25. AN OTHERWORLDLY ENCOUNTER: A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE!

During my assignment with the Bank, I was posted as a Branch Manager at a rural Branch in Pratapgarh District in the State of Uttar Pradesh (translated in English as “Northern Province”).  

In December 1990, the Bank officers of HAL Township Korwa Branch located in Amethi district, some 45 kms from my Branch invited me to join them for a party in the HAL Club on New Year’s Eve and to ring in the New Year.

As the road connecting my Branch to Korwa (Amethi) was a single lane poorly maintained one, I decided to travel to Korwa on my scooter while there was still daylight and to reach there well in time before night fell, from a safety point of view.

I had gone but a short distance from the Branch on the lonely road when I reached a small village, where a little boy stood on the road blocking my path. I braked to a halt asking him what he wanted. On first impression he looked far more mature for his age. Without saying a word, he signalled to me that he wanted to hitch a ride on my scooter. I told him to hop on on the pillion seat. He did so and we had but travelled the length of the village when I felt a tap on my shoulder signalling for me to stop. He got off the scooter without so much as a grateful smile or a word of thanks for the short “joy-ride”, but kept looking at me with stern eyes, which seemed to be assessing/evaluating me in some strange way, thoroughly  disconcerting me.

Putting the incident behind me I concentrated on driving on the pot-holed road and had gone a good fifteen km. or so when I spotted another person, who seemed to be in his mid-twenties standing on one side of the road looking for a lift. He had a suitcase in one hand and a shoulder bag, as if ready for a long distance travel or for a long period. Both his suit case and  shoulder bag seemed to be from outdated styles , but then I thought that he was a village person and may not be doing well in life to replace his bags with modern styles. I asked him what was the matter and he spoke in laboured monosyllables in Hindi “Maa” (mother) “beemar” (sick). Naturally, I assumed that he was travelling to his home village to see his sick mother and like I had done for the boy before, I offered to give him a ride to his mother’s village. What bothered me was that he gave me the name of his mother’s village as one that I had not heard of and enquired about it from him.

 He kept silent, while he hopped onto my scooter and parked his suitcase between me and the pillion seat. I had to edge a little forward to accommodate the suitcase and felt its hard contours against my back. Awkwardly balancing my scooter, I drove on. I offered to help him out with his mother’s treatment because I knew some leading medical practitioners in town, but he only grunted in affirmation without saying a word. 

Suddenly, the lonely road bustled with oncoming traffic and I saw a huge public transport bus hurtling down the road at a fast pace forcing me to go off the road which did not have an apron, disbalancing the scooter and I had a tough time to keep myself from any physical injury.

I was livid with anger at this reckless driving by a Roadways bus driver and spoke angrily “What a careless fellow!! If I had not gone off the Road, he would have killed us.” I went into a tirade against the driver’s “criminal mentality” in not caring about the smaller vehicles on the road and I enquired from my pillion rider whether he was alright.  Given his propensity to maintain a stoic silence and as I still felt the contours of the suitcase against my back I presumed that he was alright. However, when I glanced to my right hand side while driving the scooter, I saw only my shadow in the light of the setting sun, and no shadow of my passenger which literally froze my blood!!

With apprehension I glanced back and was shocked to see that the pillion seat was empty although I still felt the suitcase propped behind me in my back. Perplexed, I stopped the scooter and got off to examine what had happened to my passenger. I even drove back for about a mile or so to find out whether he had fallen down when the hurtling bus had pushed us off the road and injured himself in the process. But although there were no trees on both side of the road and one could see without any hindrance for a reasonably long distance, to my horror, I could not see him anywhere.

I panicked and I drove my scooter at top speed, without looking back even once, reaching Korwa without any further incident.  All the officers who were waiting for me at Korwa were shocked to see me reach in a near panic state, and I narrated the whole story, wondering how it would be received by them, particularly, as I was considered to be a bold and fearless person. None of them seemed surprised and quite a few of them mentioned that yes, there had been similar experiences reported on several occasions on that road, and travellers preferred not to go on that road after sun-set. 

The next morning, I thought that I would leave the HAL guest house only after the winter morning  mist had lifted and the sun had come out, because somehow I had a premonition that I would be meeting this “being” (as I preferred to call him now) again. This time, I resolved to stay clear of him and if need be to kick or push him off my path and drive on relentlessly.  Even at 11.00 a.m. there was still a heavy wintery mist in the air, but as I had already got late for my Branch, which would have been opened by my junior officers, I decided to chance it and started the journey back.

