THE EXTRAORDINARY CASE OF MEERA KUMAR

THE EXTRAORDINARY CASE OF MEERA KUMAR

It had been drizzling all day long and poor little Ria was done playing with her dolls. With no playmate to give her company and deprive her of solitude, she fetched Maria. Maria was the cleaning lady of the Chatterjee household and had sparkling reputation of managing children. She had been watching over Ria since her toddler days and told her stories of Ghosts and Goblins which she absolutely adored. Ria found her in the kitchen washing dishes.

“Maria, Maria....,” called out Ria.

“Yes, my dear one”, replied Maria. There was a time when Maria was extremely beautiful. She had an extraordinary glow in her eyes and her smile seemed the brightest in Bengal. But now she was frail. Her face was long with deep sunken eyes. She used to smile often but not like the old times.

“Can you please tell me a story? I don’t have anything to do right now”.

“But I need to work right now. I need to clean up all these dishes before your Mother comes back from the market”. There was a huge pile of dishes kept next to her.

“Please Maria. I am so bored. Nobody is at home and I have nobody to play with. Please tell me a story Maria. Her face became small as if the last remaining hope to fix her dreadful life was in Maria’s hands. Maria couldn’t have ignored this. She sighed and said:

“Uhh... Alright. Come now; let’s go up to your room”.

“Thank you so much Maria. I love you”.

She put all the washed dishes into the shelf and segregated the unwashed ones on the kitchen slab. She washed her coarse hands and took off her apron. She then folded it up nicely and kept it on the seat near the water cooler.

They went upstairs to Ria’s room. The drizzle had now turned into heavy showers with occasional sounds of thunder and streaks of lightning. The three o’clock afternoon seemed quite dark and gloomy. The room was dimly lit. Ria spread a long mattress on the floor and they both sat down.

“Now, tell me, what kind of story would you like to hear?”, asked Maria.

“I want to hear that the one”, she said desperately, “the story which you told Raju kaka this morning. He said it was the best story he had heard for a very long time. Please tell me that one.”

“Are you sure you want to hear that? I mean it is a bit scary”.

“Yes, yes I am sure”, she said nodding her head in delight.

“Alright.”

Ria’s face was glowing.

It was certainly a long time ago (she continued). The incident took place in a small village close to Mednipur. It is so unfortunate that I can’t remember the name of the village! Anyway, a big procession was standing outside Mr Kumar’s house. It was his youngest daughter’s wedding. Rina was all decked up for her marriage. She was wearing a lovely red saree with golden embroidery and was embellished with the most gorgeous ornaments. Some women gossiped amongst themselves saying that the jewellery cost Mr Kumar a fortune. He had bought them from Calcutta’s most expensive jewellery shop. Nearly ten lakh rupees had been spent decorating and arranging all sorts of amenities for the guests. The dishes ranged from Chinese to Thai to what not. But, they mostly concentrated on the ones which Mr Kumar could pronounce! It was made to be a grand festival.

“Why plan such a lavish wedding?” said someone called Roopa. “What about the eldest one?”Now Roopa was nicknamed “The Big Old Cow” by the local children. She was practically a huge woman. Whenever she was made to sit on a chair, the poor furniture used to bend from beneath arching to its greatest degree with creaking sounds being heard most of the time. Just a few ounces more and the chair would have collapsed! Probably that was the reason why she never entertained kids on her lap.

“Shh! Come on now Roopa” whispered Nandini. “ You know the story don’t you? Why then ask?” Now Nandini was a woman of opposite dimensions compared to Roopa. She was quite frail and skinny with a jaw line of a frog. It was actually quite funny to see those two women talk. One could practice shapes and sizes if a canvas was kept before them.

“I really don’t know. Please tell me”, said Roppa desperately.

“Her eldest daughter Meera , well...uh..”, Nandini sighed. She studied the ground. It was quite possible something dreadful must have happened which restricted words from her mouth.

Well it is not an easy story to tell (continued Nandini). Let me start from the beginning. My son Gourav has asthma. So I take him quite often to Dr Ghosh’s chamber. It was probably two weeks back when I last went to see him. He was busy pushing a needle into an old man’s buttocks which he considered unusually thick.

“Oh Good morning Ms Nandini ”, said Dr Ghosh. “ I am sorry I got a little late with my last patient. Thanks to his buttocks, I have broken so many needles today. Anyway, please be seated. I will be right with you.

“Oh that’s quite alright doctor. I will wait right here” I said. And so I waited patiently while my son occasionally shrieked with laughter at the old man’s awkward poses and his screams saying “Oh Ma goooo!” whenever a needle was pressed against his butt cheeks. Suddenly a thought crowded my mind during those patient moments and I couldn’t help but spill it out:

“Dr Ghosh what happened to that girl Meera? What is so secretive and embarrassing about her that nobody wants to talk about?”

The doctor looked at me for a while after I asked him that question. He pushed the last injection into his buttocks and gave the man a gesture indicating it was over. He folded his trousers and handed him his documents. As the man went out, Dr Ghosh quietly shut the door behind him and sat down on a seat opposite to mine. He looked at me intently.

Nandini (continued the doctor) the senior doctors will fire me if they hear I am telling this to you. But as a human, before being a doctor, I think this story should be told. It was a Friday night and it was raining very heavily. I somehow managed to find a rickshaw and make my way to Mr Kumar’s house. I was told it was a matter of urgency. Dr Guha had been waiting there for me. As soon as I reached there, Dr Guha took my hand and whispered into my ears about having a private conservation with me. I was taken to the Rina’s room and along my way I saw Mrs Kumar sobbing quietly on the sofa.

