Be careful of what you wish for!

Ashish jerked awake, the immediate painful throbbing at his temple matched only by the pounding throughout his head. He struggled to open his crusty eyes which felt glued together with accumulated gunk, his eyelids heavy from the dual assault of exhaustion and the copious amounts of liquor he had consumed last night.

It was nothing more than the norm nowadays though. Ever since Juhi’s sudden passing — a victim of a senseless hit and run right outside their home — most of Ashish’s time was spent either broodily reminiscing of the past, or getting filled with the most potent liquor he could find in the local dive bar till the past and present, good and bad, sadness and despondence all blended together into a blissful nothingness.

Last night was more of the same. Spending the whole day at home, staring at the walls of the house — reminiscing, remembering and falling deeper into a mire of sorrow and despair. For hours roaming around the unkempt space, broodingly remembering the moments, the memories, the flashbacks which were always there — right at his beck and call for instant remembrance.

Feeling more ghoulish and abjectly sad than he would have wanted to admit even to himself, Adhish had ended the evening in the same way he now tended to spend most of his evenings — in the small dive in a hole drinking place a few miles from his house where the town border met with the state highway coming down from the mountains. He had started going there for anonymity and solitude. The constant sympathy and condolences from well meaning friends, concerned family members and commiserating acquaintances had become too much to bear on a regular recurring basis. He looked for a place where he would never normally go, a small dinky bar, standing only, where the never do well’ers of the society all seemed to congregate spontaneously every evening. A grimy, smelly place where none of his friends or family or acquaintances will ever find themselves — let alone look for him, looking to commiserate.

Somehow, over the course of many spilled shots of cheap liquor and greasy fries, Ashish had let it slip about the passing of his wife and the tragic circumstances around it. His own trauma, survivor’s guilt, and overall lonely existence was clear to everyone who saw him as well.

Though none of his new acquaintances and drinking buddies made it evident, their commiserations around the tragic hand which fate had dealt him was evident.

Last night, the bar keep, a big bellied ruffian, Pinto, who himself seemed to consume half of the tills earnings on a night, had somehow leached onto Ashish. He had spent a good hour telling Ashish pseudo intellectual epithets, vaguely alluding to loss and death and the circle of life and all sorts of standard nonsense.

Ashish did his best to ignore him, instead focusing on the drink in front of him. He drank with a single minded focus, intent on chasing away the demons in his mind.

Through the growing haze and stupor however he could hear incoherent tid bits from Pinto. About loss. About death. However physical death was nothing but the immortal soul getting rid of its shell till it found a better suited host to carry on its journey. Especially if death of the living body was unplanned and unwanted, the soul wanted to keep on living. It found a way to come back.

Ashish hadn’t paid much attention to the ramblings of the drunk hackney. But this morning some of the words, and the darker implications behind them came rushing back.

Never a believer of the paranormal, Ashish simply scoffed at the idea. He went about his day, getting the house in some semblance of shape and order. But at every idle moment, his mind kept going back to the one-sided conversation from last night.

The body is the vessel for the immortal spirit which doesn’t disappear — especially if the death is sudden and unbidden.

Pinto had also been hinting about knowing of someone, some monk of an unknown providence, being able to reunite the untethered soul with the mortal body it had left behind.

That small tidbit in particular had sunk its tentacles deep in Ashish’s subconscious, and throughout the day, spent its time digging in deeper and managing to dislodge all other strains of thought which tried to pop up from time to time.

Finally unable to put off the strange pull any longer, Ashish headed to the bar — though the establishment barely deserved that name — it was more of a hole in the wall establishment which ran under the radar of the authorities and the more sensitive ones of the local populace.

As expected, it was closed, but Ashish could hear voices inside, a voice to be precise, singing bawdy tunes about a voluptuous siren who had stolen the singer’s heart.

Ashish’s insistent and forceful banging on the shutters brought out Pinto, apparently putting in a shift cleaning out the place, though you would never realise it from looking at it.

He didn’t seem surprised in the least to see Ashish there in the middle of the day.

‘Come sir come! I would ask you to sit but.’ He shrugged helplessly at the upturned chairs and tables while holding up his sud clad hands.

‘That’s okay.’ Ashish was gruff and impatient. He couldn’t believe it himself that he was here, but now that he was, he wanted to get it over quickly. ‘I can see that you are busy, so I won’t keep you too long, but I wanted to ask you what you meant about knowing someone who can get the body and the soul mould together once again?’

Pinto laughed!

‘I honestly wondered if you heard that last night, truly heard it and realised what it meant.’

He had moved on to his cleaning chore, picking at the grease stains on the upturned tables with a blade, getting grime and spilled grease out with forceful flicks of the sharp end.

He paused for a second, leaning on the table he was working on, ‘Yes, I know someone. I don’t talk about it much and I don’t talk about it to everyone, but I do. It seems strange to talk about such things in broad daylight and when you don’t have a speck of the old Irish courage flowing through your veins, but it is true.!’

Ashish stepped forward, gripping one of the chairs in front of him, ‘Tell me what you know. Let me be the judge of whether to believe you or not.

Pinto stayed silent, leaning over the table, unmoving, apparently making a decision. In a moment or so, he straightened, and slowly sat down on the floor, leaning back against the upturned table.

He fished inside his pocket, pulling out a crumpled packet of Players, and an equally crooked match box. Taking his time lighting the unfiltered cigarette, he looked at Ashish, ‘I am not educated like you. I am not smart like you. I only believe what I see. And I am telling you what I saw, with my own two eyes, only because you asked.’