 Sure enough, as I had apprehended, at about the same distance on the road, there was a fellow standing with a shoulder bag and a suitcase on one side of the road, who on my approach swiftly moved to the middle of the road trying to flag me down in order to give him a lift.  I drove in a wide arc from where he was standing and he pursued me trying to force me to stop and give him a lift, but I was all the more determined not to give any stranger a lift ever again and drove past him at top speed. 

For a split second, I glanced back to see whether he was following me, but again to my utter surprise, there was no one on the road behind me and I wondered whether I had imagined the being’s presence. 

When I looked ahead, I suddenly panicked. Through the mist I saw that there was a sharp bend in the road and I was headed straight towards a sharp drop of about ten feet or so, off the road. I pressed on the Brakes with all my skills and the scooter came to a halt just inches from the sheer drop, saving myself from a terrible accident, perhaps a fatal one. Somehow, terribly shaken again, I made it back to the Branch. 

At my Branch, after the usual New Year’s greetings were exchanged between the customers and all the officers and staff and business was going on as usual, one of my officers came to me and mentioned that he sensed that there was something wrong and I told him about my two strange experiences. His immediate reaction was that my scooter bore the registration numerals “7816” which included the numerals “786” which Muslims considered to be the numerical equivalent of the name of God and which in his opinion had saved me from a bad accident. 

Nevertheless, despite his repeated assurances, that the worst was behind me and that no harm could come to me now, the slightest sound unnerved me and for the most part of the next two months, I kept all the lights in my house on, so that I would be prepared for any untoward happening or encounter with another such being, but, nothing happened after that. 

I may add that I travelled on the road to Korwa several times thereafter but never encountered any such being again and slowly my fear of encountering otherworldly beings again on that road also went away. But, I was very intrigued with what I had experienced on that road and was looking for plausible answers. 

The best possible explanation came from a Branch Manager who was also a “tantric” (dabbling with the occult sciences). He could sense that I had had an experience like this and requested me to narrate my experience. He listened to my narration and told me that he could visualise the whole incident through his occult extra-sensory perception. His explanation was as follows:

A few decades ago, a young man was travelling to his village alongside the road to see his mother who was not well (This explained my passenger’s old fashioned baggage). That little village had lost its identity as over a period of time it had merged with a bigger village (hence, I had not heard of its name). The vehicle in which this man was travelling had met with a terrible accident which proved fatal for him. Since then he had entered a warp through which his spirit was perpetually searching for a way to reach his mother’s village and in desperation wanted others to ‘join him’ in his search, hence it had made two efforts to make me meet fatal accidents like himself. The spirit had assessed me as a potential victim by taking a short ride with me in the form of a little boy (the one whom I had offered a joy-ride and who had got off my scooter without thanking me. As I was familiar with Celtic Literature on “shape-shifting”, I took this as a plausible explanation). Also, he said that he visualised that I was saved by my guardian Spirits and Gods and by my strong-willed efforts. He also mentioned that he had set into motion through his occult sciences, processes through which this spirit would never harm any other person again and also get his salvation.

Whatever may be the explanation, this encounter with an otherworldly being is as live for me today as when I had experienced it the first time  and every time I narrate this story I feel a chill pass down my spine and I hastily glance over my shoulder, just to ensure that my passenger is not standing behind me!!




Links to some other short stories on this Blog by Rajeev Prasad: 

1) A short story: Friends at the Cross-Roads
2) A short story: Arvind Dada and the street-dogs 
3) An Otherworldly Encounter: A personal experience 
4) A short story: A tour of Pune's Blind School (or as I prefer to call it the "School for visually challenged students") 
5) Remembering Uncle Paul Haegar: The German Army Officer during World War II who became an exemplary Horticulturist and who gave the Aligarh Muslim University beautiful landscaped gardens as his legacy 
 6) Connecting through several life-times: The story of the "Panditji" (priest) of the Hanuman Temple at the CSA University, Kanpur

24. A SHORT STORY: ARVIND DADA AND THE STREET DOGS

ARVIND DADA AND THE STREET DOGS

My wife Sumita and I were posted in Mumbai for about five years during one of our assignments with a Bank.

 One of the things that we observed about Mumbai was the co-existence of humans and animals, particularly dogs and cats in a city where time and tide waited for no one and where the weak and faint hearted could not survive even for a single day.

