Curse on the copper coin

Part -1

~SAUGATA NATH

Rajasthan is a land of cultures and many historic kings and Rajputs. I stayed there for 3 years in a place named Suratgarh during my childhood days. My school was just 1.5 km away from my home, me and my friends always took our bicycles to reach School. In the way there was a place called "purani mandir" which means "old temple". The temple was not visible from the road because it was covered by huge trees of babool, sheesham, and ber and many types of bushes. And no one preferred to go to that side, some peoples used to say that near the temple there is a place that is haunted.....
But due to childish curiosity one day me and my friends decided to go to visit the temple and it's nearby places. It was a Sunday morning at 10:00 a.m. we reached the temple and saw that it was a very quiet and calm place, we found nothing haunted. The temple was too old and a peepal tree has emerged from it's walls which were in a broken condition; so, no one of us dared to enter the temple. Outside the temple we saw a stone boulder on which something was written with some human figures but in due course of time the written part was illegible, we could only analyse a date that was written in Sanskrit which meant 16th century AD. Later that day we explored the nearby areas I went to the right side of the temple and after walking about 60 metres, saw a huge Neem tree there; the special thing about the tree was that, there were many parrots on the tree whereas the nearby trees were having no birds.

After that day we used to come every Sunday there. One day at noon during the summer vacation I reached there early, I waited for about half an hour for my friends but no one came. Suddenly I heard a sound of a bird screaming, I went near the tree and saw a baby parrot fell from its nest. After my friends came I told them about the baby parrot 🦜. We all decided to place the baby back in it's nest. Among us only Amit,Inderjeet and Abdul knew to climb a tree; Amit decided to climb because he was a very skillful climber (we often used to tease him by calling monkey 🐒). After keeping the baby when he was returning back he saw a large hole on the trunk of that tree, as it was daytime so the inner part of the hole was clearly visible, he saw a very strange object inside that. He collected that object and came down. After removing the dust from that object we saw that it was an iron key. The strange thing about that key was it had a very weird shape at its handle, the shape was looking like a two headed snake that was crafted on it.
Our curiosity led us to look around to find something that could fit the key, but we found nothing.
Abdul kept the key and we all went home. Two days after that incident everyone thought "what to do now ?" but in these two days Amit with one of my friends named Suleman searched the nearby areas very carefully, they even dared to enter the temple also, but found nothing. On the third day I and all of my friends went there, sometime later I noticed that the stone boulder on which the date was written, contained a human figure which was strangely pointing downwards. So we all tried and later removed the stone from there. Under the bottom of that stone we found a small hole which had the same figure as on the key, so we inserted the key in that hole and turned it anti-clockwise. Suddenly a miracle happened, a part under that stone felled off and we saw that the stone was hollow from inside, which contained an iron box. We again used the same key and were able to open that box also.
we wished to find some treasure inside the box, but we found only a single copper coin which was roughly built and it looked very old. At one side of the coin there was a figure of that two headed snake and the other side had a face drawn on it. Later we kept that box inside and we placed that rock again in that place as if nothing happened. But as Amit was a coin collector and loved to collect old coins he kept that coin with him. And Abdul took the key.

But who knew that from now the time will change for everyone. The next day only after the incident, Amit met with all of us and told that something strange is happening to him as if someone is following him. We all laughed at him and suggested him to go to a doctor.

The 3rd day we were shocked to hear that he was admitted in hospital with a very critical condition. A snake has bitten him twice (as told by the doctor). The 4th day we got very afraid as we heard that Abdul fell from his first floor balcony and broke his leg. The doctor told that he was afraid from something and he was in a state of mental shock. Later that day we went to the hospital and met Abdul but he was unable to speak as he was fainted, but in that situation also he was constantly murmuring a name, which we immediately wrote in a page and he was telling about that key.
On the 5th day morning we visited both of their home and were totally shocked there. The first reason was that Amit used to stick all his collected coins in a diary which contained the details of the place where he found the coin, but we saw that the page where he pasted that copper coin was torn off and was missing. Similarly the key in Abdul's house was also missing.

Now to solve this mystery we went to the nearby village area and searched for a very old person who had the knowledge of the past story related to that temple. At last we found a very old skinny person who was oldest in that village, we asked him about that temple. And we told him the name that Abdul was uttering " Viren " , as soon as he heard the name he was totally shocked. He told that "once a man named virendra used to live in this village, he was one of the king's best and bravest spy. But one day due to some reason the king's general sent his men after him. Virendra chose to run away. He escaped them for many months. But one evening he realized that he could not escape them more because his family was in danger, so he decided to commit suicide under a tree near the mandir(temple). When general came and saw this he went furious and ordered his army to execute his entire family under that tree. After that day many rumours came up ... And peoples slowly stopped to go there."

We were curious and asked him that what was the rumour. He replied,"people used to say that there is a curse in some object there whoever take these objects viren comes behind them, he is protecting something even after his death". We soon realised our mistake of taking that key and that coin. He also told us that,"he (virendra) only comes to take his object back ".

After hearing all the things from that old man we returned to that tree. As now only inderjeet was left who could climb the tree, he decided to climb the tree and check that if the key was there or not. After reaching that hole he was shocked that the key was placed as if no one has touched it for centuries. Later we also check that stone with that key and found that the copper coin was there only.
But the most shocking thing was that the coin was now also stuck with the page and that torn out page with that coin was there inside that iron box(where we found the coin for the first time).

After this incident we kept all the things in their original places again.
After 2 months both Amit and Abdul were recovered, Abdul's leg became ok and he could now again run and walk. Both of them recovered from their mental shock also. But the most astonishing thing was that they always used to tell that they saw that two headed snake, "it was very large and black in colour, it seemed that two cobras merged together".

After this incident slowly days passed by and my three years were over... similarly they also moved to different places. After that I went to Himachal Pradesh. we all used to contact each other via e-mail because at that time we did not knew of something called WhatsApp or anything.
We used to contact each other but slowly the frequency of contacting became low. Now we used to contact each other in years. All of us became busy with our lives.

But once said that "greed is the mother of all sins.... And destiny never ever leaves her person."

[So my dear readers the story is not ending here it's only the starting...... Please wait for the part 2 of this story. Till then wish you all to stay safe and lead a healthy life.]