Ashish waved his hands impatiently, ‘Stop with the elaborate setting of the stage and tell me!’

‘Many years ago there was an old man in our village, Norbu, right at the snowline of the Himalayas, near the border with Nepal. He was blind and broken — his arm was grisly and twisted, his speech — broken and indecipherable. But everyone in the village — all the elders respected him — and I mean respected him in the truest sense of the word. When younger, he had saved the others in the village from a giant leopard, so everyone who remembered, remembered his deeds to help us all. During one winter, he was stuck in a crevasse. In the middle of a blizzard. He was unable to call for help. Even though he shouted his poor lungs out, no one could hear him over the roaring of the wind.’

Pinto paused again, for another drag of his endless supply of Players.

‘When the storm stopped, a search party went. They found him after a week. Frozen. Starved. Mangled even further. And dead. Stone dead. He was a Buddhist. So they dragged his body to the monastery up in the hills in the secluded village of Yumthang. They handed his remains to the lone monk there — a wizened old man — I somehow don’t remember his name these many years later.’

He paused again till Ashish prodded him to go again.

‘A month or so later, I had gone up to Yumthang with my friends. We had stolen a bottle of brandy and wanted to taste it. Our first drink. The lonely village where no one knew us, and no one cared seemed like a good enough place to take this important step towards manhood.’

‘When there, we saw a man walking around the monastery. Collecting firewood, stooped over, badly wounded it seemed like, he was barely able to walk. But mind you, he was able to walk. And he was alive. It was Norbu.’

‘Even these many years later, I remember that face, with its blackened eyes and twisted limbs. I remember the fear I felt, gripping me from the bowels before I ran back down with my friends, shattering the stolen bottle of rum over some rocks. I never went back. I still remember. I saw a dead man walking.’

Ashish sat quietly for a moment. He took out the packet of cigarettes from his pocket, put one in his mouth and lit it with one of the matches lying on the tabletop. Taking a long drag, he stared blankly in front of him, looking at Pinto but not really seeing him.

‘Is this monk still there?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t been back to my village for a very long time.’

‘Where is this village?’

‘You won’t find it on any map sir, nor on any publication. Around 5 miles north of Yumthang, almost right at the border with China. It’s a small hamlet, hardly a dozen families or so.’

‘Probably empty now.’

Ashish sat there, motionless, staring at Pinto. Disbelieving yet hopeful; filled with mistrust, yet hoping for the improbable. He was too analytical, too grounded in reality and science and fact to believe the ramblings of a drunken deadbeat who probably started lying coming out of his mother’s womb.

But by the time he slowly walked back home, Ashish had made his mind up. He was headed to Yumthang.

It was an illogical step for a logical being, but sometimes, when a lifetime of planning, thinking, being methodical and practical leaves you a sudden lonely widower in the blink of an eye, you want to consider the insane, the borderline crazy ideas which you would have laughed at with your wife.

A quick Google search revealed the earliest available train, leaving for Siliguri in a couple of hours. Taxis would be available aplenty near the station — but it would be better to hire his own car, store some food and winter gear for the alpine weather up in the mountains and make a proper road trip out of it.

Ashish was a light packer, and decisive once his mind was made up. Taking a quick shower, throwing the essentials together in a rush in his travel bag, locking the house up and hiring an auto got him at the station with just enough time to buy an air conditioned chair car ticket to Siliguri, grab a bottle of water and packed meal of a chicken sandwich and some boiled eggs and hop on barely minutes before the train was about to chug off.

The journey was uneventful. The compartment Ashish was in remained empty for the entire duration of the journey. Ashish finished his meal, gazing at the scenery of rural Bengal passing by — the green landscape, sometimes broken by the steel of the bridges over the rivers and the ravines, small towns and villages all forming a scene out of a Ray movie from the 1950s, barely registering in his mind. His thoughts lay elsewhere, far away in the mountains where he will soon be, where a monk lived, who could, perhaps, cure the gaping festering open wound in his chest which was only worsening with passing time.

Even though he well knew there won’t be any trustworthy resources available, Ashish still couldn’t help going online, trying to search for instances of people being brought back from death. The only possible ones which seemed remotely plausible, where the ones where someone had run away or been presumed dead by their family, maybe during a flood or any other cataclysmic disaster — natural or man made, only for them to return years — sometime even decades — later to their hometowns, in the arms of disbelieving family members — the stuff Bollywood films used to be made of.

There was no chance of such hope for him and his beloved Juhi. He had seen her — whatever remained of her — after she had been hit by the racing car. The fragile human body was not meant to withstand such impact. Ashish still distinctly remembered how broken and small his Juhi had felt in his arms, still smelt the faintly metallic smell of her blood, felt the cold numbness of her skin. There wasn’t any happy ending of mistaken identity there.

Sitting in the empty carriage Ashish couldn’t help but wonder at the futility of his journey and was tempted to get down at the next station and put a stop to this madness.

However, some part of him, the part which was not driven by the logical brain but the wistful heart wouldn’t let him. The part which could not let go of its beloved Juhi, wanted to grasp at every last straw to see her, touch her, feel her, talk to her for one last time at least. There were so many unsaid stories to share, so many places they were yet to visit, so many incidents which were bursting inside. The one regret which kept festering inside him ever since that fateful afternoon had been the missed opportunities to tell her how much he loved her — he was never a romantic — but this time — this time he would make up for it. He would show her how much he loved her — what she meant to him.

