Sometimes we cannot help but watch in wonder at the past or more likely at what feels like an entire lifetime which has gone by.
Just the other day I went to get my pressure cooker repaired at a repair shop. The shop is managed by two guys around 30s and they are brothers. The younger brother was at the shop that day and he is quite talkative, I have been at this shop a few times before to get different things repaired and he talks a lot.
This particular day he began to talk about his father who started what stood now as a decent repair shop in the area. This is what he told me.
So, his father, Mr Alam didn’t have a shop, he had a makeshift stall, which he would set up every day and would later take it back packing it all up in his second hand mini truck. Unlike his sons who repair a lot of things like locks, suitcases, pressure cookers etc, Mr Alam only worked on gas stoves. He also filled up gas in household cooking gas cylinders using his own spare cylinder. It wasn’t cheap to get the cylinders filled but there was no way to tell when they would become empty, hence this service was required.
There were very few people in the area back then as compared to the number of people who live here today. I have seen some of the after-evening silence and emptiness here, it was there when I was here, but I didn’t know there was another past story to it. I have never actually thought anything beyond the silence; it helped to make life easier.
Nowadays, one can find shops open till as late as 11 pm, but in Mr Alam’s time, 7 pm was the deadline, one did not want to be out after 7 pm. Apparently there was a group of people who would come out of nowhere riding their cars and bikes, screaming all the way, honking the horns of their loud vehicles. Some said they came from the industrial area nearby, some said they came from a forest at a distance and few people even said that they were beyond natural.
One evening, after the rain had stopped and the cool wind soothed the environment; Mr Alam gave into the temptation of a sleep. ‘Only for a few minutes’ he had thought. It’s unknown how much time had passed but it was more than 7 pm and Mr Alam suddenly woke up to a presence and he opened his eyes to find several figures standing surrounding him. He couldn’t see their faces; he was not even sure what he was looking at.
“We are taking the cylinder,” said a voice and they did not wait for Mr Alam to reply and Mr Alam did not dare to get up, he could hear the sounds of cars and bikes starting and his own heart beating. The lights of the vehicles reflected on a nearby tree and they were gone. After about what he felt like an hour, Mr Alam got up and rushed home after packing his things and the cylinder was actually gone, so it wasn’t an imagination.
Mr Alam remained home for a few days before heading out to work after four days. He was wondering how he would get a new cylinder when a moving fruit vendor came to him and said he had his cylinder, he found it lying here two days after the incident with Mr Alam.
“That is an interesting story, I was not aware of it,” I told the younger brother. As my work was done and I walked out of the complex where the shop was, I stared at these peaceful roads finding it hard to associate with what I had heard. I couldn’t find anyone who had also heard about this group of people but nonetheless it did feel like a lot of time had passed over a piece of land and will continue to pass. I wondered what people would be talking about ten-twenty years from now about this place.
Written by Anuran Chatterji
Early Morning Memories 