...Hauntings..

...The Paintings...

THE PAINTINGS Pune, India (2007)

As a teenager I had the habit of being random, every teenager does. My father was in government service and I was happy roaming the country with my parents. One such place, I got acquainted with during my travel, was the city of Kolkata, the city of joy, kathi rolls, and Durga Pujo

I had joined Don Bosco School, life here was fun and slow. After the school we used to go to Rabindra Sadan to practice theater. Art forms were an integral form of life here, I never stayed away from them too. I had joined a theater group called Dighojibee. We used to study hard in the school all day and practice harder by the evening.

They say practice makes a man perfect, our efforts finally came to limelight and Dighojibee was selected to represent the Kolkata School of art in the Symbiosis fest at Pune, Maharashtra. I will not furnish you with the details of the journey, as most of you must be accustomed to how train travels across the indian subcontinent are. Now, i shall take you directly, to the main crux of the story.

We were finally here in Pune. Our accommodation was arranged in a small guesthouse near symbiosis. A three story house owned by an ex army general. We met the man in person; he was a stern faced, dashing looking gentleman like all military men, he must have been above fifty but definitely below sixty. He spoke to us briefly about the rules of his accommodation. Alcohol and entry of girlfriends/boyfriends was prohibited in the accommodation, some of us were used to smoking, luckily the general did not have an issue with that.

We nicely settled in our room on the third floor. On the ground floor, lived general and his helping hand Satbir. The second floor landing had two sets of rooms which were locked and on the third floor were two rooms in which one was given to us and the other looked like an attic, it had a smaller door and a huge iron lock. The attic door on our floor and the two doors below seemed to have been locked for ages, they must have not seen the light of the day for like... ever.

We were not bothered. Our room was fantastic, the air conditioner cooled perfectly. We had two hundred and eight channels on the television and twenty-four seven running hot water for our bath. What else did we need?

The showdown was on the coming morning so we had a good night sleep. We had a four-night, five-day stay in Pune because we were damn sure we would make it to the next round and as expected we did too.

Tired from our performance we returned back weary to the generals house. There were four of us I, Sanjukta, Kartik and Arko. Sanju being the only lady enjoyed certain privileges; she could use the washroom first and got her side of the bed and sometimes she even coerced us to sleep on the floor.

So like it was decided Sanju went for a bath. Kartik went for a stroll to the market nearby. I lay on the bed and Arko wanted to have a look around the house and the floors. We all decided we would meet for dinner in the small dhaba that was located right in front of symbiosis and then share the details of our mini exploits.

The day passed and as decided, at seven, we were all sitting together drinking Pepsi and biting flesh off of chicken bones. Everybody had tales from their respective ordeals of the day but I am not going to go into the depths of each conversation.

The most important segment though is Arko's narration of his exploits, now you must keep this mind as this is an important aspect and has a strong bearing on the story ahead. "Hey guys, do you know the attic door on our floor can be opened. I realized today, the lock is broken; it is just there to keep tenants away. I opened the latch today and went in. It is a storehouse of the most beautiful expressions of modern art that I have ever seen and all of them drawn by the same girl Vigeesha, I mean her paintings are so amazing I would not mind dating someone like her at all. I can say this without seeing her". We all laughed heartily after Arko's narration on his sudden interest in this unknown lady.