Pretha
lived in an apartment 402-A in East Bangalore. She was a housewife
with two little kids. Her husband Raj was a serviceman with a very
busy schedule at work. He loved them but could hardly buy any time
for his family which he was rueful for.
It
was a weekend night when she alongwith her kids was waiting for him
to come back from his overtime work. She had prepared his favourite
dish for dinner. It was quarter past ten as her phone rang. She
rushed to get it expecting his call. But the number flashing was an
unknown one. When she recieved the call, the voice on the other side
said that her husband has met with an accident on the highway and is
in a hospital.
Hearing
this she went numb for a while. She somehow managed to rush to the
hospital counter and asked for his ward number. The receptionist
searched through his database and reported that there was no patient
with his name. She insisted that the phone call gave her this address
only. But the person on the counter refused again.
She
quickly visited her phone call history but failed to find the number
that had called her. She had probably deleted the number by mistake.
Her anxiety augmented. She didn't know what to do or whom to ask for
help.
An
elderly man observing her restlessness suggested her to try calling
her husband’s phone just in case he answers. This was much of a
common sense thing but under the haze of worry she had not thought of
this option.
She
quickly reached out to her phone and dialed his number. The bell
rang. But no one answered. Tears mixed with her sweat of worry
trickled down her cheek. She only wished in her subconscious mind
that it were just a bad dream.
Just
when she had almost given up her hope on the situation, her phone
rang. No, it was not him. She lost her consciousness and fell there.
The old man took the phone and received the call. It was her neighbor
Rita who in an anxious voice, without hearing this old man, said,
‘Pretha where are you? Your kids were running out of the apartment
and your door was ajar. Why can’t you be careful with your kids and
home? Please come back from wherever you are as they are crying and
looking out for you.’
This
man replied that she has come to the hospital looking for her husband
who has met with an accident. She promptly replied, ‘her Husband
who died two years back, has met with an accident!!’, and she took
a deep breath, having understood what just happened. But the man
still seemed perplexed.
Then
she explained him the tragedy about Pretha. “True that her husband
died in a road accident. But it had happened two years back. And
Pretha is since then under a deep trauma, from which she has yet not
recovered. She keeps waiting for him everyday and at times when her
adrenaline rush is really low, she ends up hallucinating about him in
different ways like this one”.
Rita
came to the hospital and took her back home. Pretha’s kids came
running and jumped into her arms. Pretha realized that what just
happened was just another sour outcome of her misery. She loved her
husband badly and could still not recover from the pain of his loss.
She
used to engage herself with her kids. She was under medication to
battle her depression. But at times when her soul failed
to fight strong, the medicines would also fail. Life went on with her
relatives and friends visiting her now and then.
One
day when her kids came back from school, they saw a herd of people
including the relatives standing in their house. In a corner was
their mother’s dead body lying. Their granny held them and took to
the other room where they learnt that earlier that day their mom had
hung herself from the ceiling fan. This was indeed a shock of their
life.
They
were taken to their grandparents who took their charge and started
looking after them from then. The kids by now had learnt that their
life was not as gifted as their friends. But they had to learn to
live and to fight all odds, to succeed in life.
402-A was
gradually declared a haunted house as the people around often
complained that they heard human voices coming from the locked house.
And that they heard sounds – of Rita singing - her husband laughing
– the (already disconnected) landline phone ringing – and so on.
