"Oh, no.'' Shilpa looked down from her perch with unconcealed dismay. “He is here.”

Asha too looked down. There he was, her three-year-old brother Rahul, sucking his right thumb, his soulmate Bingo, the stuffed hippo, tucked under his left arm. He was looking up at them with large, expectant eyes.

The two girls had settled on their favorite spots on two adjacent branches of the mango tree in the backyard of Asha’s house. It was the summer holidays. The afternoon sun was blazing but it was cool among the leaves of the tree. A story session was on when this annoyance occurred.

“Go. Go back to the house and sleep. And take the thumb out of your mouth,” hissed Asha in low tones, lest her mother heard them and came out.

With the thumb out, the boy said with a pronounced lisp, “Didi! Me too! Story!” Persuasions, promises of goodies, and story-telling sessions later – nothing worked. He looked like a strange creature with a pattern of light and shadow thrown on his face and arms by the leaves of the tree.

Now he raised both his arms to be lifted atop the branch, dropping Bingo in the process. “The leech!” muttered Asha with unconcealed irritation and the girls prepared to climb down the tree. The boy picked up the stuffed hippo lying on the ground and waited for them with a big expectant smile.

Asha and Shilpa exchanged glances and as if on cue, they sprinted towards the house, with the boy, who could not match their speed, running after them, wailing. They reached the house first and shut the door on his face. And when they turned inwards, they found the house dark, unfamiliar and a peculiar stale smell hung in the air. Slowly, a figure shrouded in white floated towards them. Terrified and rooted to the spot, they tried to scream but no sound came out. And then, there was a knock.

With that knock, Asha opened her eyes with a start. Rahul peeped in and finding her awake, came in with a smile. “Hi Didi, good morning!” Her eyes were open but she seemed to have lost her bearings. She looked around, dazed and befuddled.

He took out the thermos flask and the mugs from the bag and placed them on the side table. “Will you have coffee now?” he asked as he sat on the edge of the bed. He looked around at the light blue walls and the huge window was thrown open to let in the fresh air. From where he was sitting, he could see a portion of the green lawns below and much of the sky above. The morning sunlight had filled a section of the room. It was a small but an efficient hospital and catered to the small town and adjoining villages.

Looking at her dazed expression, he took her hand. “What happened Didi? Could you not sleep well?”

She looked at him, smiled weakly, and said, “It must have been a dream. But it seemed so real.” After a pause, she added, “I went back to the backyard of our house in Nagpur. Shilpa was there and you were too. It was so vivid.”

“Didi! How can I not be in the dreams of your childhood? I followed you everywhere and stuck to you like a leech.”

She laughed out loud. “That was what I had called you in the dream. Leech and pest were the constant adages I used for you in those days.”

“And the other one was also there, I suppose,” said Rahul poker-faced.

She gave a sharp rap on the back of his hand with mock anger. She knew what he was referring to but deliberately rambled on about other incidents of their childhood. He sat there listening to her with a smile. Without interrupting the flow of her chatter, he got up, poured the filter coffee into the two cups, handed over one to her, and sat again at the edge of the bed, his ears and eyes absorbing what she was saying. He had always been a good listener. The thousands of stories she had told him had contributed to shaping this trait of his.

She knew he would soon ease the conversation gently to the matter she dreaded - a decision on where she should go after she was discharged from the hospital. She wanted to go back to her place and manage with her part-time help, but he wanted her to go to Pune, and stay with him at least till she became fully functional. But she dreaded the interactions with his family, mainly his wife Nandita and her mother Purnima.

“Manu called yesterday night to find out how you are doing and when you will be discharged. She had panicked when she had called me about your hospitalization.”

“Yes, she panics easily and is constantly worried about me. She keeps lamenting about settling in a distant land and not being available for me at short notice.”

Rahul took the cup from his sister and placed it on the side table. His sister has been living alone for several years now after her husband died, with their only daughter living abroad.

“So, after you are discharged, we will go to your place and if the Doctor permits, we will leave for Pune after a day or two. Would that be alright?”

She averted her gaze and looked out of the window. Noticing her despondence, he reached out for her hand and said gently, “Why are you so diffident, Didi? You need to take complete rest after this bout of pneumonia.”

As she remained silent, he turned all serious. “Let us have all the ghosts in your closet out today. Let us meet them face to face.” She laughed out spontaneously, turned towards him, and patted his hand affectionately.

During those growing years in Nagpur, she was petrified of ghosts hiding in her clothes closet. She would not open her closet unless her mother was present in the room with her. Every day, there would be scenes of her mother scolding her while she sniffled, her father peeping into the room looking helpless and he, the kid brother, who was somewhat responsible for this situation, looking wide-eyed and wondering what the commotion was all about.

Rahul noticed that his sister had traveled back in time to the Nagpur days. He allowed her a few minutes of nostalgia.

It was Shilpa’s idea that they should tell the child a ghost story to frighten him away for good. Putting their heads together, the girls invented a simple, harmless ghost story. Just right to scare a kid of his age. This genre was new for him and he listened to it with great attentiveness.

Soon, he would not settle for a story that did not have a ghost or a monster. In a few days, he had graduated to gory stories with blood-dripping fingernails and spine-chilling cries of the ghost family (yes, the girls had invented a whole family with a couple of baby ghosts thrown in) and he listened to the creepy details unflinchingly.

Her friend Shilpa rose to the challenge and invented a new ghost story every second day, each one scarier than the previous one. By now, Asha was getting the jitters herself and would often put an abrupt end to the story session with some excuse or the other.

“I still can’t believe how you could have such an appetite for horror stories,” said Asha with a smile. “I remember that stormy night when you drove me off the edge.” Rahul grinned. He did not remember a thing as he was only four, but he had heard the story from her so many times that he knew all the details.

