The Tenants Of Shanti Villa

Chapter 3: A mysterious man

A few days of monotony have passed since the appearance of the dog.
To the credit of Sridhar, he had kept the word of Mr. Mittal without fail.

From a close watch all evening on the front porch and the alley in front of the building to a quite vivid scan of the compound in the afternoon after returning from school, Sridhar has been quite the watchman.

Yesterday, the Khannas had a pretty elongated argument with the landlord.
They just don't want to keep being crushed under this piston of a place.
Their very legitimate demands of more space for their family and one extra washroom for all the families have been met with very swift rejection.

Needless to say, neither party was going to sit back peacefully while letting the other dictate the terms.

The argument had gone on and on, until Mr. Khanna, visibly exhausted set off with a disgruntled grunt.

Sridhar had been loitering around in the backyard thinking about all this when his eyes flashed.

"Isn't that the same dog?" He murmured.

The dog was there, pacing across the narrow road that runs over behind the building.

Along with the dog which he seemed to remember very vividly, walked a man in a white polo shirt, and navy blue jeans.

He also had a blue cap on his head, and it felt as if he was trying to conceal his face and identity to some extent.

The first thought Sridhar had was to run to Mr. Mittal and let him know about this.

"But this man might be the owner of the dog," he thought.

If that is how it turns out to be, it would be very trivial a thing to bring into the limelight right now.
However, it is necessary to confirm what is up with the dog in these parts.

Sridhar, without thinking much further, jumped around the fenced brick wall and landed on the other side with a
"thud".

"Hey, is that your dog?" Sridhar shouted at the man, who for a second looked his way when he heard the voice.

He was visibly taken aback, as though he had not expected anyone to notice him here at this time of the afternoon.
He looked at Sridhar and stood there as if not knowing how should he tackle the situation.

Sridhar, confused from receiving no reply started running straight up to him.

As he got closer though he dog started giving out grunts and finally when Sridhar was a yard or two away it started barking facing him.

He halted in his tracks, afraid, he could see the man struggling to keep hold of the dog's collar chain.

"Is that your dog?" he threw his question to the man, keeping his distance from the dog.

"Yes...yes..it is my dog" the man seemed quite uneasy replying at this point.

"Never seen you here before, are you new here?"

"Yes...it has only been a week since I arrived in this locality" the man replied.

"Oh I see! Your dog loitered off to our building compound a few days ago"

One could spot the relaxation in Sridhar's eyes as he had come to know the origin of the dog.

However, what happened next took Sridhar aback like it had never done before.

The man minced his words

"Listen, boy! This dog is in no way a very harmless one, so you better stay away and mind your buissness from next time onwards.

This is for your good, or it can be a lot of trouble"

Sridhar, taken aback and digesting those words for a few moments kept looking on as the man gently caressed the dog to make it calm and then turned it around and disappeared fast around the corner.

Sridhar was going to follow behind on heels, but by the time he ran and reached the corner, the man was nowhere to be seen nor the dog.

.

.

.

It was an incident which for sure had left its mark on Sridhar.

But for now, he is having more pressing concerns to get around to.

The half-yearly exam at school, has him forced by his him to sit and gobble up the words all day.

But even in the exam, Sridhar's mind had constantly wandered off, as to who was the man that day, and what are his intentions.

After all, why would a person, so very skilled and adept at calming down the dog tell the boy to stay away without any situation of mishap?

He also seemed very uneasy to begin with.
That is when it struck him.

Mr. Mittal. He must tell him what happened that day.
Lost in these thoughts, a loud snap landed on the back of Sridhar from his mom.

"In what thoughts have you been lost?

Focus on the book"

He looks up. His mom standing there with an angry face, one hand on her waist another holding the tea mug.

"Yes..mom" he replies and gets back to his book.

To be continued...