The Hostel Room

I was so excited. I had managed to secure admission into my dream college Adarsh Academy in Kanpur. I had chosen Nuclear Physics as my major subject. My plan was to join BARC (Bhabha Atomic Research Centre) after completion of my two years’ master’s course. My dad came with me to Kanpur and checked if the hostel facilities were adequate. I got a room on the second floor of the Hostel building. We checked the room and seemed satisfied with it. My dad left by the evening train and said “Neha beti (beti is daughter in Hindi), I am proud of you my child. You have made us so proud. Please take care of your health and keep calling us.” I was in tears as we departed and promised that I would call home every day.

I had dinner in my canteen and returned to my room completely exhausted. My luggage was stacked in a corner. But, I did not have enough strength left to take out my clothes and arrange them in the wardrobe. So, I went straight to the bed and slept immediately. I was woken up next morning by the house keeper. She introduced herself as Laxmi Bai. She was a middle-aged lady. She was a short lady and little bit overweight. She was dressed in a bright sari and liked to laugh loudly. I took an instant liking for her and used to address her as Laxmi Mausi (Mausi is Aunt in Hindi). Laxmi Mausi cleaned the house and left.

It was a Saturday and my course was due to start on Monday. So, I had enough time to settle down. The hostel rooms were still unoccupied as most of the students had gone home during the summer and would be returning on Monday. So, I was alone in my room and switched on the television. I browsed the channels and finally put on some music. I began to unpack my stuff. I always hated this kind of work. At home, my mom would have taken care of arranging all things neatly. Oh! How much I missed her already. I opened the wardrobe and started to arrange my clothes. As I was arranging my clothes, the music coming from the television stopped suddenly. I turned back to check what was wrong and saw that the television channel had automatically switched to History channel. They were showing the Romans beheading a prisoner and I immediately ran and switched off the television. I thought that there was some glitch in the television. I finished my unpacking and decided to take a bath.

It was summer month, so I decided to take a cold shower. I like to sing while I take bath. I started humming my favorite song from the movie 3 Idiots “Give me some sunshine, give me some rain, na, na, na,”. As I was singing I suddenly had an uneasy feeling as if somebody was watching me. I looked around in the bathroom. There was no one. I just thought that I was feeling anxious as I was still not used to staying in the hostel.

I went out and had lunch at a local Punjabi Dhabha (a roadside food stall). The delicious food reminded me of my mom’s cooking. In the evening, I took an auto rickshaw and went shopping in the local market. At the garment shop, I met Sumit. Sumit is now my boyfriend. He is a charming and good looking guy. He was looking after the shop that day filling in for his dad who had gone out on some errand. During our conversation, I came to know that Sumit was my senior in college. He was doing his major in Organic Chemistry. So, we hit along very well and I took his number so we could be in touch in college.

I spent the next day, shopping for academic books and going over the course material. On Monday, I woke up early as my classes were starting at 8 A.M. I took my bath and collected my books and went to the college. I reached my class about ten minutes before the time. There were few students already in the class. I sat next to one girl called Shruthi. Shruthi is now my best friend. Shruthi was a sweet girl. She was a bit like myself. She wore thick glasses and wore simple salwar kameez (a type of Indian attire for ladies). She seemed friendly and spoke nicely to me. Our professor Prof. Khurana came soon after and after a quick introduction started the lecture. I enjoyed the lectures. Most of my professors were textbook authors. I was relishing the fact that I was taking lectures from such prominent professors. It was a dream come true and I was very happy. Shruthi also shared my feelings.

As the days passed, Shruthi and I became very good friends. I also met Sumit in the campus and our friendship blossomed into a relation. Sumit took me around the city during weekends and I enjoyed his company very much. I also made sure to call my parents every day and inquire about their well-being. But, from the time I started staying in the hostel, a strange thing started to happen to me. I started getting the same dream every night. I dreamt of a big house. The house had huge gray walls and a big iron gate. There was thick green grass all over the place. There were ferocious dogs guarding the house. I always found myself outside the house near a small pond. For some reason, I would be crying inconsolably. Suddenly, I would see the figure of a person come out of the gate. He would release the dogs and they would come running at me. I would scream in panic and jump into the pond. As I don’t know how to swim I would begin to drown and become breathless and started moving my arms and legs hysterically and this is when I would wake up. I would wake up soaked up in sweat and shivering with fright. I would wake up every day sharp at 4 A.M. I narrated my dream to Shruthi and she said that I should pray every night before sleeping to ward off any evil. I narrated my dream to Sumit and he said that I should not neglect my dream. He said he would take me to a good Psychiatrist Dr. Dinesh Chanda.

I told Sumit that I would consider his advice. I went back to my room. As I opened the door, a cold gust of wind swept my face. I noticed that the temperature in my room always used to be very cold. There was no air conditioning in my room. Yet my room always felt cold. I took out my glasses and kept them on the study table. I opened the wardrobe and took out my night clothes. I went to the bathroom and took a bath and changed into my night dress. When I returned, I almost screamed in panic. I remember keeping the wardrobe door open so that I could put my clothes into the hangar. But, the wardrobe door was closed and the keys were lying on the study table beside my glasses. I was shivering with fright and remembered Shruthi’s advice. I started praying loudly and after a while calmed down enough to go back to bed.

After some days, Laxmi Mausi was in the room cleaning and laughing loudly as usual. I was studying for my exams which were starting next week. Just then, a loud explosion came out of the bathroom and we both rushed inside nervously. The noise had come from the bathroom geyser. The geyser had caught fire and it had resulted in the explosion. Laxmi Mausi rushed outside and called the hostel warden. He brought in a fire extinguisher and sprayed the carbon dioxide over the fire. The fire was soon killed. We were all very surprised to know that the geyser was not switched on at that time. I decided that day that I would be following Sumit’s advice and would visit the Psychiatrist.