It was a dark winter evening when finally Ashish got down from the train at the Siliguri station. The dark ominous clouds and the incessant drizzling rain, along with a bitterly cold wind blowing down from the mountains was hardly the most warm welcome Ashish was hoping for. A quick break at the station restaurant for a cup of tea and an even quicker search later, it was clear that no one was willing to drive up the mountains into Sikkim, all the way to Yumthang. That too this late in the evening. The roads which used to be there had been washed away by the floods last autumn.

Hiring a car seemed to be the only option, but finding a car for hire in Siliguri is still not as easy for a first timer as it would have been in any of the larger cities.

Ashish was about ready to give up. He stood at the end of the taxi stand under a great neem tree which seemed to have been there for a century. The overhanging branches gave some protection against the drizzling rain. Ashish had just lit up another cigarette — his last for a while he vowed to himself — when he heard the soft cough deigned to attract his attention.

Turning back he saw one of the porters from the station, the one who had guided him towards the restaurant and then again to the taxi stand, standing right behind him with that typical supplicant’s half smile.

‘Are you looking for a car sir? I am watching you — begging and cajoling and trying to get one of these lazy buggers to drive you up to the mountains!’

Ashish smiled at him slightly, quite sure he knew the pitch coming his way, and ready for the outrageous demand to follow.

‘I have a car sir, an old car, but sturdy, handles really well — perfectly suited for these mountain roads. It has four wheel drive as well — in case the roads are bad at some stretches — which they’re sure to be. It’s an old jeep — but runs perfectly fine!’

Ashish took another drag of the cigarette, eyeing the man, crafty but helpful, smart but not quite cunning. While he didn’t want to trust the man and his extolling of the car, he didn’t really see any other option!

‘Where is this car of yours? Can I see it?’

The man smiled, knowing he had his customer, ‘Right in the station’s parking sir! I keep it there only, the station master doesn’t know and the security guard is from my same village — so I know the car would be safe!’

Let’s go and check it out!’

A quick walk back to the station complex and right next to the entrance towards the main concourse stood a dusty heap covered by an old oily tattered piece of blue tarpaulin. The porter quickly folded up the sides revealing the vehicle underneath.

It was an old army jeep, with old being the operative word. But despite its age and the dusty look, the vehicle looked well maintained. The tires had defined treads on them, the body looked solid with no obvious touch ups. Ashish climbed into the driver’s seat and turned on the ignition after taking the keys, the engine caught on at once.

Ashish was impressed. The car didn’t look ready to win any prizes at an award show, but it looked strong enough to take him up to the snowy mountains and bring him back safely again.

Ashish turned towards the porter, ‘How much?’

The porter smiled, ‘Five thousand rupees for the trip, a deposit of ten and you pay for the fuel and any damage.’

Ashish was mildly surprised! That was a far more reasonable amount than what he was expecting — it was almost too good to be true.’

‘Okay.’

The porter smiled even more widely.

‘Only one request sir. I have a small parcel for a friend. He stays on the way to Yumthang — absolutely on the road. Can you drop it for him?’

And there was the catch.

‘A parcel?’

‘Yes, he had ordered some things from Calcutta. They got delivered by the Express Mail today! I am not going up for at least a week more — but since you are headed the same way, I thought you wouldn’t mind helping out!’

The unspoken message being the same way I helped you out by offering my car to you — a complete stranger at these ridiculous low rates.

Ashish didn’t really have a lot of choice, nor was he unnecessarily worried about the package. He was traveling alone, he needed the car and he wanted to move now. Even if the package contained something illegal, the chances of him being detained for it, seemed to be ridiculously low. Why would anyone suspect him in the first place? He was a peaceful visitor to the state, only looking for an old Buddhist monk in the upper reaches of the Himalayas, who was known to perform miracles, to bring his dead wife back alive — hardly the template of a hardened criminal.

He agreed. Sharing his license and ID with the porter didn’t take too long, and the papers he produced for the car seemed legitimate.

Ashish put his backpack in the backseat and the package from the porter — the papers proclaimed him to be Birendra Thakur — next to it.

He started off, with detailed but difficult to follow instructions from Birendra, which followed the highway out of the city and was similar to what Google was telling him, but had some shortcuts and diversions baked in which Google didn’t seem to approve of.

Not bothering too much about it, Ashish followed the route as best as he could. There was no moon and proper street lights were mostly non-existent on the highway — the floods last year having wrought damage which would take a long time to undo.

The bumpy roads, the rain and the unknown terrain made driving a slow affair out of necessity. There was traffic to keep him company till Sebok Road, but once the road entered the forests and the hills, the number of vehicles dwindled down drastically.

Completely focussed on the road, Ashish didn’t have much time to think of what he would actually do once he reached the village — provided it existed in the first place — and then if the monk from Pinto’s story was alive — provided he existed in the first place — what exactly was he supposed to tell him?

Caught up in his own thoughts, Ashish didn’t realise that he had reached the border between Bengal and Sikkim, and the mandatory checkposts between the two states, heavier than the norm in most of the other places across the country due to the close proximity of the border.

At first Ashish wasn’t sure of the long queue of cars and why the moving was suddenly so slow. They hadn’t reached the proper mountains just yet and the weather was dark and wet but nothing out of the ordinary for these parts! Then he saw the signboards and the gun toting soldiers and realised the cause for the holdup.

Initially carefree and relaxed, Ashish tensed up the moment he remembered the parcel in the backseat of his car. He remembered warnings about carrying things for strangers — something he had never done in his entire adult life — also thinking of the stories he had heard of unwitting tourists being naively used as couriers for ferrying contraband in these hills. Silently cursing himself, Ashish tried to calm down and think of options. Unfortunately there weren’t any good ones. He couldn’t get rid of the parcel in full view of the soldiers and their guns — they would in probability shoot at him. He could not hide it in the car either — he was almost right there at the checkpost and they would see him reach back and try to hide a big bulky wrapped box.