For example, on the streets of Mahim where we were staying, we used to go for after-dinner walks and it was a strange sight for the pavements (like elsewhere in Mumbai) to turn into “residential quarters”, where you could see a family of homeless cane weavers co-existing with 4-5 dogs and cats. You could see some members of the family engaged in cooking, while others would be weaving  baskets  etc. or a set of elderly men engaged in an animated conversation seated on cane stools while a couple of teenagers would tend to babies lying in make-shift cradles.

Elsewhere, near a church, a small canvas canopy would come up for the night and a man (we never knew if he had had a square meal that evening, for he looked like a poor beggar) would be fast asleep curled up with two dogs and a cat who it would seem had had an even nastier day by the way they would be fast asleep.

Then again, at night, the vegetable vendors on the streets would have made bundles of their vegetable baskets/remaining stock under canvas sheets tied with rope and promptly at the appointed time, street dogs would appear from out of thin air, perch themselves on one of these bundles and zealously guard the contents underneath throughout the night, perhaps fed by the particular vegetable vendor during the day. Mysteriously, these living rooms, bedrooms, dining rooms, nurseries and animals would vanish at daylight and one wondered if it was all a dream or a figment of one’s imagination.

If you went for a morning walk, it was another common sight to see two-three senior citizens sharing space on a park bench with a dog sitting on its haunches on the bench, who at first sight would look very much a part of the morning walker’s group.

My wife and I used to commute by the Bandra morning locals 9.10 a.m. or the 9.22 a.m. from Mahim to Church-gate Railway station to get to our office on Madame Cama Road, a good three-quarter km. away. In the busy morning rush to get to office, during one of our initial trips to office, just opposite the Church-gate station exit, we spotted a bunch of 5 dogs parked around a shoe shine box guarding it and trying to sleep at the same time, perhaps exhausted with keeping guard around the shoe-shine man all night.

Suddenly, a thin lame man appeared who hobbled along to a neat looking seat and asked politely, “Shine your shoes, Sir?”.

We were rather intrigued with the dogs and what were they doing with a shoe shine man so I nodded in affirmation. He seemed to be in no hurry to finish with the shoe shine and seemed to go on for ever, quite a relief from the precision-timed Mumbai life which we were slowly getting accustomed to. We asked him how he had got the dogs.

 Shyly, he narrated his story. He was from Calcutta, and from a family of doctors and an avid football fan. There was some disagreement in the family at about the age of fourteen and he had run away from home some thirty five years ago. Since then he had lived in the streets of Mumbai and the dogs were his best friends ever since. He had been chased by the Mumbai Municipal Corporation several times, his little possessions confiscated; sometimes he had to go without food but his tenacity had made him survive on the streets of Mumbai. He had never thought of going back, because that would have been too demeaning for him.

Now he lived with his pet dogs about him, the waiters of the restaurants around would give him food and he slept in their quarters. He was particularly fond of a dog called Jackie, who was of a superior breed and who he had raised from a pup and he feared that Jackie would run away one day because he did not have a dog chain. Our office colleagues who were waiting impatiently for us to finish with the shoe-shine man were getting late as were we, so I asked them to go on and my wife and I continued with the discussion as we was very intrigued by this man’s story. All along several other commuters who wanted their shoes polished, quietly slipped away as Arvind Dada, for that was his name, would not stop shining my shoes. My wife, who is a Bengali, spoke to him in Bengali, and he responded. I asked him whether because of us he was losing his customers. He replied nonchalantly “I have already earned today’s quota, Sir, so it is not a problem. At the rate of Rs. five per shine I only earn Rs.forty every day and after that I stop. I spend Rs. twenty on myself and the remaining money is spent on buying food for the dogs. There are around forty street dogs in this area known to me and I do my rounds and feed as many as I can till the food is exhausted, then I come back and share my food with these five dogs.”  

Nevertheless, I thought that as he had missed his customers because of me, I gave him a twenty rupee note which he accepted gratefully. We hunted for a dog-chain through all the shops in Mahim but could not find one.

The next morning when we passed the spot where he used to sit, he was distraught. Apparently, Jackie had run away at night despite Arvind Dada calling out for him and he could not catch up with the dog with his bad leg and his single crutch. He did not shine any shoes for the next two days, but survived on the food given to him by the waiters and hotel staff. On the third day, we spotted him briskly shining shoes and gave me an out-of-turn shoe shine angering a couple of customers who quietly slipped away because he was very eager to talk to us. He shared that as in the case of many bad experiences in his life, he was making a valiant effort to recover from the loss of his favourite dog, but he had a duty to keep to all the remaining 40 odd dogs around Church Gate Area and was quite perturbed that he had not fed them for two days and that they would have missed him and gone hungry.

