The Ghost of a Banyan Tree

 

Image from here

Fiction

Jaichander Varma could not sleep. It was past midnight and the world outside Jaichander Varma’s room was fairly quiet because he lived sufficiently far away from the city. Though that entailed a tedious journey to his work and back, Mr Varma was happy with his residence because it afforded him the luxury of peaceful and pure air. The city is good, no doubt. Especially after Mr Modi became the Prime Minister, the city was the best place with so much vikas.

‘Where’s vikas?’ Someone asked Mr Varma once. Mr Varma was offended. ‘You’re a bloody antinational mussalman who should be living in Pakistan ya kabristan,’ Mr Varma told him bluntly.

Mr Varma was a proud Indian which means he was a Hindu Brahmin. He believed that all others – that is, non-Brahmins – should go to their respective countries of belonging. All Muslims should go to Pakistan and Christians to Rome (or is it Italy? Whatever. Get out of Bharat Mata, that’s all.) The lower caste Hindus could stay in India, of course. The lowest caste, well, Mr Varma didn’t want them really but he was willing to keep them back. The untouchables and all don’t have any right to live, according to Mr Varma’s ancient wisdom which he is very proud of as a loyal nationalist.

Sleep eluded him tonight for some mysterious reason. He turned this way and that, tried to curl up in bed and then straightened up… No, nothing worked. His wife was snoring away. His children were studying abroad, the boy in Canada and the girl in America. Mr Varma – he was very proud of that surname because it proclaimed his caste loud and clear – was affluent enough to own a villa with a huge garden. He was a manager of a nationalised bank which gave loans to rich people who left the country with it and lived happily in some western country.

He got up, drank some water from the PET bottle kept beside the bed, and then walked out without making any noise. He opened the main door and stared into the opacity outside. A few electric lamps shone feebly outside some of the neighbouring houses. Mr Varma walked to the banyan tree that stood at the edge of his garden and sat down leaning against the enormous trunk of the tree.

A few yards away, outside his boundary wall, stood a half-built house. The construction was abandoned halfway because the owner lost his job unexpectedly. He was working with Ganatantra TV and when he was promoted with a transfer to Dubai he started the construction of this big house. Then he lost his job all of a sudden. In fact, he had to run for his life from that satanic country in which everyone is a terrorist. He did his job honestly and called a spade a spade – that is, called a Muslim a terrorist. Isn’t that what a Muslim is? And they wanted to kill him just for that. These Muslims! ‘If I had the power,’ thought Mr Varma, ‘I’d have exterminated the whole race.’

‘Hello Varma ji,’ someone called him out from the banyan tree.

‘Who is it? Varma ji was a bit scared though he didn’t believe in ghosts and so on.

A misty shape materialised beside him as if from nowhere. ‘I’m Abraham,’ the shape said. ‘What are you doing here at this time of the night which belongs to ghosts like me?’

‘Ghost!’ Varma ji mumbled. He was scared. ‘Are you a … ghost?’

‘Hmm.’

‘Abraham is your name?’

‘Hmm.’

‘Christian?’

Abraham laughed like ghosts do in certain Indian language movies. ‘Arey yaar, do ghosts have religion? Aren’t they citizens of the cosmos?’

Why can’t these bloody Christian ghosts go to Italy at least, if not to a Christian hell? Varma ji wondered to himself. He had no guts to ask that to a ghost anyway.

Just then a creature wrapped in a sheet was seen walking towards a house on the other side of the wall.

‘See that?’ Abraham said. ‘That’s one of your godmen around here going to screw the lady of that house. She gave sleeping pills to her husband after dinner instead of his usual tablets. Were you also on the way to some lady, Varma ji?’

‘No, no, no,’ Varma ji protested vehemently.

The ghost laughed again. ‘If you walk around at this time of the night you’ll see a lot of truths that you wouldn’t like, Varma ji. You should be in your bed at this time with your loving wife.’

‘Are you really a ghost?’ Varma ji couldn’t believe that a ghost could be so benign. And that too, a ghost belonging to Sonia Antonia Maino’s videshi religion.

‘Well, if I tell you the truth you won’t believe me,’ the ghost said.

‘So you’re not a ghost?’ Varma ji asked. Is this the devil himself? Who knows? All Christians are children of the devil. They eat mleccha food, fuck their neighbours’ wives, and drink alcohol.

‘If you look carefully you might see me inside you,’ the ghost said. And then he disappeared.

Varma ji’s terror intensified. He could feel his heart becoming heavier as if something had entered into it. That something had the shape of the ghost, he could see faintly.

 

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