There was no good option other than pray and hope for the best.

The soldier manning the boom signalled him to a stop while another one came to the drivers side, followed by another at the back and one at the passenger side. All very professionally done and leaving very little to chance.

‘Welcome to Sikkim! Can we see your licence and registration?’ The soldier at the window asked pleasantly enough.

Ashish nodded and tried to force a smile as he handed over the documents requested.

‘What brings you here? That too all alone?’

‘I am going to visit the monastery near Yumthang, looking for some peace and solace! Hardly something you can do in a big group.’

The soldier looked at him and gave half a smile, moving back to scan into the backseat while still holding his papers.

He glanced into the backseat, saw Ashish’s travel bag and the parcel and moved back to glance into the open back — empty except for a water can, the spare tire and a tool box.

He slowly completed a circuit of the car, then went over to the table set up next to the boom, and picked up the mandatory metal detector which one regularly saw at the entrance of every public entrance nowadays — only this seemed to be more heavy duty and sensitive than the ones you saw elsewhere.

Carrying it back to the car, he leaned in through the window, running it over the bag and the parcel, staring intently at the display screen which seemed to function as a scanner as well.

After what seemed like an eternity but was hardly longer than a minute, he stepped back, handed the papers back to Ashish and signalled to his colleague to let the car through.

‘Have a safe journey sir — be mindful of the roads and don’t drive when you feel tired. The monastery will be peaceful, but our mountains are not.’

Ashish nodded, relief flooding through every vein in his body, as he tried to calm his nerves as he drove through the checkpost and slowly sped up on the empty road outside.

It was still hardly 6 in the evening and Gangtok was 2 hours away. Yumthang a further 3. He wanted to reach Gangtok as soon as he could, find a place to shelter down for the night before he drove down to Yumthang at first light.

He pulled over at an empty shoulder, getting down to stretch his legs and release the tension from his shoulders. It was cold, much colder than he had realised from inside the car, with high winds which easily ran through his clothes and pinched every bit of available skin. The sun had set, but the mountains weren’t completely dark yet, instead being bathed in a reddish orange glow.

Ashish pulled out a cigarette and lit it — somehow guarding the feeble flame of the lighter against the relentless wind. He took a deep breath and paused, letting the moment sink in. Somehow, here, having crossed the foothills and about to step into the arms of the majestic Himalayas, Pedro’s story didn’t seem like a story anymore. It was very much a possibility in this ancient mystic lands. The air had the mythical quality of the unknown, of the unexplained, the magic of the centuries past. Here, even the dead could come back walking.

Ashish flicked the burnt cigarette butt into the wind and walked back to the Jeep with purpose. He had places to go, things to do.

He drove the car as hard as he could and despite the rain and the unknown terrain reached the bypass which surrounded the town of Gangtok around seven thirty in the evening. Even though his plan was to rest in Gangtok for the evening and make the infinitesimally more difficult drive to Yumthang in the light of day, refreshed after a good night’s rest, Ashish felt too keyed up now.

A quick check of Google Maps on his phone confirmed that Yumthang was two hours away — far higher on the mountains, quite near the border.

It would be hard driving on steep winding mountain roads, very few signs and too many dangerous hairpin bends to count. But Ashish was determined now, he had to move. He had to see Juhi.

Ashish thought of calling Birendra’s friend in Gangtok and informing him of his change of plans — he would hand over the parcel to him tomorrow late evening at the latest instead of tonight. He looked up the number that Birendra had provided, and called from his phone — no response. As it happened so frequently in the mountains, the network seemed to be down.

Ashish tried another couple of times — no luck.

Not thinking too much more about it, Ashish drove off. He still had quite a distance to cover and he was determined to make it tonight.

The roads out of Gangtok climbing higher up the mountains seemed to need a completely different driving skill than the ones leading up to it. Barely tarred, badly broken at various places, non-existent streetlights and a lot less traffic. Ashish began to regret his choice barely a few kilometres out. But he was also a few kilometres closer to Yumthang, its monastery and its supremely powerful monk who apparently had the ability to bring people back from the other side.

The incessant drizzling rain which had been following him since Siliguri had turned into a light gentle dusting of snow as Ashish finally managed to barely make out the smudged silver letters on the muddy blue signboard — ‘Take a Right for Yumthang Village’.

It was close to midnight. The only sound was the humming of the engine, softly idling after the hard work of climbing up the mountains accentuated by the continuous roaring of the wind which was at its brutal best at these heights.

Ashish drove slowly into the village, shrouded in a foggy darkness, it was hard to make out any of the buildings individually or understand where the road ended and the deep valleys began. After what seemed like hours, he finally saw the typical pagoda-like shape of the monastery, in dark contrast against the grey sky.

It was small. Far smaller than some of the other monasteries which Ashish had seen in his visits across the country. It was smaller than most of the monasteries which were scattered throughout Sikkim and the other parts of the Himalayan region in India and Tibet. It seemed like a small parish church or a temple in any small hamlet — there to serve the spiritual needs of the few handful locals and not much beyond. It seemed inconceivable that such a small, insignificant monastery, in this sleepy village in the Himalayan mountains housed a monk powerful enough to bridge the afterlife to the present.

Ashish parked the car in front of the monastery, trying to keep as much room as possible for other vehicles to pass by on the narrow edge of a road. Once he got out, he realized just how bitterly cold it was and how loud the wind really is up on the mountains. He went and knocked on the door of the monastery — a piece of solid wood, at least a few inches thick and it looked like it had been there for generations. Banging the loud knockers on the door, didn’t provoke a response. Another flurry of beating on it, along with shouts of ‘Is someone there?’ were only met with complete silence.

