A Prowler in the House
Vasant
Hattangadi
I must have been around ten years old when, my
parents decided that I was now too old to cling
any more to my mother's apron. So it was peremptorily ordained that I should
start, forthwith, to sleep alone in a separate bed.
Lest I feel too lonesome or scared, I was allowed to share grandpa's bedroom, a concession that I had managed
to elicit after considerable efforts by way of
protests and tantrums. My grand-father or Nana, as we used to call him, was an
old man in his early eightees, suffering often from
bronchitis and cough, but, he mostly kept to himself busy in his "sadhana" or chanting of some religious
hymns or other in a low mumble. We usually met only
at bedtime, but except for wishing him a good night I didn't bother him much as
we had a silent gentleman's agreement not to meddle
into each other's affairs. Besides, after a hard day of play and mischief I used to be so weary and exhausted
that no sooner I entered the bed than I would
be fast asleep.
There was one small problem, however.
Occasionally, I had to visit the toilet in the middle of the night, which I always found a frightening
proposition. For, in our house at Dharwar the bathroom
was situated at the far end of a very long, dimly lit corridor on the rear side of
the kitchen. It was, in fact, an outhouse at a much lower level than the main
house leaving a wide opening near the ceiling at the end of the corridor through which a thief could
have easily entered the house. To prevent just such
an eventuality it was a regular practice every night to bolt the back door
firmly from the inside. So, holding my breath as well as pyjamas, I would
quickly run down the corridor, finish my
business and rush back, just as fast, into the bed to breathe a sigh of relief!
There were times, however, when I preferred to remain in bed
until next morning exercising utmost self-restraint albeit rather unsuccessfully sometimes.
One night, during one such routine dash to
the toilet I got a vague impression that I had seen
the silhouette of a person standing there in the darkness in the kitchen !
"Oh, no! Must be a thief!!" I thought as I relieved myself
and began perspiring profusely. "What if he had seen me? He will certainly
kill me now." The man had covered himself in a thick shawl or something
and had also a small turban wrapped around his
head. He was wearing a small crumpled 'dhoti' and even in the darkness, I could clearly make out that he
was bespectacled. With a small narrow beam
of a penlight, which he was waving around, he was frantically searching for
something in the kitchen cabinet. He must have been
either a very hungry man or fool enough to think that my mother hid her jewelry
in the kitchen!
I didn't know what to do. First, I wondered
if I should scream and raise an alarm. This would
wake up the entire household and then, he would be alerted and he would either
finish me off or run away taking me along as a hostage. I thought the best
recourse under the circumstances was to
wake up my parents and acquaint them with the situation. So, I tiptoed to my
parents' bedroom and lightly knocked on the door. Initially there was no
response, but after I had incessantly
knocked for about five minutes while calling out my mother in a hushed tone it was my
father who finally answered asking
me rather irritably what it was that I wanted so badly in the middle of the night. "Anna, I feel scared.
There is a thief in the house!" I told him rather timidly and my father thundered from inside, "YOU
are the only thief in the house, stupid. Now, go back to sleep!"
I was back in bed, sad and disheartened at
the (un)expected rebuke. Now, with that thief merrily rummaging through our
kitchen, how could I sleep? But, what can you do if your own father doesn't
believe you? Suddenly it occurred to me that if only I could entrap the man in
the kitchen itself, my father would then take
care of him in the morning. So, I stealthily crept back into the kitchen and saw the thief still busy doing his
thing. I slowly moved to the kitchen door and pushed it slightly and it banged shut with a loud thud. Fortunately,
the thief was too engrossed
in his work to hear anything. I then carefully bolted the door from the outside
taking care to see that
it made little sound.
I returned to bed triumphantly and lay there
thinking how I would brag next morning about my
exemplary courage in catching a notorious thief. How I would be showered with
praise and accolades from everyone, including my father! However, my jubilation
was not to be long-lived. For, just then, I heard my grandfather coughing very
badly, the sound coming clearly from the direction of the kitchen.
"Oh, my God! Nana's in the kitchen!!" I thought "The moment he realizes he's locked up, he is going to raise such
a hell. I'll have had it!" Instead of accolades, I was destined for a generous piece of mind from my
father. So, I promptly rushed back to kitchen just as stealthily as I had done
before and opened the latch on the door as quietly as possible. Grandfather seemed fortuitously unawares of what
was happening. He had obviously found whatever
it was that he was looking for - nutmeg, mint or perhaps, sugar-candy for
soothing his throat and he was fondly chewing on it. For the last time
that night, I entered my bed and promptly
went to sleep.
Next
morning, at breakfast, my father asked me with a mischievous twinkle in his
eyes, "So, finally, did you catch the thief last night? " " Well, Almost." I replied
nonchalantly. "But, then, I let him go."
Published in Kanara Sarswat,
