The broken piano

While he was sleeping , I was already awake, and not only that , I was shocked , I was petrified  and I was fossilized  like a doe entangled by a python when I saw my broken piano in front of me. I tried waking him up to show what had happened in my house but he was irritated at my disturbance. But then I could take it no more and yelled at the top of my voice , “ Raj , please wake up…see what has happened .”
Finally he had to get up. Still flabbergasted ,he burst out at me,like a thunderstorm, “ What ! …cant you let me sleep even on Sunday?”
“ Raj see what has happened .Some one broke our piano.Who could have done that?”
He saw the broken piano with little surprise ; some disgust as I had spoiled his sleep  and no concern about who could have done this. He said in a casual way as if nothing  unusual had happened , “ Oh , just leave it…don’t tell me that my mother did this.”
“ I am not blaming your mother…she was sleeping in the living room and our room was bolted  from inside then how could some




one enter our room.Just yesterday we had got this piano as our house warming gift .The whole night I was playing it ….do you
remember ? and then I just kept it there , but then who could do such a horrifying act …how could someone enter our room while it was bolted from inside.”  My pace had slowed down as I spoke about one of my favourite gifts which now had become defunct.
Raj saw my face and gave a somber expression as if he knew something , but replied nothing. Instead  of worrying about this broken piano , he got up and went to the living room, and my eyes kept on lingering on the dilapidated structure .It had now become trash .All the keys  were cracked and uplifted. I caressed my hand over it for the last time with all my heart  and began crying looking at its wrecked demeanor. As soon as he heard me wailing he rushed into the room.
“ O please stop that please …just forget it …its just broken darling.”
I saw his stony face and lifted the piano and pressed it near my chest as a mother embraces her child. I had lifted the corpse of my dead child, but he stopped me while I was about to go to the backyard and throw it.




He yelled , “Hey what are you doing , are you planning to throw it out, are you mad ? have you gone crazy ?How can you throw your parents’ gift like this ?Just keep it where it was. Let it be there like a showpiece in that niche .I will not let you throw it.”
His voice was firm and stern that I had no nerves to defy him .I silently kept the piano where it was .
With whole lot of irritation on his face , he said, “ Now freshen up for the evening puja …people are going to visit us again today.”
Piano was at the back of my mind , but I busied myself in brooming the verandah, wiping  the stone carved stand of the holy basil, washing my two storeyed new house and helping the cook .This digression took me in the lake of Lethe for sometime  but intermittently ,the piano  appeared in my mind.

In the evening ,when the pooja was over , I went  to the shrine to have some ‘prasad’ when my peripheral vision saw some thing bizarre moving in my room.It looked like some shadow , but my scared mind did not allow me to look at it straight.I did not dare to, but I thought of telling this to Raj.I felt even more scared as I found myself standing alone in the house. All were out in the verandah having their dinner so I rushed out hastily.I saw Raj had finished eating and so I quickly approached him and called him to me discretely in a very low voice.


“ What now…why do you look so worried?”
“ I want to urgently talk to you...actually you won’t believe Raj I just now saw something strange going towards our room.Can you come inside and see who or what it is.I am scared Raj .” I pleaded ardently.
“ You have gone insane…it must be one of our relatives.”
“No …. It was something different Raj, please… I beg ...come and see what it is.”
“ Ok fine.” And we strided towards our  room.

As we reached , our room was the same , empty   ,faceless,  expressionless. No one was there to be seen and the broken piano lay there on the table. Then whom did I see coming in ,what was it ,were the questions hovering my head. Raj gave me an annoying look  and said with suppressed anger, “ You need rest.You have been working whole day since we have come here and now with weariness you are not in your senses. Just go and sleep.”
“ But Raj … truly I saw something.”
He didn’t say anything , but led me by my hand and forced me to sleep.He switched off the lights, shut the door and then I was left alone in the  darkness. As soon I was  alone in my room  , I unleashed my suppressed tears on my pillow as I couldn’t decipher what wrong was going on in my life and then  I beacme oblivious of when the slumber  had entered my eyes.

Actually I do not understand how could I sleep the previous day with all that had spooked up in my mind, but the slumber had been kind to take me into the world of dreams where I saw someone holding my hands lovingly and caressing my face.I don’t remember  who he was but   his eyes were deep, fascinating and hypnotic that I felt he had known me since the dawn of time and he was not ready to leave me and when I asked him why, he beautifully smiled and answered , “ Because you are me”.

The night passed with him but the early crowing of the rooster  transported me back to my real living world. I had to face another day and as I woke up I saw the broken piano before me .It pricked me as if some grains of sand had entered my and were chafing my eyes.

