Thoroughfare
Photo: Karan Madhok
Personal Essay: ‘I had a habit of waking up at the slightest disturbance in the surroundings. In the wavering streetlight coming from the open doors at both ends of the room, there were silhouettes of ghastly figures shortening and lengthening.’
More than two decades ago, I lived in my grandfather’s house in South Delhi for a few years. At the time I had started working in a private firm. The mundane, ordinary days were full of hard work and I used to return home late in the evenings—tired, exhausted. After having my dinner, I mostly went off to sleep around 10 o’clock.
The east–west facing house was on the ground floor with a terrace. There were three rooms interconnected with each other without any corridor, a somewhat longish hall-like living room, attached to my grandfather’s bedroom, which opened into the third room. There was a front yard and a backyard, and a kitchen at the back of the living room. During the summer months, the wooden doors of the rooms remained wide open, and the iron gates at the front and back—though closed at all times—were such that small animals could easily glide through them.
It was a warm, sweaty night, when intemperance of the summer heat left me awake for some time longer than my usual routine, and I went off to sleep a little later than usual. Suddenly, I awoke deep into the night. It was 1 or 2 a.m., and I was roused by a long-continued, faint noise in the living room, where I slept on a folding bed.
Being a light sleeper, I had a habit of waking up at the slightest disturbance in the surroundings. In the wavering streetlight coming from the open doors at both ends of the room, there were silhouettes of ghastly figures shortening and lengthening; shadows of leaves of the nearby tree outside the front yard flapping in the wind; and concealed dark corners brightening occasionally. Here, I could discern two blackish animals, almost the size of a cat, passing through in noisy confusion.
They were crawling on the floor near the dining table, sofa sets, and then came up to the foot of my bed.
I freaked out on seeing them as I realized that they were probably big rats. Dark greyish-brown body; with a profusion of black hair appearing like spikes; long dark, scaly tail, probably 10–12 inches in length. Feeling under the grip of a silent panic, I tried to get up but I couldn’t land on the ground fearing that they might attack me. Fortunately they didn’t climb up to the bed itself.
The creatures left the room after a while, and crossing the front yard, they reached the main gate and slipped out through it.
The following day I narrated the incident to my mother on the phone, to which she laughed in a manner that was unpleasant to hear. She told me not to worry, for rats—she believed—were harmless creatures. She told me about the Karni Mata Temple in Rajasthan, where thousands of rats are revered, well-fed, protected, and worshipped.
It is a Hindu place of worship that is dedicated to the fourteenth-century sage and mystic Karni Mata, believed to be an incarnation of goddess Durga. She is depicted as the crowned woman in red dress (with the traditional headwear and skirt worn by western Rajasthani women—the orhni and ghagara), standing in front of a reclining lion and carrying a trident. She wears a garland of skulls and is surrounded by several brown rats and one white rat at her feet.
Initially, I was afraid, wondering how to get rid of them. But gradually I developed a fondness. I named them Chunnu and Munnu, though I could hardly differentiate between the two. Every night I used to wait for them; and every night, they didn’t fail to come, a little after midnight.
As the legend goes, Karni Mata’s son Laxman fell in a pond while trying to drink water, and accidently drowned. Bereaved, Karni Mata begged Yama, the God of Death, to revive him. He decided to let Laxman be reincarnated as a rat. He blessed that all of Karni Mata’s male children and clan will be reborn as mice. So, it is believed that the rats, or ‘kabbas’ are members of her family. Once they give up their lives as rats, they will be reborn again as human beings in the family of Depavats, as her descendants are known today.
People at that temple don’t persecute the rats. Instead, the rodents are offered huge saucers of milk.
“Incredible!” That was the only word I could utter, completely awestruck on hearing about the strange temple.
“The mother goddess represents nature,” my mother said, “Eternally supporting and maintaining human, animal, and natural creations—symbolizing compassion among living beings, peaceful coexistence between man and nature, and observing non-violence by humans toward other living creatures.”
Then, she hung up the phone.
I was bewildered that every single night the rats came through the gate at the back of the house, passed through the backyard, the living room where I slept, and then onto the front yard. And after a while, they would be gone via the front gate. They followed the same path daily—never coming in through the front gate itself.
Initially, I was afraid, wondering how to get rid of them. But gradually I developed a fondness. I named them Chunnu and Munnu, though I could hardly differentiate between the two. Every night I used to wait for them; and every night, they didn’t fail to come, a little after midnight. They seemed to be somewhat comical as they moved about just like a toy mouse I had when I was a kid, scurrying across the floor, following a zigzag pattern. I wondered why they used our house to make the thoroughfare; perhaps it was the shortest route to their destination and didn’t wish to take the long one via the colony lane. Once I had washed my rubber shoes and kept them at the backyard to dry, and the next morning I found that they were half-eaten—probably by the Chunnu and Munnu, I surmised.