Ashish was chastised. He began to mentally castigate himself for not waiting at Gangtok to spend the night as he had originally planned. In fact, this hair brained plan of his, starting from the moment he decided to suddenly travel to these remote godforsaken part of the Himalayas based on the words of a drunkard, who probably right now was regaling his patrons with the story of how he duped the high and mighty Ashish Babu to scamper off to the hills.

It was bitterly cold, far colder than he had anticipated and his clothes were no match. He was hungry, hadn’t eaten more than a bite since late in the afternoon and now faced a long drive back to Gangtok, in the middle of the night, with the weather worsening every moment.

He gave the unmoving door a final kick of frustration and was about to turn back and get into the car, when with only minor creaking and cranking, the door slowly swung open.

The person who stood at the doorway, lit only by a dim kerosine-lit lantern, the kind Ashish hadn’t seen in decades. The man was tall, very tall, easily taller than the six feet tall Ashish but rail thin. Dressed in the traditional Kasaya robes of the spiritual practitioner of Buddhism, the man was a vision of abstinence.

The hand which was holding the lantern with its flickering flame was gnarled and wrinkly, the skin blackened as happened with prolonged exposure to the elements. The face was equally wrinkled and wizened but wasn’t broken with age, the jawline well defined, clean shaven. The most striking features of the face however were the eyes. Deep, sunken but somehow bright and alert, belying the age behind it. The dark irises glowed in the shimmering light of the lantern, now staring at the rude intruder in the middle of the stormy cold night.

The face was oddly expressionless, staring blankly at Ashish, half turned away from the door, showing neither interest nor surprise at being probably awakened from sleep this late.

When the monk didn’t speak, Ashish fumbled for a second before turning back towards the door, ‘I am sorry to wake you this late. I can come back tomorrow morning.’

The monk didn’t utter a syllable, simply continuing to stare at Ashish in mute interest.

‘I am coming from Chandennagore in Bengal. I started from there this morning and didn’t stop till I reached here — I am coming to look for you.’

The monk kept staring at him — impassive, mute, impenetrable.

‘Well, actually, I don’t know if I am actually looking for YOU in particular,’ Ashish fumbled, oddly discomfited and put off by the obstinate silence from the monk, ‘I was told certain stories about a monk who lived in Yumthang back by some .. acquaintances in Chandennagore, and I … I am, I have been desperate and tired and didn’t know what to really do and think, but I knew that I needed to move. So I moved, without really thinking forward and aft, I came here. To seek you. Or someone like you.’

‘I will leave now.’ said Ashish dejectedly as he turned around, ready to step back into his rented vehicle, swallow his pride and chalk this off as a short adventure trip to the mountains, one he had badly needed.

The monk stepped back from the door, keeping a space wide open for a man to pass through — the only invitation the hapless Ashish was apparently going to receive. Ashish looked at the monk, who was staring back at him with his dark expressionless eyes, without any indication of welcome or encouragement.

Ashish debated for a moment on what to do. The prudent choice would have been to turn back and head home, but then none of the choices he had made throughout the day had been prudent. And it did seem silly to head back home and not see through this glimmer of an opportunity — one he would not have counted on even a few moments ago. He knew he would regret it really really badly later if he didn’t take this chance.

He nodded to the monk, expressing his thanks and shuffled in through the narrow gap between him and the door and entered the cold innards of the monastery.

Ashish had expected a well lit sanctum, welcoming, warm — how you would normally expect a place of worship to be — designed and maintained to make the worshippers comfortable and peaceful.

This was the complete opposite of that.

Only one single kerosene lamp, the twin of the one held by his host, stood at one corner of a long hallway, teemingly alive. The temperature was as low as outside, though the lack of the gusting wind made it a bit more bearable.

The walls were empty, devoid of any artwork or Buddha sculptures, except for one truly massive metallic idol placed at the far end.

The idol was only partially lit by the flickering flames of the lamp, but that flickering sight was enough for Ashish to step back and almost send his host tumbling.

The large figurine was dark, a far darker version of the normal Buddha idols than we were used to seeing. The idol which had the normally benevolent expression as expected of someone who had attained enlightenment, was grimacing, in anger, his posture set as that of someone about to punish the unruly and the unenlightened — those unworthy of his mercy and good will.

Ashish stepped back, letting his host pass through, his mind in turmoil through exhaustion and uncertainty.

The monk strolled past Ashish and past the pedestal where the Buddha idol was seated and into the inner sanctum beyond.

Ashish followed in trepidation, unsure of what to find inside.

Inside was only one room, small and sparsely furnished, evidently the monks’ living quarters. On one side a mattress and bed clothes well worn but clean and cared for, which showed no sign of having been slept in so far tonight. On the other, a couple of small settees, a praying rug and a small closet which perhaps held the monk’s earthly belongings.

The monk gestured at Ashish to sit in one of the settees, while he stepped out through another door at the back which Ashish had failed to notice.

Ashish sat down on the settee, the fatigue of the long day and the bite of the cold catching up with him all of a sudden. He hugged himself to ward off the chills while taking a longer look at the room.

It was bare and sparsely furnished, the furniture, what little of it was there, was evidently old but well cared for. The few shelves built into the wall were stacked with books, manuscripts and diaries of unknown provenance and some jars — the kind which you saw so often in apothecary stores lining up against the top wall.

