.I fondly remember the days when I was a young kid, zooming around town on my new motorbike that I had got after much fighting and desperation. I had been in Nainital and the hills while always had fascinated me, never seemed to amaze me with their majestic appearance that made us humans look small.
Nainital is a small district in the hills of Uttaranchal in India and while the town was now a days flooded with tourists, whose sole aim was to make the crowded outlets more crowded, I on the other hand was obsessed with discovering the colourful grave yards that not only gave me a hint at the history of the place but also stood there as a remainder of the sad past our rulers aka the British had entailed while trying to rule a country obsessed with freedom and Mahatma Gandhi alike.
I would often go and sit in these graveyards, reading inscription on the graves that while, had stood the harsh weather, had failed to save their inhabitants from the careless grave robbers. More than once I would come across a skull or a bone that once belonged to a gora sahib who had once ruled the locals with a disdainful smile and an iron fist. Today it laid here remembering of the past glory as a spider scurried around its eye socket.
I had been visiting the grave of Colonel James Robert 51, RAF division and had died in 1896, close to hundred years earlier. I wondered often as I would look at the grave that was adorned with a sculpture of a beautiful angel that was supposed to protect him through the long journey in to heaven or hell. Colonel James unfortunately wasn’t a victim of some gunfight but had fallen to Cholera, one of the deadliest killers in the hills around the area. Cholera had survived even after hundred years, while more than ninety % of the graves in the grave yard were victims of the dreaded disease, it amazed me how cholera had won the accolades for its role in the freedom movement. It’s something like if people die in a natural disaster, it’s sad but if they die in a bomb attack, there are terrorist to blame it on.
The grave had been broken open. I had been writing to the local newspapers in regards to this, of course secretly. I didn’t want anyone to know about it as people would have found it weird, more over my trips to these beautiful graveyards would have ended, my parents branding me as a lunatic. I did believe they still thought so, but never admitted it. In a country where live people could not get justice, it was hard for the dead more so, their graves robbed by men guided by hunger and unemployment. These graves were often sources of medals made of precious metals that were earned after hard work. I wondered if anyone of the grave robbers ever wondered if there was an antique value attached to it. Those were the days when graves attracted me more than the living and while the silence was eerie, it proclaimed peace away from the maddening crowds that were taking over the city like a swarm of crickets demolishing a corn field.
I felt bad, because the colonel had been a silent friend till now and had heard to everything I had to tell him with patience, not that he could do anything about it, after all he was dead. I looked at his skull that lay near the shattered angel, who had been unable to protect the colonel last night as he was robbed of his medals and dignity alike. I picked up his skull and looked at my friend for the first time. The hollow eye sockets stared back at me. Was he pleased to see me? I carefully place the skull back in to the grave as I said a silent prayer, not for his peace but praying that he wouldn’t grab me and pull me back in to the grave with him while I kept the head down with the rest of the bones. Once the skull was carefully secured back in to the grave I pushed the top stone back in to place feeling sad for the colonel.
I stood back and looked at my handy work. The grave was secured and while the angel no longer was protecting the colonel, I had done my part in saving him from facing further indignity by dogs, hyenas and other predators that lurked in the dark alike. As I said a silent prayer, I saw a man approaching me. He was young and handsome, his tailor made suit draping his thin frame, he looked the part of a corporate lawyer. He swayed his umbrella as he walked towards me. As he came closer, I looked at him more closely. He was a Gora sahib. I wondered what he was doing in the graveyard. Perhaps he had come to pay his respect to his fore fathers or something. I had seen grandsons and granddaughters of rulers coming back not only in search of their history but also to pay respect to their graves. I smiled as he walked in to an audible distance.
“Hello” his accent was definitely British. “Hi” I replied as I looked at him wondering if he was real or a ghost. He seemed real but places sometimes make you see things and graveyards and ghosts go hand in hand. I looked at him closely. He wasn’t translucent or a floating. He was real for sure.
“Just visiting a friend” I said trying to hide my awkwardness. After all I was in a graveyard putting stones on a grave. He could have taken me for a grave robber. “It’s ok.” He said. He had noticed that I was feeling awkward. “so you live around the area?” I asked him trying to make a conversation.
“Yeah, just around the corner.” He pointed in to the direction he came from. I looked at the trail that disappeared in to the forest. “Someday I will go further” I made a mental note to myself.
“Nice to meet you, I am Sid” I introduced myself.
“Hi, I am James.” He said as he shook my hand. His hands were cold, but so were mine. It was cold and soon the sun would go down. I looked into the horizon and saw clouds frantically lining up as if in preparation of a drill.
“The weather might be bad pretty soon.” I looked at him.
“Yeah, bollocks. I was just headed for the city.” James said.
“I can drop you, where are you headed for?” I asked him.
“Boat house club” he said.
“Good lets go then” I didn’t want to spend any more time in the grave yard. It was getting weird by the minute, as fog started to spread in the grave yard. I knew when it was time to go. Fog was bad not because I would see ghosts but I always used to get headaches because of it. I kick started my bike and with James, I set out for the town. The city was crowded with revellers partying on the streets. We reached the club and James invited me for a drink. I was getting late.
“Some other time, I know where you live now.” I joked with him.
“Yeah, you do, don’t worry your secrets safe with me” he said as he turned around and disappeared in to the club.
I smiled. I had a new friend. I reached home and as usual got a scolding for staying out so late. Rules were rules and coming home late especially with exams looming over my head wasn’t something that pleased my parents.
I pulled up my blanket and thought of the day’s events. The graveyard and James.
“Your secrets safe with me” I felt a chill run down my spine. Only last week I had told the grave me darkest secret. My crush, my infatuation.
“Thanks colonel” I smiled as I dreamed of my secret.
The trail that James had told me ended in to a cliff and there was no James registered as a member of the club. The colonel had found a way to thank me for making him at peace once again. I smiled to have met someone after hundred years, only if I had known and asked him more about life in his era. After all he had seen it all first hand.
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