Hello everyone! Welcome or welcome back to my channel. Today I have come with a new short story written by me. I hope you find it interesting. If you are new to my blog, please check out all my other posts too. Happy reading!
He was a small, old man lying on a small, old bed, was Harkishen. Outside his window, the rooster crowed as the rays of the sun spread their wings high into the sky and all over this part of the earth. Harkishen got up, brushed his teeth with a neem twig, took a bath, dressed up, and set about his daily routine. He lived in the small village of Kathpada, in northern India. He was the caretaker of the huge mansion of the local zamindar, who now lived with his family in Delhi, long, long away. The zamindar’s children had all settled abroad and he and his wife were too old to undertake the tiring day-long journey from Delhi to Kathpada. Therefore, Harkishen lived in it all alone.
The mansion was an old, sprawling building, with large gardens and a pond. It was a two-storied structure, with a central hall, a large dining room, the kitchen and a guest room on the ground floor. The first floor consisted of the family’s sleeping quarters, a study, and a lumber room. On the outside was a huge verandah, and a terrace extending away from the back of the house, which could be accessed from French doors opening out from the dining room. The house also had an avenue of trees lining the right and left side of the house, leading up to the pond at the back.
Harkishen had never married and did not have any family. He had taken care of the mansion for the zamindars for years and loved it and took care of it as if it were his own son. He had had a fascination for this building ever since he was a child. He as a child, while himself living in a mud hut, used to constantly ask his father questions about the mansion, which was then under construction, and was, and is, the only brick-and-mortar building in the village. Harkishen would ask about the material being used, about the many men who worked hard to build it, and as to how could so many men know exactly what to do, and do it properly? His father would then answer his questions and he would listen in awe.
He then grew older and started playing with the village boys and soon forgot all about the mansion. One day, however, tragedy struck. His father, the only source of income for his family, passed away. His mother could not find any work to do, and the zamindar kindly hired him as a servant. After sometime his mother, too, died, and Harkishen moved into the outhouse of the mansion as a full-time servant. After a few years the zamindars decided to leave the village, for zamindari had recently been abolished, and decided to move to Delhi, leaving Harkishen as the sole caretaker of the mansion. It was then, after so many years, that his love for the building again began to develop. And it was probably due to this love, that he, when asked by the villagers for his own safety, refused to move out of the mansion and live in the village itself.
The mansion actually lay at the very edge of one of the thick, forbidding forests of the terai, separated from the village by a small cluster of deodar trees. Recently, there had been reports of a man-eater stealing roaming in the forests and was said to already have preyed on two goats and a sheep. As Harkishen lived in the mansion’s outhouse all alone and close to the forest, they thought it might be safer for him to stay in the village with the others and only occasionally go to the mansion by day to dust and clean the rooms. They even offered to provide him with accommodation, but he flatly refused.
One night, Harkishen suddenly woke up. He felt the urgent need to go to the bathroom. He picked up a candle, and trudged outside the outhouse and headed towards a clump of bushes by the edge of the pond. It was windy night and the wind blew in strongly from the west. The light of the waxing gibbous percolated down to the ground, most of it being inhibited from doing so by the tall deodars. Harkishen turned back from the bushes, his candle now being extinguished. He tried to use the moonlight to guide him towards his bedroom, but was not very successful. Then immediately in front of him, he saw two candles burning through the bushes. Unlike most other candles, these flames were green in color and twinkled softly. Intrigued, Harkishen moved towards them.
Harkishen fell hard on his back, both of his shoulders being pinned to the ground and being crushed by what seemed two, one-hundred kilo rocks. A warm liquid dripped onto his cheeks and what seemed like extremely warm draughts of air burned his eyes. One of the hundred-kilo rocks lifted, and he felt a sharp stinging, burning sensation on his chest and felt his kurta become damp. He had fallen right near a clump of stinging nettle plants. He had tended these gardens for years and knew about this fact. Stinging nettles were eaten as a soup by his tribe and gave off a distinct smell, which Harkishen was quick to recognize. He quickly pulled up a whole plant by the roots and powerfully jabbed the plant into the two candles and the furry area around them. He now felt both the feet rear up in the air and a deafening roar pierce his ears. The two feet never touched him again.
He got up and saw the two eyes running fast away from him in the direction of the woods, the only thing that night that betrayed the tiger’s position. He heaved himself onto his feet and started making for the outhouse.
He reached the out house and shut the door again. He changed his kurta and bathed his wound. He wore another kurta and then kept away the candle. He slowly climbed into bed, pulled up his blanket, and went off to sleep. He was a small old man lying on a small old bed, was Harkishen.
So I hope you liked the story. If you did, please subscribe to stay tuned for more. If you did not, I am sorry, but still stay tuned for more. Who knows you might like something else I put up. Thank you.