Then our “friendship” grew with Arvind Dada. Every day, I would stop to get my shoes shined and he would go on shining them for a good half-hour or so, while I would get a daily update of his previous day’s activities. So as not to get late for office, we used to catch an earlier commuter train from Mahim. Apart from the dogs, we learnt that he was very fond of watching Football matches and the waiters would contribute for his Taxi fare to the Football stadium as he could not climb into a commuter train because of his bad leg. He owned a little transistor and was fond of listening to F.M. radio stations. Like most cricket lovers, he was very fond of Saurav Ganguly, the Captain of the Indian cricket team.  Also, that several newspaper reporters and T.V. crew wanted to do a human interest story on him and his concern for the street dogs, but he had refused them as he did not want his personal life story to become public.

One day he had a bandage around his left hand. He shared that a jilted man had repeatedly stabbed a young woman several times the day before, and he had saved her from that man and got the injury in the process. He laughed as he recalled the whole incident. “Imagine, a lame man coming to the woman’s rescue and none of the other people passing by came to help her! Sir, this is Mumbai for you!!”. This incident was covered in several news channels and the T.V. crew finally had a field day interviewing Arvind Dada over the next two days.

During the monsoons, Mumbai is lashed by torrential rains interspersed by intermittent rains and he would sit crouched in a corner and his shoe-shine business would suffer immensely. More than his plight, he would worry more about the dogs he could not feed because he could not earn any money on such days to buy food for them.

The years passed and stopping at Arvind Dada’s shoeshine stand became a regular feature of our morning routine. Then, one day we told him that we were leaving Mumbai on a transfer to Hyderabad. He was very distraught and said that like several other persons whom he had met on the streets of Mumbai, we would forget him and never come to see him again. As a parting gift, I gave him 300 rupees, which I said should feed the dogs for the next few days, so that he could go easy on his shoe-shine work during this time. He gave me a one-rupee coin to keep as a memento.

The last time I saw him was on the day we were relieved from office for our next assignments. I saw him from a distance while on my way to Churchgate Railway station, busy shining shoes. He seemed to be caught in a time-warp, surrounded by his five pet dogs already a distant memory.

 He felt a kinship with the dogs because he had lived with them on the streets of Mumbai all his life. As for the rest of us whom he had met, we were just brief acquaintances!

(The above short story has been written by Rajeev Prasad)





Links to some other short stories on this Blog by Rajeev Prasad: 

1) A short story: Friends at the Cross-Roads
2) A short story: Arvind Dada and the street-dogs 
3) An Otherworldly Encounter: A personal experience 
4) A short story: A tour of Pune's Blind School (or as I prefer to call it the "School for visually challenged students") 
5) Remembering Uncle Paul Haegar: The German Army Officer during World War II who became an exemplary Horticulturist and who gave the Aligarh Muslim University beautiful landscaped gardens as his legacy 
 6) Connecting through several life-times: The story of the "Panditji" (priest) of the Hanuman Temple at the CSA University, Kanpur

23. A SHORT STORY:FRIENDS AT THE CROSS ROADS

When I was posted in Hyderabad during my assignment there with a Bank, I was staying in Somajiguda. Every evening on my way back home from the Bank Branch where I was posted, I used to stop at a busy cross-roads traffic signal. 

As my little red Maruti 800 would vend its way through the traffic snarl which would invariably build up, I noticed a little girl dressed in rags trying to sell an evening newspaper to all the cars that had stopped by. After making futile attempts with four drivers ahead of me, it was my turn. “Sir, newspaper, only two rupees” she said and proceeded to drop one copy into my lap. “Hey, what am I going to do with it, it is in Telugu, and I don’t even know the language”. 

The traffic light had turned green and I wanted to get back home as quickly as possible and the motorists behind my car were honking away for me to drive on. She signaled to me that she did not know any other language than Telugu and a just a smattering of English. Perforce, I had to fish out a two rupee coin and give it to her.

The next evening while driving back from office, as usual,  there was the inevitable, rather long, red traffic signal and the moment she saw me her eyes lit up in the hope of a confirmed newspaper sale but this time I was prepared for her. I fished out a handful of toffees and chocolates from the gloves compartment of the car and pushed them into her hand.

She forgot about the newspaper sale, immediately pushed one toffee into her mouth and pocketed the rest , perhaps for later or perhaps to share with her little brother and sister or even her friends. A shy smile was followed by a muttered ‘thanks’ and a wave of the hand when I drove by on the Green traffic light.