The monk came back into the room a moment later, carrying a steaming bowl which smelled heavenly to the starving Ashish and a bottle which suspiciously looked like chhang — the tibetan drink common in these parts — wonderfully capable of getting a body warm.

‘Eat up’

Ashish looked up at the monk, startled at the first words he had heard him speak, as he gratefully took the bowl. It was a brothy mixture of some kind, tasty, hot and very filling.

He ate silently for a minute or too, trying to stop himself from gobbling down too much, but not succeeding.

He put the empty bowl down on the floor next to him a moment later and gave the monk who sat opposite him a sheepish smile.

‘Thank you! I really needed that!’

The monk nodded, a wisp of a smile barely flashing on his old face, ‘Now that we have taken care of the cold and the hunger, tell me stranger, who are you? And why are you here?’

Ashish didn’t exactly know where to start, so he started at the beginning. His insignificant but happy life where he and Juhi were happy in their own world. How they had been looking forward to the next stage of their lives with all the responsibilities taken care of, and all the whims and fancies which they had been putting off for all these years, finally about to come true.

And how all of their plans, carefully thought out and plotted suddenly shattered without a moment’s notice by the reckless mechanisms of fate. All the dreams, fantasies that they had stored up for all these years, scattered and broken, with Ashish left all alone to pick up the pieces.

Ashish spoke about his loneliness, his despair and helplessness and how slowly he was losing all the will to carry on alone.

Then he finally came to his drinking habits, the acquaintance with the unfortunate Pinto and his boasting of having seen people being brought back from the afterlife.

And how that had set up the whirlwind motion of the events of the past twenty four hours which finally ended up with Ashish sitting in the inner sanctum of a Buddhist stupa in the northern mountains of Sikkim, surrounded by snow mountains and raging winds and not a living soul within miles.

Except the monk. The monk who could bring the dead back from life.

The monk had listened to Ashish with his complete attention so far, not uttering a single word or moving a muscle.

Now he smiled slightly, a smile which somehow made his face look older and harder.

‘Since you have travelled so far to find me, meet me and expect me to perform miracles for you, you should at least know my name! My name is Samdup! Samdup Lama!’

Ashish bowed his head in greeting, ‘It is my honour to meet you my lord! I didn’t come here expecting you to perform miracles for me!’

Samdup Lama laughed now, a humourless laugh which somehow had a menacing screeching undertone, ‘You didn’t expect me to perform a miracle? What is summoning someone back from the dead for you then? A cheap parlour trick? Something which charlatans and heretics can do at their wish and whimsy?’

Ashish shrank back at the sudden anger in the monk’s voice.

‘Of course not! Pardon me if I offended you my lord, but all I meant was, I didn’t come here expecting you to simply summon my wife from the afterlife!’

‘Oh so you came all the way here to test me?’

Ashish shook his head vigorously, ‘No! I didn’t come here to prove Pinto wrong, nor did I come here expecting you to perform magic. I came here as a widower, I came here as a lonely man, looking for some hope. Just like a drowning man will clutch even at straw, I am also simply holding on to any semblance of hope. And this is the only one where I could do something rather than sit at home and pray!’

Samdup Lama nodded, evidently satisfied for now.

‘It’s late, why don’t you sleep for a while? You need to be rested if you’re going to make the journey back down the mountain and all the way home tomorrow.’

Ashish nodded, not sure what to say.

Samdup Lama insisted that Ashish take the bed, he would need it, while he was more used to the cold and the elements, and the time for his early morning prayers was almost there.

Ashish laid down on the mattress, covering himself with the blanket which was seemingly made of some indeterminate animal.

He was disappointed at Samdup Lama’s nonchalant reaction to his narrative, but it really wasn’t something unexpected! What was he supposed to say? It’s not as if there was an incantation he could mutter and Juhi would come knocking on the doors of the monastery.

Sleep wasn’t difficult to come by. The exhaustion of the day, combined with the two or three slugs of chhang which he had gulped down to help with the cold were enough to put him into a deep slumber.

When he woke up, the small room was filled with the smell of incense and burning candles. Groggy and half asleep, Ashish couldn’t make out if it was morning yet, but it still seemed to be the dead of the night.

A tall shrouded figure was standing over him, Samdup Lama peering at him with a predatory look in his eyes.

‘So Ashish, you really want to bring your wife back? Bring her back from the dead?’

Ashish nodded, afraid and still not fully convinced he was awake.

‘Are you willing to pay the price Ashish? I demand payment for my services, for going against the laws of nature, for reaching into the afterlife and pulling a soul back into this realm, I demand to be paid! Will you bear my payment?’

‘I will.’ Ashish somehow croaked out, unsure of what the payment would look like, having no idea what the monk may demand, he knew that nothing would be too much to ask for to get his Juhi back.

‘Remember Ashish, a soul doesn’t always come back the same way it goes! The person who comes back, if they do, may be very different from the one who left. You may get someone back whom you don’t really know!’

‘I don’t care! I just want my Juhi back!’

Samdup Lama nodded and stepped back from the mattress, going back to the rug where he sat posturing, chanting incantations.

Ashish didn’t know when he had drifted off again, but when he woke up the next time, a feeble sunlight was bathing the room, illuminating its sparsity even more glaringly.

Samdup Lama was nowhere in the room, but there was an earthen mug filled with sweet tea and a couple of crude handmade biscuits which turned out to be made with oat.

Scrubbing his face with some water, Ashish finished the tea and biscuit before heading out of the room, onto the outer sanctum, past the Buddha idol which stared at him with all its menacing glory and straight of the door out of the monastery.