Mr Guha told me that in all his years of practicing medicine he had never found such an unusual case. Meera Kumar, the eldest daughter of Jayabrata Kumar, was afraid of shadows. Yes, you heard it right! Shadows!

Various precautionary measures were taken by Guha before he started his therapy. He held treatments in pitch dark rooms and made all the necessary arrangements to prevent her shadow being casted anywhere. He didn’t want to increase the damage in any way. Guha had even made quite tough rules regarding the accessibility of Meera’s room by others. But alas! All medicines had failed miserably to treat the girl and there was practically nothing left for the doctor to do. He put his hand on my shoulder and said:

“I have treated many patients over the years. Some way or the other I have cured them. You can ask the people of Mednipur. I almost have the reputation of being a deity there. But what kind of a case is this? I have literally exhausted all my medical knowledge on her and yet I can’t find a solution. Me? I am claimed to be one of the greatest doctors in Mednipur district! ”.

I stood quietly studying the ground. It was right for him to say that he was the most reputed doctor in Mednipur district. But I didn’t like his ego.

“I am now only left with one solution”, said the doctor boldly. “To remove the fear, she must face the fear. Learn to conquer it. Yes, yes. That is the solution.” His eyes were glowing and his hair was all messed up. It was almost as if a madman was talking. However, I congratulated him on the idea and left.

Initially I thought the doctor had found a way to cure her. But when the method was revealed to me, I was shocked to my very core. Dr Guha had ordered his men to lock up Meera inside a dungeon. It seemed to me the most frightening punishment. Her hands were to be chained to the wall. Two large lights were placed at the top at considerable angles such that it could cast long shadows on the floor. The light could even be adjusted to different positions to change the dimensions of the shadows. It was brutal torture. Yet, I couldn’t say a word. Mr Guha’s authority was untouchable.

One day, I was called to that dungeon to make an inspection. Oh Nandini, it would be a sin to describe her state. Her skin was as pale as death. Her eye sockets seemed to be two sunken dark spots. And her hair was totally messed up with a great chunk of them hanging haphazardly in front. She was wearing a black dress or at least what was left of it. She had bite marks on her hands. May be she tried to gnaw.... never mind! She always kept her eyes tightly shut except when she was forced to open them. My first meeting with her left me absolutely devastated. I fondly remember the time when I had first seen her in my schooldays. She was such a lovely girl. I remember her beautiful luminescent skin and how she shied away when the local urchins tried to flirt with her.. (he looked at the window behind me rapt in nostalgia, suddenly he broke off and continued).. One day I was asked to conduct a closer inspection and make a more intimate study of her physique. As I marched closer to her, I could hear her murmuring something. It was quite indistinct. I could not make out anything. But the craziest thing of all was how I saw her body change. Her hands had unusual dark spots with traces of decaying flesh here and there. There was certainly something unnatural about that. On the last day of my inspection, I think I heard what she was whispering all this while. I really had to strain my ears to hear something like that. It sounded something like:

“You did this to me? You did it? How could you? I don’t want to be near you. I hate you”.

My inspection duties were to be handed over to Dr Sahu from the next day onwards. My aunt for a very long time was asking me to pay her a visit in Calcutta. I thought it would be a great chance for a vacation. So I went and stayed there for a week or two. It was during this time my assistant Shoham called me and gave me the most dreadful news. He said Sahu had become mad. The doctor had walked into the dungeon that morning and had seen Meera’s shadow. Only her shadow! It was weeping! And when the others reached there to witness this ludicrous moment, the shadow had long gone. Just the chains were seen dangling about on the wall.

Of course I refused to believe this at first. My profession has made me to believe the domination of solid quantifiable facts over lunacy. But after hearing a few accounts of the presence of a solitary shadow lurking about near the school yard or the temple literally gives me the chills (shuddered the doctor). Some people even claim seeing it climbing up the wall and walking into Meera’s room.

Well, that’s what the doctor told me (said Nandini to Roopa). May God help that poor girl’s soul!

“Wow”, said Roopa absolutely amazed at this eerie story she heard. Suddenly she whispered, “hey do you think that thing is still up there in her room!”

“Of course it is”, said Nandini confidently. “There can’t be a doubt about it”.

“But your doctor didn’t say anything about Mr Jayabrata’s erratic behaviour”, said another woman who was sipping her tea and listening to the conversation all this while.

“What do you mean Mrs Rakshit”, asked Nandini, quite irritated at the fatal blow that had landed on her ego and her account.

“What I mean to say is”, continued Mrs Rakshit, “your doctor didn’t say anything about how weirdly Mr Kumar was acting during that time. Meera was his daughter and he didn’t even care to visit her in the dungeon while all the other family members did. I remember him having private conversations with Dr Guha on a daily basis, outside the district hospital. I saw them every day on my way to the groceries. He even changes the topic nowadays whenever we try to ask him about Meera or mourn her disappearance. And what is really the use of having this lavish party? Hmm...to my estimation, it is a deviation”.

Roopa and Nandini looked at each other in astonishment.

And so here ends the story (said Maria to Ria). Good heavens! It’s almost four thirty! Your father would be coming home soon. (Suddenly a car honked loudly) And here comes Jayabrata sir. I must prepare some tea for him.

And Maria got up and left the room leaving Ria in utter dismay.