Weird, isn't it?

Part three

As the scooter once again jumped slightly because of the too many bumps on the road, Latika cringed inwardly. After some time in the journey from the staff quarters to the village, her brain had lost count of the number of potholes and craters in the road making the vehicle jump in air almost every two minutes.

After the night at Akash's quarter, both of them had woken up early in the morning freshened up and had breakfast. As Akash wished to see the haveli as well, they decided to ride together on his scooter. When Latika first laid eyes on the scooter, it seemed anything but reliable to her as it looked like it belonged to a junkyard or a museum for decades old automobiles. But it looked like she didn't have any other choice than to get on the dangerous looking vehicle in order to reach her destination.

After some minutes which seemed more like hours, they reached the quaint village of Kherva. After asking about the haveli to several villagers, they came to know that they had to go to the Thakurs' household first. The Thakur family was the assigned caretaker and self proclaimed tour guide of the Kesaribaug haveli since decades.

One look at the Thakur mansion would let you know that it was probably a hundred years old, built with a great architectural sense. Senior Thakur, Mr Ravichandran was the village head, more commonly known as sarpanch.

As they approached the big house, they saw the family members having tea in the front yard. "Oh, Akash ji, how are you? What made you visit us today?", a man who looked like he was in his mid thirties asked, looking at Akash with a smile, and then gave an acknowledging nod to Latika. Akash smiled at him in return and answered, "Namaste Suraj ji. I'm doing good, actually I wanted to visit the haveli with my friend over here. She is Latika Singhal, a journalist from Mumbai." He then looked over at Latika, "This is Thakurji's son, Suraj Thakur."

Latika folded her hands at him in the form of a namaste, and he returned the gesture. She informed him about her assignment and regarding the various things she had heard about the haveli.

Latika and Akash were treated with some cold drinks and snacks while they were informed about the history of the haveli.

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Keseribaug haveli was build hundred and twelve years ago by a very wealthy merchant, Nimritdas Nagarkar. Despite having all the riches in the world, he and his wife, Devki were devoid of the happiness of having a child. They tried everything in their power, but couldn't succeed. 

Then one fine day, their prayers were answered when Devki got pregnant. The happy couple organised a grand party for the entire village. 

Things seemed to go alright for a while, but after a few days, Devki started getting sick. According to the servants and other house-help at the haveli, "malkin" had started acting really strange ever since the start of her second trimester. Small unfortunate incidents started happening in and around the haveli. Once, the outhouse where the head cook of the haveli - Shyamal lived with his nephew suddenly caught on fire, but luckily nobody was harmed. Shyamal's eight year old nephew who was the only person to witness the fire start, reported that a burning stick suddenly flew in from the window and landed on the bed. On another occasion, a coachman claimed that his horses started getting unstable when his carriage was passing the Kesaribaug haveli. He and a couple of passengers merely escaped a fall over the cliff when the horses suddenly calmed down after getting about one mile away from the haveli. Once during an annual feast organised by Nagarkars, a bottle of rat poison was found on the floor by someone, just inches away from the giant pot of stew cooked for all the guests. This led to everyone thinking that the food was poisoned; later, a villager said that he had packed some of the poisoned stew with him to feed a stray dog, to confirm if the theory was legitimate and as expected, soon after being fed the stew, the dog slowly fell into death.