Samdup Lama stood just outside the wooden doors of the monastery, with his own cup of tea in his hands, staring off into the distance.

In the morning daylight, he seemed even older than he had done the night before, every line and wrinkle on his face bearing testament to the decades he had spent, diving into the mystery of religion, the mysticism of life and death.

He didn’t turn or acknowledge Ashish, simply taking another sip of his tea and speaking, ‘It’s time for you to go now! If you start now, you will be able to go down the mountains before the weather worsens.’

Ashish was taken aback but this was as clear a dismissal as he had ever heard. He wanted to ask about the chanting and posturing from last night, but he was not very sure if that was part of a dream or that it happened in reality.

‘Thank you for your hospitality last night and my apologies once again for having barged in unannounced last night.’

Samdup Lama turned and looked at Ashish, ‘I think we may both find that worth our while!’

Ashish was about to ask what he meant, but thought the better of it. He put his bag back into the Jeep, right next to the parcel which was still undelivered, got into the car and turned towards the monastery gates to acknowledge a goodbye to the ascetic monk only to see that he had disappeared inside.

He shook his head and started the car. As he was reversing the car, planning to retrace the route out of the village, he was startled by a very feminine shriek, which seemed to come directly from behind the closed doors of the monastery, followed by a deafening silence.

Ashish stopped the car, startled by the sudden noise. He glanced around, there was not a single soul who seemed to be out and about in the village and the doors of the monastery seemed firmly shut.

Ashish debated for a second on whether he should go back to the monastery, knock on the doors and enquire with Samdup Lama, but he already knew that the doors won’t be opened again for him. Not today. After waiting for another minute to see if there was a repeat of the noise, Ashish started back on his journey.

He was confused, disappointed and satisfied all at the same time. Satisfied that he had made the trip and met Samdup Lama — who according to one drunk bartender in Chandennagore could bring the dead back to life. That trip had brought him on an adventure — a change from his monotonous humdrum lonely existence in his empty home. It was a welcome change!

Disappointed because somehow, somewhere in his mind, he had actually thought that it was possible for someone to defy all the laws of science known to mankind and bring someone back from the dead. It was absurd, but so is human emotion and hope.

And he was confused because of the hazy memories of the chanting and the words of the monk from last night — he didn’t know if they were real or not. And what about the sudden womanly shriek he had heard a few moments back? Was that a figment of his imagination too? It must be because there were no other souls in sight. That was another weird vibe he was picking up — the entire village seemed to be deserted this morning — even in the light of day. The houses were locked with the doors and windows shuttered, the narrow roads empty. Not a single soul to be seen anywhere!

As he drove back out from the narrow village roads and onto the main state highway, Ashish remembered the parcel which he still had to deliver to Birendra’s friend. He stole a quick glance at his phone — still no network. Hopefully he will get the connection back as he got closer to Gangtok, he will call Birendra’s friend, hand over the parcel.

Even though the road remained bumpy, the drive down the mountains was far easier in the daylight than the climb up had been last night. For one thing, it was not raining, second, there was no traffic to speak of and he wasn’t in a rush. In fact, after the rest last night, he felt refreshed.

Ashish planned to stay in Gangtok for a few days. Maybe take a few road trips from there and visit some of the famous tourist spots nearby. Even though it was such a short train ride away, he had never made the time to visit Sikkim earlier — and it was unlikely he would be back anytime soon!

While he was mentally planning out his itinerary for the next few days, Ashish suddenly felt a prickle of unease — the one you get when you’re being watched from very close quarters. He quickly turned around — craning his neck back to check the rear of the car — it was empty except for the backpack and the parcel. It was an open vehicle, hardly big enough for someone to be hidden somewhere.

Maybe it was his mind playing tricks on him — but the feeling of unease remained. However, there was nobody to be seen and nothing to be done, so Ashish brushed it off as a mental illusion and started back on his journey.

He had just crossed the old bridge crossing some unnamed stream near Tung, when he saw a few vehicles clustered at the sight, with the occupants who looked like tourists slowly strolling about. It was a viewpoint for the Naga falls — not a spectacular beauty — but a quaint little spot to just stretch your legs on the long drive up and down the mountains.

Ashish pulled over, determined to soak in the beauty and the vibrancy of nature. He stepped out, enjoying the bracing cold and the sweet smell of freshly melted snow water carried over from the spray of the falls. It was a small waterfall, with the water having made a cut through the rocky outgrowths of the mountains over a millenia

On the other side of the bridge were truly spectacular views of the valley below, the clear skies offering miles of vibrant green scattered with the colourful rooftops of the houses in a village far far away.

Even in the midst of this peaceful natural beauty, Ashish couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched — continuously being followed by what seemed to be a malevolent lurker. Unable to find out anyone who was following his every move visually, Ashish decided to get back on the road and drive down to his destination.

Ashish started back through the long winding roads, manoeuvring the Jeep slowly down the steep gradient, preoccupied with the constant feeling of being watched and followed. He kept on hearing a peal of a woman’s laughter ring in his ears — which had to be a mental illusion on these empty stretches of highways in the middle of the Himalayas.

He was so preoccupied with his own thoughts, that he had not noticed the dark green camouflage coloured van which had been parked at the falls, with three or four tough looking characters watching every vehicle pass by, who had stiffened at the sight of his vehicle, carefully checked out the number plate and the person riding in it, and had been following at a distance ever since, trying to be as discreet as possible on these lonely mountain roads.