The next day two of her little friends had joined her. There was also a physically challenged  lady and a 16 year boy whom I later learned was called Jehangir because he was the only one who could speak Urdu, a language I could converse in and who made a living selling car and feather dusters (the others could only understand Telugu which I was still in the process of learning). But a few words all of us understood like “Chocolates”? ‘‘Toffees?” “Biscuits” and “thanks” the last one with very pleased grins all-round. 

Then it became a routine. Apart from toffees, chocolates, biscuits, small toys etc. whatever I could remember to carry every evening after my busy office routine ,or more like, whatever my Branch Steno and my  messenger could lay hands on upon my instructions, would be distributed among this motley crowd of children which kept growing in numbers as the months passed by.

The moment my car would stop at the red light my ‘friends’ would drop whatever they were doing and make a beeline for the red Maruti . Sometimes, on account of office pressures, I would forget to keep the handouts in the car’s gloves compartment, and I would say, “there is nothing for you today”. There would be disappointment all-round but no protests!!

The little red car was easily the most recognized car at the traffic signal. So much so that whenever I would go in any other car, no one would recognize me till I had to virtually hang out of the car to give out the chocolates. My accompanying junior officers would often caution me “Sir, you should not encourage these beggars, they are upto no good". But I knew differently. They were just trying to make a living within their small means compelled by their circumstances and the toffees/chocolates etc. were just one of the highlights of the day for them.

 On New Year’s Day, I carried Telugu calendars for them. Jehangir was particularly pleased with his Urdu one. I had even ordered a few extra packets at the customary office lunch on New Years day, which I gave out to my ‘friends’ at the traffic signal.

Jehangir knew that I did not much care for the yellow dusters that he would sell to me occasionally, so he managed to find pink, blue, brown, red and other colour dusters for me. Some of them looked hideous, but because he had gone to great lengths to procure them, I would always buy them off him pretending to like the colour very much.

Then, one day I broke the news to them. I had applied for early retirement and would be leaving Hyderabad for Pune in a week’s time. I carried extra chocolates and toffees for them. The last time that I saw the little girl, I gave her a big packet of biscuits and through sign language indicated to her and her friends, that I would not be traveling on that road anymore. She had understood. I still remember seeing them in the rear view mirror, and in particular the little girl  standing with her bunch of newspapers looking at my car speeding by, oblivious to the traffic going around her. I wonder if she made a sale that day. I still do not know her and her friend’s names.

An evening  earlier, my wife and I were passing by after an office party and we saw Jehangir at the cross-roads still selling his cloth and feather dusters. My wife showed an interest in the feather duster. “How much do I pay you” I asked. He replied “You are leaving Hyderabad, Sir. For you, it is free. It is a gift from all of us.” I knew he used to sell them for Sixty rupees, so I pushed that amount into his hand. He returned thirty rupees immediately, insisting that he would only collect half the price. The duster is still in use even after all these years at our house. I saw a similar one in a Pune Shopping Mall costing one hundred and twenty five rupees!!

About a year later while taking a turn at the North Main Street at Koregaon Park crossing, near the Osho Ashram  in Pune, we saw a little underprivileged girl knocking at the windows of cars stopped at the traffic signal. It had been a long time since I had given toffees to children at the crossroads. My wife reached out and checked in the Gloves compartment of the car. Yes, there were a few toffees. I rolled down the window and called the little girl over. There was a quizzical look on her face. Perhaps she expected some money. The look immediately turned to that of a pleasant surprise as she saw the  toffees.

She immediately popped one in her mouth and pocketed the others, perhaps to share with a little brother/ sister later. There was a grin on her face. The tense look of harassment of one trying to make a living on the streets had vanished and she had become a child again. She continued waving out to us till we had sped away.

She seemed an intelligent and smart child condemned by circumstances to waste her life on the streets; nevertheless her grateful smile had made our day, and most of all there was a new friend at a new crossroad!!

(The above short story has been written by Rajeev Prasad) 





Links to some other short stories on this Blog by Rajeev Prasad: 
1) A short story: Friends at the Cross-Roads
2) A short story: Arvind Dada and the street-dogs 
3) An Otherworldly Encounter: A personal experience 
4) A short story: A tour of Pune's Blind School (or as I prefer to call it the "School for visually challenged students") 
5) Remembering Uncle Paul Haegar: The German Army Officer during World War II who became an exemplary Horticulturist and who gave the Aligarh Muslim University beautiful landscaped gardens as his legacy 
 6) Connecting through several life-times: The story of the "Panditji" (priest) of the Hanuman Temple at the CSA University, Kanpur