I had to discard the shoes, but memories of the incident always brought a smile to my face.
One night during the monsoon, it so happened that my septuagenarian grandfather asked me to close all the wooden doors facing the backyard as well as the front yard, to stop the gusts of cold wind. In those days, my grandfather’s health had begun to decline. He suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease [COPD], and the slightest of exposure to the swelling, moist winds would trigger the onset of cough and cold, followed by a chronic lung infection. He would then remain confined to his bed for days at a time, surrounded by medicine bottles, pills, nebulizers, and an oxygen cylinder, that occasionally relieved him from temporary breathlessness.
That night, I slept as usual in the living room. I was certain that the rats would see the closed door and take some other course. Late at night, however, we heard a new sound: something like that of a carpenter cutting wood or making a hole somewhere, accompanied by a strange ghoul. I assumed that, perhaps, it was the uproar of the wind that had dilated in form, and was vigorously pushing at the door.
The sound originated from outside my grandfather’s room, which faced the backyard. I sprang to my feet and strode across. On switching on the lights of his bedroom, I found my grandfather sitting on his bed, alarmed, contrary to his equanimous self; his big, dark-brown eyes wide open, watching the bolted teakwood door of his room.
He was a corpulent man, with good features, small ears, pointed nose on a clean-shaven face. He had thin, moist lips and white, even teeth. His dark–grey hair had retreated from the forehead and temples, his sallow face bespattered with sweat, and the baldness of his crown was like a tonsure.
“What’s the matter, grandpa?” I asked, fearing that his blood pressure had probably risen.
Silently, he pointed toward the closed door of his room facing the backyard.
“I’ll check,” I said.
I looked out the glass window that opened outside the room, towards the backyard. In the faint streetlight, I jutted out my face and noticed that the two rats—Chunnu and Munnu—had arrived, moving about busily, making those strange noises, and gnawing on the door. Their white incisors flashed in the dim light, as they continued trying to create a hole through the door.
They wanted to go via the route that they had been following for the past so many months, and weren’t ready to accept any sort of hindrance to their journey. Suddenly one of them jerked up its tail, eyes boggling, moved back from the door, reared up on hind limbs, letting out squeaks, clawing up at the air. The other rat paused for a moment, looked around, and then continued with its task.
“There are two rats trying to break into our house.” I said breathlessly, closing the window, amused at the whole affair.
My grandfather looked around, as if searching for something.
My grandfather looked around, as if searching for something.
“Where is my rifle?” he suddenly said, now with an impatient eye roll. His head held low and his eyes fixed on mine, with a look of rage. “I need to shoot them.”
“Where is my rifle?” he suddenly said, now with an impatient eye roll. His head held low and his eyes fixed on mine, with a look of rage. “I need to shoot them.”
“They won’t be able to come inside,” I said. “The wooden door is quite sturdy.”
But the rats continued their mission, further upsetting my grandfather. Restless, he wandered about the room with growing unease, occasionally pausing, as if for a breath of air, listening intently to the noise, interleaved with monologues that kept referring to the rifle which he needed to use. I wondered why he never went ahead and took the classic, old dark-brown double-barreled firearm (a heavy one that could be lifted only with some considerable effort), leading against the wall at the corner of the room. It had likely been bought a century ago, and inherited from his illustrious father, along with the family business.
He never asked me to open the door or fetch the rifle.
When the excitement wearied him down, he settled amid the pillows of his huge bed. Now with eyes lowered to the ground, he continued to listen to the conspiracy of the creatures outside his room. Perhaps he even came to a brief understanding about this vehement attack launched on our door: he was placated, and indicated it with a charming smile.
After probably an hour or so, the rats gave up, leaving us amid a strange nocturnal silence. It was almost too suffocating to bear.
The following morning, when the door was unlocked and we went outside, we found a large hole had been created on the door to my grandfather’s room.
The rats were never seen again. Perhaps they had discovered some other way to reach their destination every night. But whenever I saw the hole on the door, I was reminded of the incident that happened on that night. I couldn’t help but form a smile on my face.
For long after, whenever I woke up late at night again, I would search the dense, silent darkness of the room where I slept, looking for the two lively little animals making their way through our house. I could only feel the void of their absence.
***
Sreelekha Chatterjee’s short stories have been published in various magazines and journals, including Borderless, The Green Shoe Sanctuary, Storizen, Indian Periodical, Femina, and have been included in numerous print and online anthologies such as Chicken Soup for the Indian Soul series (Westland Ltd, India), and Wisdom of Our Mothers (Familia Books, USA). She lives in New Delhi, India. You can find her on Facebook: @sreelekha.chatterjee.1, Twitter: @sreelekha001, and Instagram: @sreelekha2023.
