could get inside when I was asleep. I also made sure that the blunt sword was tucked safely under the pillow. As I was about to plunge into the bed, the string of my Bata chappals snapped and I had to use a safety pin underneath the rubber sole so that the string wouldn't snip again.

I fell asleep in the next fifteen minutes or so. 

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                          (2) 

I met Yeshey the next morning when the house owner invited me to breakfast with them. 

On entering the kitchen-cum-dining room, I saw some eight to nine members, seated in a semicircle around the fire. There was the old grandfather, grandma, Norzang, who obviously was their daughter, a couple of children alongside Yeshey, with her head bent at the other end. 

"Come, Sir. Please take your seat beside my father," Norzang told me, pointing to the weather-beaten, withered man. The heavy door creaked as I closed it behind me. The room was unbearably smoky. 

I sat down, cross-legged, on the floor beside grandfather, who, despite his rough exterior, looked respectfully at me and moved up a little to make way for me. 

Norzang then served me some rotis, a bowl of curry and a mug of steaming tea. 

The unfamiliar surroundings had a lot to do with my disturbed sleep. Besides, I was hungry as I couldn't light up the gas stove to warm up the dinner and ate little.

I retired to bed early and barely slept for an hour before the nightmarish experience I am going to narrate now, happened. 

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                             (3) 

I was awakened by the thin ray of light sneaking through the chink in between the two wooden slabs of the window. Awakened, I realised that the annoying sound of someone trying to break open something was what actually woke me up. 

Where was the sound coming from? My instant reaction was to look vertically at the door on my left, but no, it held firmly against the chair. Should I put on the light? I asked myself. No, that wouldn't be the right thing to do either. 

I lay in the semi darkness of the room, not knowing what to do. 

WHACK! WHAM! BOOM! 

The noise was getting louder. I looked straight in front but there was only a muddied stone wall. On a string that went from one corner of the room to the other hung a few of my clothes that I wore earlier in the day. 

WHAM! BOOM! 

I turned my head around towards the window then. I was surprised to see the window shaking like there was a tremor or something. I nearly tumbled out of bed. But no, had there been an earthquake, the bed would be shaking as well. I looked more intently at the chink in between the slabs that fitted quite well into one another. 

BOOM! 

It was then that I noticed what looked like the V-shaped end of a stick. It didn't take me long to make out that someone was trying to frighten me from outside trying to open the window with the stick. 

Why would someone do that, especially on the first night of my shifting to this house? 

I switched on the light then. The noise stopped and so did the shaking of the window. 

I got out of bed, walked up to the window, opened it wider and looked down. Other than the full moon in the eastern end, there was no one down there in the small strip of land that bordered the entrance of the house. 

Was there anyone tapping against the window or did I imagine the whole thing? With an agitated mind, I coughed up a few times before closing the window tightly shut. 

Hardly had I got back to the cot and under the quilt, when the two slabs of the window were flung open again from outside, letting me glimpse something that looked like the upper end of a thigh! It was yellowish white and bloodless! 

Now, though I read and watched a lot of ghost stories in my childhood, for reasons not very clear to me till date, even in the middle of that eventful night, I couldn't take that thing for an apparition or a ghost. 

All of the naked thigh, in the meantime, was thrust inside and it was trying to get a foothold or something. I forgot to tell you that just before going to bed, I had removed the small tool from near the window to a corner. The thigh moved right and left, and not finding what it was looking for, suddenly got speedily withdrawn. 

The whole thing happened so fast that I find it meaningless trying to put it into words. Anyway, having taken the blunt sword from under the pillow, I fumbled for my chappals, the one for the right foot put into condition with the help of a safety pin, and went outside with the torch in hand. 

I must have spent the next half hour trying to look for someone hiding behind a tree or in the makeshift latrine at the other end of the house. Not a soul was to be seen anywhere. Dejected, I climbed back up the stairs and got into my room.

I could only catch some sleep in the wee hours of the morning. 

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                            (4) 

I couldn't get Yeshey out of my mind for the whole of the next day at school. During the tea-break, I asked my best friend, Tshering, if he could help me solve the riddle. 

The moment I stopped narrating the incident of the previous night, Tshering broke into a uproarious laugh. 

"Ho, ho, Banerjee, it must have been that street-fighter of a lad from the village." He ran his hand over the nasty scar around his chin as if recollecting something before continuing, "Now, let me tell you about the practice prevalent, Night Hunting in Jangsa. Boys, even men come for young unmarried girls, in the middle of the night. They secretly climb up the wall and spend the night with their beloved. They leave early in the morning, making no one any wiser about their love affairs."

Tshering took a deep breath and concluded, "That rascal must have come last night for your house owner's pretty daughter. As she couldn't inform her lover about her absence, he tried to get in through the window as usual, realised something was wrong as you had already removed the tool he used for a foothold, and left hurriedly. You get me?"

He started laughing heartily again. The whole thing was making sense to me now. 

Night hunting? How very thrilling! 

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                    (Epilogue)

After school, I scampered back to my new place. On waking up earlier in the day, I brought the tool back to where it was the day before - near the window. I was surprised to see a giant-sized egg, the biggest I had seen in my life, lying in the drawer of the tool. I thought of giving it to Norzang but they had all gone out tilting the field by then. 

No sooner did I hand over the egg to Norzang than she gave it back to me. 

"Sir, when Yeshey was staying there a hen must have strayed into the room and laid the egg there. It is yours, a gift from me. "

I was going to refuse her when I caught Yeshey looking at me from behind Norzang. She was back and looking as serene as ever. As our eyes met, I didn't miss the glint in her eyes.

"Thanks. You know, I love meeting people and making friends. Is it all right to explore the place after dinner?" I asked Norzang, hoping that my message would register with the stunner.

"Please don't go out at night. People tell stories of… "

"Don't worry. I ain't afraid of ghosts, if that's what you have in mind , but I hate human ghosts, who are more harmful." I blurted out, not taking my eyes off Yeshey's even for a second. Did they display any shame?

"Ok, Sir. If you really insist, please be careful," Norzang said.

"I will. Though I am not sure if anyone here will be interested in making friends with an outsider, " I replied.

"Come on, Sir. Girls here can't seem to stop talking about you. That you are the best teacher, the most handsome.. "

My laughter made her stop and I thought it was time to leave. 

That's how, using the same window and the tool, I got into Yeshey's room that night, and subsequently into her heart.