“Good morning. Brother and sister having a nice chat over coffee?” Sister Nancy had breezed in to check her temperature and give her the medicines she was to take before breakfast. “Such a good brother you have, Asha madam. Who takes so much care nowadays, tell me, leaving his work and family in another city?”

“Do not get fooled by his looks. He was a pest when he was a kid, and not much has changed. He is adamant and always has his way.”

“You don’t know the full story, sister.” Rahul had a mischievous smile. “She was always trying to scare me with horror stories when I could barely walk and talk. Tell me, who would do that to a kid brother?” Sister Nancy went about her duties, listening to the banter between the two with a smile.

That stormy night several decades ago, the wind howled and torrential rain lashed against the window panes when Asha woke up to find her kid brother standing at the side of her bed, tugging at the sleeves of her night suit. Thinking that he was scared to sleep alone in his small cot on the other side of the room they shared, she made some space and he got in beside her.

She was drifting back to sleep when he whispered, wanting to know whether the monster with one eye and blood oozing from his mouth and ears caught the baby ghost, which was separated from its family and was running helter-skelter trying to find a place to hide. Shilpa had stopped the story narration at a crucial juncture and he could not wait till the next day. Here, he imitated the screeches of the ghost and the growls of the monster in a low voice.

Damn, this girl Shilpa, who had brought in all these sound effects into the story. All her efforts to silence him and keep her rising panic in check were in vain. A thunder clapped, a door slammed somewhere and the wind made strange whooshing sounds. And when the door of her clothes closet creaked a little and opened a wee bit, both of them looked intently at its outline in the darkness, she with petrified eyes and he with eyes full of wonder and excitement.

“Didi,” he whispered, “I think it is hiding there.” In a trice, Asha disappeared under the blanket and muttered the prayer verses taught by her mother. She stuck out her hand and pulled Rahul inside the blanket but he kept peeping out from a corner of the blanket, waiting for some action. The storm abated and the boy fell asleep but Asha remained awake, tense, and watchful. The fear of ghosts haunted her for many years thereafter.

Rahul brought her back with a gentle tug to her hand, the raised eyebrows posing an inquiry. Many of his expressions and mannerisms had not changed at all. He was not the cute kid brother that a ten-year-old girl would have liked to have. But as they grew, he became her confidante, who knew her aspirations, fears, secrets, and self-doubts. She shared with him the details about her fights with her classmates, the pranks played by the naughty boys in her class, and how her first day in college was. He was the first person she turned to for an opinion, be it a greeting card she had made or the new earrings she had bought from the corner fancy store. Later, he also stood like a brick wall between her and their mother when Asha went through a rebellious spell.

“So, out with your ghosts. What is it that you dislike about staying with us?

“Rahul, I know you would like me to stay with you. But Nandita may not be keen.”

“It was Nandita who suggested this.”

“And what about her mother?”

“Nandita and I must decide this, not her mother. In any case, Mummy would also be happy that you are not alone while convalescing”

Asha shrugged. “She surely looks down on my retired school teacher status. And Nandita has never been fond of me. I have always sensed it.” There! It was now in the open!

“Of course not! She is a bit intimidated by your persona. An upright schoolteacher who looks at the whole world as errant students.” Leaning towards her, he whispered with a grin, “Only I know the soft and fun side of your personality. And that you are not always brave.”

“There would be severe space crunch when your boys come home from college for the weekends or vacations. I will be in everybody’s way.”

“Nandita and I have worked it out. So, you do not worry about all that.”

Asha also knew in the depths of her heart that in her uneasy relationship with Nandita, which percolated to her mother and even their sons, vicious circles had formed over the years, partly due to circumstances but mainly due to human follies, and she did not know how to break them.

The nurse came in to give her a sponge bath, which put a temporary end to the discussions. She usually had the breakfast given by the hospital and Rahul got up to leave.

“Well, didi, I will get you lunch at one. What do you want to have today? The usual khichdi?”

She nodded and he left with his endearing mannerism of taking leave – a non-verbal expression in which his eyes, eyebrows, smile, and a toss of his head all came together in a beautiful symphony. She could never tire of his way of saying goodbye.

After the bath and breakfast, Asha sat brooding for a while. This was the first time that she had expressed to Rahul the unsure and slippery territory between her and his family. He had managed to cajole the ghosts out, even though briefly. He was a chap with great perseverance and when he returned and she had finished her lunch, he picked up from where he had left. The conversations continued, off and on for the next couple of days with an interruption of almost half a day when she was discharged from the hospital.

Now that a couple of the dreaded ghosts were out, many more tumbled out of her mind’s closet. And she was surprised to note that not all of them were about Rahul’s family. Some related to her friends, colleagues, and even her late husband. So many half-buried, half-forgotten resentments and bitterness!

Some of these demons could not face the onslaught of the searchlight and slinked away. These looked huge and threatening but were nothing more than hot air. A few were childish imps – they pulled her sleeves, gave her a pinch or two, and vanished inside again. She knew that after a few games of hide-and-seek, they would leave.

And then there were the stubborn ones, the ones who have treated the space as their permanent abode and had no intention whatsoever to leave. Some of these produced a long list of justifications to stay on, their raison de’etre, so to speak. And there were some with pursed lips who were sullen and silent and would not budge either.

Asha chuckled to herself as she witnessed the antics of each one of the squatters. She will have to work hard to evict some who had settled and grown roots.

As the plane was preparing to land in Pune, she looked out at the lights of the city, brilliant and gay. Rahul in the adjacent seat was watching her face and asked her gently if she was tense. Shaking her head, she smiled and gestured at the view outside. Her engagement with light had begun.

.    .    .