The House That Never Was

The House That Never Was

“I watched Yogi Bear and ate some animal biscuits with Horlicks – there was no kenne even though the milk was warm. Why can’t you do that Mummy? Why do you always have kenne in your Bournvita?”
“Anna told me I can come back in the evening after the sun sets and watch Popeye with him. Can I go Mummy? Please?”
Mummy was not happy. She didn’t like it when I talked about Anna and his mom. They were our neighbors sort of. I didn’t know the straight way to their house. I used a secret path to get to their house.
Ajji’s house is an Independent house with a front veranda. The entry to the house was on the right side, a little corridor from the gate led to the front door. At the back of the veranda, front of the house, was a staircase to go up to the terrace. The terrace was mostly empty except for a clothes line and Thatha’s clinic all the way in the back. The clinic was pretty small – it was one room with a tiny bathroom at the back on the right corner. Half of the clinic was taken up by two long tables placed perpendicular to each other. Thatha kept all his instruments on one and some books on the other. The right wall, from the main door leading up the bathroom was not a wall but three floor to ceiling cupboards. Thatha said these were haunted and that I should not go near them. He kept chocolates and medicines there and he said a ghost was guarding them – if I tried to get to them, the ghost would eat me. I never opened a single one of those cupboards. Chocolates are not worth being eaten by a ghost.
The secret path to Anna’s house was through Thatha’s clinic. The bathroom had two doors. One from inside the clinic, a second door led out to a small tiny terrace. The terrace had a small set of stairs leading down to Anna’s house’s front door. His house was also like Ajji’s house – the door was on the side and it had a corridor leading up from the door to the gate. Anna and aunts never let me go past the door in the corridor. I could see the gate – it was huge and ornate. It looked heavy and ancient. Anna and aunty didn’t want me getting lost and the gate was too scary for me anyway. The inside of Anna’s house looked just like Ajji’s house.
Their house also only had three rooms. The kitchen to the far end, the living room and a small bedroom to the other end. I have no idea what the bedroom or the kitchen looks like because I never went in. The living room was very similar to Ajji’s – the TV was in the same spot but instead of a bed and three chairs, they had two couches.
I loved going to their house, although it wasn’t as often as I liked. It was tricky because Thatha didn’t like it when I went into his clinic, I had to be careful coming and going. Anna and aunty were the nicest people – they didn’t yell if I accidentally spilled something or if I was too slow eating.
“We have to go to next door uncle’s house for dinner, you are staying here” Mummy said shaking me out of my internal monologue.
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The first time I started to question the reality of Anna and Aunty’s house was in high school when I could not remember their names. I was talking to Shreya about it because we were comparing the deliciousness of different brands of animal biscuits. It was bizarre that I couldn’t remember the names of the two people who were very important to me growing up.
I went to Bangalore that summer. I walked up to the terrace, thinking of the time Pratyusha and I had to sleep outside because it was too hot and there was a power cut. She had scared me that the bats would eat my ears. I had gone back inside the room. Since Thatha had passed, I had not been into his clinic. The fear of the ghost was pretty strong and I was worried Thatha had turned into a ghost himself. But on that day in the summer, I had to go in. I had to see for myself.
I hesitated outside the door for a minute, gathered some courage and burst in. I went into the bathroom and there, on the wall to the left – there was no door. There was no veranda. There were no stairs. There was a small very dirty window next to where the door had been and all I could see were the roofs of the other houses around us.
Words can’t describe what I felt in that moment. Anna, Aunty and their house had been as real to me as the clinic, ajji’s house, the sun and the moon. I had spent hours with them. I had, I had, I had. How could something so vivid be my imagination? Where was I physically when I thought I was at their house? Were they all lies? Did they indeed never exist? Is that why Amma was annoyed every time I talked about them? Was the clinic really haunted? Was it all hallucinations?
It has been two decades since then and I have no answers. The house that never was and the people that never existed are a perpetual mystery that continues to elude me.