In fact, Ashish didn’t notice the vehicle or the passengers in it, till he suddenly found himself boxed in by the car, being forced into a small ramp off the main highway by the car forcing itself ahead of him in such a way that his only choice was to get on the ramp or crash into the car. He was startled and not a little disconcerted by the sudden turn of events. He sat in the car, not sure of what he should do, when he suddenly heard a piercing scream in his ears, a woman in obvious distress and anger, shouting at the top of her lungs. He looked around wildly — there was no-one — and certainly no woman in sight.

What was perhaps more worrisome was to see the van coming up the ramp completely blocking the way. Ashish put the Jeep into gear, suddenly desperate to get away. Whatever the intentions of these men were, that couldn’t be good for him. He sped up only to stop within a minute. It was a dead end. Perhaps it was a ramp being prepared by the transportation department for a new road, but for now, it just ended nowhere in between the cliffs.

Ashish sat inside the car, locking the doors and windows, knowing full well that it hardly offered any protection against any violence these men wished upon him. The van came to a stop only a few feet behind the Jeep, with three men including the driver coming down immediately. They walked up to the car, with the one who seemed like the leader walking up to the driver’s door, and knocking on the window pane.

Ashish slowly rolled the window down, he didn’t really have any other choice.

‘Ashish?’ the man asked. Surprised at the man knowing his name, Ashish nodded. ‘Where is the parcel Birendra gave you? You were supposed to give it to us yesterday!’

Ashish gaped at the man in surprise! ‘Are you Birendra’s friend? I tried to call you last night when I reached Gangtok, but your number wasn’t available!’

‘You could have tried one more time — couldn’t you? Instead you chose to simply run away!’

Ashish shook his head, ‘I didn’t run away! Why will I run away with your parcel in the first place?

I had to go to Yumthang — that was my plan all the while, so after I couldn’t find you.’

The man cut him off impatiently, ‘Enough! We don’t care about why you changed your plans and where you went! We just want our parcel!’

Ashish pointed to the backseat, ‘It is right there!’

The man nodded at one of his companions who reached in and took the parcel out. He tore the wrappers open, revealing a normal brown box, filled with a variety of different spices — something very common all over the country. Ashish was surprised at the content! All the desperation, car chase and threats only for this? However his surprise turned to realisation a moment later when the man turned the glass base of one of the bottles to reveal a false bottom — filled with a brown powder.

Ashish was not a drug aficionado. But he knew enough of the different types of addictive narcotics available in the market and their demand in these mountains where the local populace and some members of the army regularly relied on these enhanced boosters to survive the bitter cold and the monotonous livelihood. Highly addictive, these drugs could fetch millions on the open market!

The men at the back gestured at the leader who nodded in satisfaction. ‘Well Ashish, we got our spices as we needed them, but you? What do we do with you?’

‘What do you mean? You got what you needed! What else do you need me for?’

‘But what will you do when you’re back in Siliguri? Wouldn’t you feel the moral urge to finger out the person who handed you the parcel? Wouldn’t you like to play the hero?’

Before Ashish could answer, there was a sudden shriek from the men at the back. Ashish and the leading goon both turned to see both the men lying on the floor, bleeding, badly mauled and mangled, while a dark figure stood crouching above them.

Ashish was shocked, was it a bear? Or a mountain leopard? Even though they were not unheard of in these parts, they were not known to attack humans unless provoked — and this particular animal seemed outraged for some reason.

The man standing next to Ashish’s window jumped back, scrambling up towards the cliff face, desperate to get away. The dark figure crouching over its victims in the back, suddenly surged forward on both legs, reaching the fleeing man in a second and attacked. It bit at the man’s neck, taking a large chunk of flesh out. The man let out an unearthly scream before falling down on the rocky face. The creature swooped down, unwilling to let its prey go until its job was done. It picked up the man again, and bashed him hard against the rocks. The man fell down without a sound this time. Unmoving. Quite dead.

Ashish sat frozen in the car. He was shocked. He wasn’t sure what kind of a monster this was, but he had seen its brutal capabilities first hand just now and he was scared witless. As a city dweller, he had never really been close to nature and his only interaction so far with wild animals had been through either television or through the once in a lifetime visit to the zoo.

This creature was unlike anything he had ever seen or heard of. Unmatched in its brutality and ferociousness, Ashish wasn’t sure if this was some sort of a bear or an altogether unknown creature that he had never heard of.

Ashish shrunk back in his seat, trying to lock the doors and roll up the windows in a hurry, when the creature stood up on two legs above its victim and glanced his way. Again,the sound of a very feminine laughter, this time joyous and playful, reached his ears. Ashish was sure by now that he was hallucinating — there was no other sane explanation of the noise.

The animal started to walk towards him, strangely humanlike in its gait and posture. It was around five and a half feet tall, lithe and nimble in its form. The style of its walking, the way the creature held its head cocked to one side, even the peals of laughter which kept ringing in his ears, reminded Ashish of something. Someone.

The scream came unbidden to his mouth. The creature had reached the Jeep and was standing on its hind legs, leaning against the closed window. There was no fur, the blackened skin which had given the appearance of fur from afar, was actually just that — blackened skin — badly charred and burnt, but skin nevertheless. The mouth was strangely agape, the side of the head, misformed, as if bashed in, through some strong impact. A strong impact like that of being hit by a car. The hair matted, and mottled with what seemed to be congealed and dried up clots of blood. But the overall structure, shape and form, remarkably similar.

The succubus kept leaning against the car, the window starting to crack under it’s pressure when it spoke.

‘You waited for me — every day! I hung around seeing you suffer, seeing you break down and become a shell of what you were, waiting for one chance — one chance to get back to you and get a second chance — and you made it happen! I don’t know how — but you made it happen!’

‘Juhi?’