The Dare : Part II
(Note: Some of this actually happened. The building exists)
Link to the first part : http://mental-jousting.blogspot.in/2015/02/the-dare-part-i.html
You can never tell when an obsession will rear its ugly
head. Of the two, I have always considered obsession to be a greater threat
than addiction. When you are addicted to something, everyone knows it to be a
bad thing. There are people and organisations not just willing, but actually
dedicated to helping you out of your addiction.
It’s not the same with obsessions. People view obsessions as
a less serious and more irritating version of an addiction. They do not realise
that it is worse in a lot of ways. While an addiction preys on your body, an
obsession demolishes your mind. While the ills of an addiction are apparent,
and obsession is like a hidden snake, slowly coiling over your life. You don’t
even realise this cobra tightening its grasp on your mind – slowly, gradually –
squeezing.
Such was my obsession with this supposedly ‘haunted’
building. It began as a sort of interest – something to be discussed and made
fun of. Before I knew it, I found myself returning to this place again and
again – simply to stare at it.
This half finished building in the middle of gaudy bungalows
and dusty apartment buildings. An eyesore among eyesores.
By this time, I knew the layout by heart. I had managed to
acquire the blueprints in an old filing cabinet in the society office. The main
door I saw in front of me would have led into the main apartments on the ground
floor – two fairly large flats with three bedrooms each. If you turned right, you could travel up the
staircase to the similarly placed floors above.
It was this staircase that had been changed the most,
according to the time and preferences of the six owners the building had had.
When Mr. Naik had started to build it in the 1980s, the staircase was a bulky
affair, made with cement-concrete and chuna
– kind of like the staircases that you see in your grandparents’ building.
Now, it resembled the rickety marble nonsense that you are
afraid of slipping on while going to a mobile repair shop in a shopping arcade.
The topmost floor was supposed to be the private residence
of Mr. Naik – and then all of the rest of the builders had tried to turn it
into their dream home. Builders are such predictable creatures.
Sadly for them and their dreams, the final floor had never
been completed and remained the only portion of the building with a full roof.
In fact, the only thing that still remained intact
throughout the years was the inherent feeling of impending doom, and the name
that Mr. Naik had picked – Bhushan Apartments.
As I stared at the concrete pillars reaching up at the sky,
and the rusted steel beams jutting out through them, they brought to my mind
outreached hands of someone who is drowning.
As my eyes traveled downwards, a sudden flash of red amidst
all the gloom caught my eye. I strained my eyes in the melancholy de-saturated
evening light, and saw the object of my inspection jutting out from the
overgrown weeds near the back fence of the building.
It took me a few moments to track down the correct building
on the backside of Bushan Apartments, but soon, I was sneaking into it. I
crossed the parking lot, and reached the back fence. This was the first time I
was looking up at the Bhushan Apartments from this side. It looked even more
woebegone from here. I reached the uncharacteristically tall fence and peered
through. The dying light wasn’t enough for me to see clearly, so I turned on
the flash on my phone to use as a torch.
I saw the red object that had caught my attention earlier.
It was a plastic ball. It had probably gone over the fence while the kids in
this building had been playing. However, as I moved the beam of light from my
phone around, a peculiar sight greeted me.
The entire area of Bhushan apartments that lay near the
fence was littered with toys. Numerous balls, badminton shuttles, broken dolls,
teddy bears – you name it. I think I even saw a G.I. Joe, or two. And it wasn’t
just here.
As I raised my arm to shine the light over a distance, I
could see toys littering the edge of the fences that Bhushan Apartments shared
with other buildings as well.
Why had all these children thrown away their toys? Maybe
they had gone over the fence accidentally, and the fence was too high to
retrieve them? This made no sense, because there was enough gap under the fence
to reach in and pull the toys out...
Then it struck me – the children were too afraid to do it.
Once a toy went over the fence while playing, the children did not dare to get
it back. However expensive, once it goes into the Bhushan Apartments side of
the fence – you bid adieu to the toy.
Now that I looked closely, it wasn’t just toys – there were
handkerchiefs, hair clips, pen drives and even two cell phones. So it wasn’t
just the kids – it was the entire populace that lived around here – everyone
took this seriously. It was ridiculous.
In a rare moment of bravery(or it might have been
adrenaline) I got down on my knees, and slipped my hand under the fence.
Slowly, I snaked it towards the red ball.
I felt the blades of grass on my palms – my first physical
encounter with this damned building that had haunted my thoughts for months.
Slowly, my hands closed around the red ball – damp with the evening dew.
“What do you think you are doing?”, a voice yelled.
Shocked, I jerked my hand back – a loose screw in the fence
snagged the back of my hand sharply, and I felt warm blood seep out.
Cursing, I looked around to see a security guard hurrying
towards me. After I managed to convince him that a) I wasn’t a thief and b) I
wasn’t crazy, he brought me a first aid box.
As I sat wrapping my bleeding hand in bandages, I asked him
(casually) about the discarded items littering on the other side of the fence.
He replied with the same
nonchalance I had come to expect from the people around here.
“Yeah, people don’t go into the Bhushan Apartments because
of the haunting, y’know? It’s unlucky. Once something goes over, it stays
there. Some kids used to prank their friends by throwing each other’s stuff
over the fence. That stopped after the Malhotra’s kid went in one day. That
scared them all.”
“Why?” I asked. “What happened to the Malhotra’s kid?”
“We don’t know. It must have been pretty bad. Never saw the kid, myself. They kept him indoors after that. They moved away from
here soon after.”
I think the look on my face gave away my feelings on this
brand new piece of information.
“Don’t worry, sir!” he laughed. “Nothing will happen to you
unless you go there. Nothing goes wrong if you don’t cross the fence. Unless
you cross the fence, you are not in any danger.”
The same thing everyone had told me till now. The same, infuriatingly matter of fact tone.
The same message – Do not cross the fence if you want to be
safe. Do not go into the Bhushan Apartments if you want to live.
As I walked away from the watchman’s hut towards my home, I
couldn’t but help thinking about all the 63 people who had died as a result of
breaking that simple rule. Stay out of that building.
Funnily enough, as circumstances would have it, in less than
5 hours of having this thought – I would be breaking into the Bhushan
Apartments, myself. Armed with nothing but a torch and my own will power.
This was the very night that I broke the rule. This was a night that I would regret for a long time.
Remember what I said about obsessions being like cobras?
Mine had just started to bite me.