I and Sumit went to Dr. Dinesh Chanda and narrated my problem to him. He said that there was an old memory trapped inside my subconscious mind and that he would need to hypnotize me to understand the problem. I got slightly nervous. But, Sumit held my hand and said it would be alright. So, I consented. Dr. Chanda started the procedure. He took out a pendulum and started swinging it in his hands. He asked me to stare at the pendulum. I had seen this procedure in movies before and it seemed funny to me. I often wondered how could someone just hypnotize another person using such a stupid technique. And, here I was staring at the pendulum. But, suddenly I started feeling dizzy and my eyes started closing. I soon fell into a deep slumber. I had asked Sumit to capture the events on a camera so that I could watch the procedure later. After some hesitation, Dr. Chanda had consented. He had asked Sumit to place the phone near the table and go out of the room so as not to interrupt the procedure. Sumit had setup the video recording on his phone to ON and left the room.

After about half an hour, I came out of my trance. I opened my eyes to see Dr. Chanda smiling. As I turned my head, I saw Sumit walking up to me. “How are you feeling now, young lady?” Dr. Chanda inquired affectionately. “Doctor, I have a slight headache,” I answered with my hand holding my head. I was still feeling quite dizzy. The doctor took Sumit to a corner and provided him some instructions. Sumit dropped me to the hostel. Shruthi came to receive me. She took me to her room. Apparently, Sumit had called her and requested her to keep me in her room till another room was arranged for me. Shruthi ordered some pizza for me and we both kept talking till late evening and finally slept. The next day, I woke up feeling fresh and my headache was gone. I smiled as I had slept peacefully for the first time in several months. I did not get any nightmare that night. I woke up and saw that Shruthi was already taking bath. I checked my phone and saw Sumit’s message. He said he had seen the video captured during my medical procedure and wanted to show it to me. I replied to him that I would meet him after the classes that afternoon.

Sumit came to pick me up after the classes. We went to the coffee shop and he showed me the video that he had captured on his phone. He looked quite anxious and said he had seen something very eerie in the video. He was stammering. Sumit always stammered when he was very nervous. So, I held his hand and asked him to play the video. We saw the clip starting with Dr. Chanda asking me to look at the swinging pendulum. I saw the part where I clumsily went into a trance and lay on my chair with my eyes closed. After a while, Dr. Chanda started asking me questions. There was some noise in the coffee shop so I put on my earphones to hear the sound clearly. I put one ear piece in my ear and the other one in Sumit’s ear. Dr. Chanda asked me to narrate my dream to him. 

I told him about the house and the dogs chasing me. I also told him about the feeling of drowning in the pond. Dr. Chanda then asked me since when I started seeing this dream. I answered that I started seeing them since I started staying in the hostel room. Dr. Chanda then asked if this was one of my old memories. I replied that no it was not my memory. The doctor asked then why was I seeing this dream. I replied that it was because she is showing to me. I started breathing heavily when I saw that I had raised my hand and my finger was pointing to someone behind the doctor. Sumit and I exchanged nervous glances. We could see that the Doctor too turned back nervously. His face was pale and he took out a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his brows. The doctor continued to question me “Who is this person? Do you know her?”.

I appeared to be smiling and said “Yes. She is Shwetha”. “Who is Shwetha?” he questioned me again. I answered that it was the girl staying in this room before me. “What does she want from you?” the doctor asked. I answered that she wants me to die and suddenly I opened my eyes and started laughing hysterically. I jumped in my seat and threw the earphone. I gave out a small scream and the people around us started staring at me. I was shaking with fright. I looked at Sumit and he too was looking disturbed. But, he smiled at me and held my hand and made me sit. “It’s alright if you don’t want to watch the rest of the video. I know it is quite disturbing” he told me gently rubbing my hands. “No. Let’s watch it. I want all this to end” I said with resolve and put my earphones back and resumed the video.

The doctor immediately ordered me to stop laughing and ordered Shwetha to speak to him. “Shwetha, leave this girl alone. Let her leave peacefully.” There was silence for about a minute. Next, I saw that I started speaking in the voice of a child. “Papa, please get me some candy! Please, papa.” The doctor got up and seemed to be quite shaken. He did not speak anything for the next two minutes but kept staring at me in a state of panic and horror. Somehow, he gathered his courage and broke my trance and asked Sumit to come inside the room. We next saw that Sumit came and switched off the video recording. I looked at Sumit and asked him what did the doctor instruct him afterward. He replied that the doctor told me that he had heard me speaking in his daughter’s voice who had died last year in a car accident. I stared at Sumit as he said this and clutched at his hand in fear. Sumit said that the doctor had advised him to move me out of the hostel room immediately and it was no longer safe for me to stay there anymore. That was the reason why Sumit had called Shruthi and requested her to make me sleep in her room. After that day, I never returned to that room again. I found another room beside Shruthi’s room and all my nightmares stopped after that.

#Present day

I have just finished writing this article to remove the weight which was lying on my heart for such a long time. Signing off my dear Diary.

With Love,

Neha

Neha goes into the room where Sumit is watching the television. She picks up the coffee mug lying next to him and looks at the television. She suddenly turns pale and screams. Sumit jumps and catches her just in time as she faints. When she wakes up, she is lying on a bed and Sumit is nursing her forehead with a wet cloth. “What happened darling? Are you alright?” Sumit asked her fondling her head. “Sumit, I just saw that house.” “Which house dear? Where did you see it? I don’t understand” he answered in a puzzled tone. “I saw the same house which I used to see in my dreams in the hostel. I just saw it on the T.V.”

The End