I got up hastily to prepare for the morning, but then I did not wonder where Raj was.I went out and saw Raj engrossed in his mobile phone.I did not greet him.I had decided I won’t  bother him anymore .As I was preparing breakfast in the kitchen ,Raj came and handed over his phone to me .It was my father who had called.
“ Hi beta .How are you? I am coming today to see you.”
“ I am fine  , of course come…I am waiting .” I was happy to hear his voice .He was some one from my side , my benefactor , the one who had given me birth, and I was happy that I would see him today and express my deepest anguish.

That day I was in high spirits as I was awaiting my father’s arrival.He had planned to come for food , so I had set myself up to prepare a scrumptious lunch for my papa, so my major time was spent in the kitchen, and as I had finally finished cooking I thought of calling my father, but as I was treading towards my room ,my eyes abruptly fell over something written on one of the maroon coloured tiles which was exactly at the center of the


floor. It read , “ Mr .Dalvi”. I had never seen this name before on the floor , but I could understand that someone had written it now with the chalk. I called up Raj to show him this weirdness that was occurring time and again in this house. I wanted to know who was doing this , but whom could I ask .Raj was not bothered at all .As I was brooding over this matter , I heard a knock .It was my father who had come.I welcomed him wholeheartedly.
After the lunch , while Raj and my father were having a friendly banter , I thought of talking to papa in private.I gestured him to come in my room.I wanted to tell him what has been happening in this house since I had come here.

As my father entered my room, I bolted it from inside, and embraced him  firmly. His shirt was wet by now because of my tears.“ I am sorry papa, the piano that you had  gifted is now broken.I really don’t know who did it.” By now I was crying hard and continued speaking, “ and now that  it has become useless , Raj is not even allowing me to throw it, he tells me to keep it as a showpiece.I cannot bear the sight of that broken piano which will now never create any harmoniuous music.Tell me father , why should I keep such a piano in my room.”
My  father looked numb and expressionless. He had nothing to say .I could see some guilt on his face , but he was not ready to share anything with me. He just said, “ Don’t worry child , I will bring you a new one.”


“ But it’s not that…I feel this house is evil papa.Even Raj doesn’t understand that.”
“ Don’t behave like a fool, how can a house be evil.”
“ I had some strange experiences here and …”
My father interrupted me .He would not let me say anything further. He was disgusted at me and I again felt the loneliness that I had always felt in my life when I was not listened to,when I was not believed and when I was misunderstood.
Just then, someone had come at the entrance. It was a beautiful young girl. I asked her who she was and whom she wanted .She said she wanted to talk to me.She directly spoke , without wasting a minute, “ Mr Dalvi was the former owner of this house and this house is evil.” She just said this and my heart skipped a beat ,my eyes were flooded with fear. My voice was choked , but somehow I readied myself to speak up.
“ Yes …you are right.This house is evil.” I spoke with a heavy voice. Suddenly I called up Raj and my father.They came running out at the entrance.
“ Raj , see I had told you that this house is evil, papa see I was right .Even this girl says it.”
Their faces were bewildered.I looked at the girl and pleaded ,
“ Please tell them too that this house is evil…please … they don’t believe me.” I pleaded for her statement but there was an eerie silence in her.

I yelled again , now sobbing loudly, “ Please tell my father and my husband that this house is sinister….please tell them please…” but she didn’t utter a word. I was outrageous at her silence.
“ Why aren’t you speaking ?...please tell them .” I shouted again.
But she did not open her mouth.I saw my husband and my father look at me in a horrifying way. Nothing was left for them to speak. I do not know why they looked dumbstruck.
The girl turned her back and began leaving without saying a word. She walked in long strides and her gait was confident. I was angry at her betrayal .
“ Where are you going ?Don’t leave .Please stop I say.”
She stopped for a second , turned back and saw me again .Now this time, I saw there was a mysterious glint in her eyes and a vicious smile on her face . On seeing this,  I was fully left tongue tied and hopeless. I don’t know who she was and why she had come .Was she playing any game with me or was she trying to scare me , why did she not speak to Raj and papa ? These questions swarmed in my head like a cluster of stinging hornets, but every thing was incisively quiet after she had left. She had rendered me frozen .I had become numb after this eerie encounter,  but this period of short silence was unexpectedly broken by something  …and what was it?

All of a sudden, as if in some trance , I heard something coming near me.It was slow paced , but as it came nearer, it started pricking my ears and as it grew louder and louder I covered my ears with my hands tightly  .I knew what it was  .

It was a sharp, creaky and  a disharmonious music of the broken piano that  had  already begun wafting  creepily , out of a thin air, like a venomous viper  slithering  out from its  hole and I already knew , it was my death knell.