...Hauntings..

..."You don't belong here"...

"You don't belong here"                                                                                                         Shimla, India (2010)

Holidays meant fun. Fun meant road-trips and road-trips definitely meant a visit to my friend's farmhouse in Shimla. Secluded from the hustle and bustle of the city. 'Villa top' was located in the serene forests in the valleys of Shimla. I had been here before with all my friends many times. There were rumors about the mountainside being haunted so none of the local residents had encroached into the forest. My friend's father, a strict army officer did not pay heed to such rumors, the space within the forest was economical and it was not a bad bargain either. Thanks to him, we can now spend all our vacations in this giant villa away from the city in utter peace.

Like always the seven of us had reached early morning. The villa was waiting to welcome us with open arms. We rushed in like a bunch of terrorists at a tea party and took over our rooms. The villa had eight rooms in total segregated equally on two floors. The floors and the walls were made of the finest teak wood and the windows were large like the French Riviera to let in a lot of sun in the morning and enough serene moonlight by the night. The ground floor had a humungous kitchen custom made to make food for a huge feast and right in the center of the ground floor was a magnificent drawing cum dining room.

The walls were lined with exquisite tapestry and expensive paintings. Overall it gave the impression of one of the old French building that had been left back after the invasion but in reality it was really very new. Before I proceed forward with a day-to-day recount of our stay here and how it came to be our last stay in this house let me introduce you to the Homo sapiens who had taken over this quiet and huge mansion suddenly.

I was the leader of the pack, for all of you who have been reading my life experiences so far, would already by now have had a rough idea of how. Without further ado let me discuss about the other six. Sharanya and Rishi, they were my friends since college and had been dating for the past three years, marriage was way out of the question but they had been living in for a while now. Sharanya was working as a marketing consultant for BCG and Rishi was working for Google. Nitant and Seema; the second couple, Nitant was the owner of this magnanimous establishment and Seema his girlfriend, well; she was much of a baby. They had been engaged now for a month and were due to get married soon. The other two were Akram and Hasnain; brothers they were, we literally allowed them to tag along as they could cook amazing lamb.

The day was pretty much like usual vacations. Playing tag in the forest followed by jungle Frisbee and jungle volleyball. When the sun had literally settled down behind the mountains Sharanya and Rishi opted to take the vehicle to town to get some booze while Akram and Hasnain proceeded to the kitchen to cook food. The rest of us were so tired that we fell down here and there in the drawing room to rest. None of us really ever dined on the dinner table for two primary reasons 1) the tapestry was expensive and so was the cutlery and crockery 2) All of us were too lazy to eat like civilized people, eating for us meant putting less in our stomachs and feeding more to the inanimate objects around.

After our ritualistic eating it was finally time to put on the music groove and get high. The clubbing ritual went on till two in the night. The couples decided it was time to beat the stress by making out. Akram and Hasnain were sloshed and out on the two couches in the drawing room and I was sitting on the second floor landing reading a book in the moonlight issuing in from the giant windows. Don't believe me! This was not the city there was less of industrial smoke. You could literally drive here on the road without headlights the moonlight was that clear. As I looked at the watch it was almost two thirty. The couples had retired to their rooms and the brothers were still asleep