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Sadly, my joy was short-lived. After riding a while, I
realized that the road ahead had been blocked as a truck
had overturned. It took a couple of hours for the
traffic police to clear the obstacle. We were behind
schedule. Consequently, I was getting very late. So, as
the bus was about to reach Muppandal, I requested the
driver to skip that stop, if no one was to get down
there, to save time. He duly complied, perhaps
empathizing with my tender age. As the bus raced past
the Muppandal shrine, I saw for a fleeting moment
something amiss: someone from the shrine was starring at
our bus with fury. I did not dwell on whom or what it
was, but, was keen only on reaching home at the earliest
time possible.
I reached Azhagai at ten. I duly explained to my parents
the reason why I was being late. After taking a shower,
I ate food. I then for about an hour listened to a
pleasing 'villupattu' wafting in the air from the
Vadakuvilai Sudalaimadar temple. Relaxed, I went to bed,
which had been laid in the porch of our house, so I got
some fresh air on that warm and damp summer night.
Owing to weariness from an active day, I dozed off right
away. In my sleep, a little past midnight, I realized
someone wake me up. It was my friend, Neesan. I wasn't
quite willing to get up, given the time of the night.
But Neesan was insistent and lured me to the prospect of
taking a stroll and then playing round-race with other
fellows. Convinced, I got up and followed Neesan, who
led me onto West Car Street towards St. Antony's High
School. I couldn’t say whether it was day or night.
As I would learn later, it was not Neesan who was taking
me, but a devil in Neesan's clothing. The devil had
impersonated Neesan! We were seen by a pair of rare,
piercing eyes as we passed through his house. Those rare
eyes belonged to a shopkeeper, who lived across the road
on the eastern side of the school. He was a Bootharasi,
hence could see with his eyes devils and demons. He was
sturdy and had long hair, which he had wound into a bun.
Since he knew who was I, and what was going to befall on
me, he started following Neesan and me unseen, hiding
hither and thither.
We passed by the school and the houses on the southern
rim of the village. As we walked on the Chenkulam
embankment, I was forced to hold my nose tight to avoid
pulling in reeking air blowing through a rotting buffalo
carcass. The devil apparently didn't have any such
problem. We descended the Novamani Salai slope and
walked eastwards turning left. As we walked I heard
voices behind us on the bank of the bund. Probably some
youngsters were returning home after viewing Sivaji
Ganesan's then famous Vanankamudi being shown at
Kottaram Ponnu. The Novamani Salai had just been laid
and was shrouded with dense trees, plants and shrubs,
which, on the night, were vague shadows against an ebony
sky. We in a little while entered the wild, which had
been an expansive plain interspersed with, jambolana,
thistle, cactus, splurges and so forth. The jungle was
infested with poisonous snakes, too. Neesan led me on to
Sudukattu Thottam. The night was typified by the usual
sights and sounds of all kinds of living beings, which
was somewhat unsettling. But my unease was soothed by
the presence of Neesan, in whose company I was. We
continued walking and talking leisurely with no
destination in sight yet. I was absolutely unaware of
the motive of Neesan. The craving for playing games
during summer vacation was such that the mind simply did
not mull over anything else.
Neither the devil nor I knew we were being followed
unobtrusively by the agile shopkeeper. As the Bootharasi
was to reveal later, he was certain I was being taken by
the devil to be killed, if not intercepted by the right
man at the right time and place. For me, though,
everything seemed normal. I had no inkling for the
devil’s devious plot.
We now moved on in a southeasterly direction, across a
canal. From a distance I saw in cosmic light some
ancient idols in front of an old moss-tainted
tile-roofed shack. The location was somewhere along the
road leading to Vattakottai. The place was in ruins.
Right in front of the busts was a deep and disused well.
Now, Neesan slightly slowed down, perhaps making sure
that we were in solitude. This particular area looked
like a plateau. I saw smoke billowing from something not
very far; probably a corpse was burning on a pyre in a
distant crematorium. I then heard the faint sound of a
conch being blown. The intermittent gusty wind sweeping
from the west made a raucous noise. The screaming of
owls, howling of wolves and barking of dogs were
incessant and unnerving. The setting was weird,
prophesying an imminent occurrence. Something awful.
Fear engulfed me.
Meanwhile, an airplane droned on through a tranquil
Azhagai sky. Its blinking red lights symbolically
alerted me of some imminent danger, I thought.
With time ticking away and the situation being glum, I
asked Neesan where were we going and when could we start
the games. I also demanded to know who else were going
to join us. He replied that we would soon reach our
destination and that some of our friends would join us
there. He gave the indication that everything would be
fine in about half an hour. As we talked, seemingly
aimlessly, we neared a 200-foot deep well.
As we edged closer to the knee-high parapet of the well,
whose bottom was dry and rocky, Neesan, true to the
sense of his name, suddenly caught me unawares and
pushed me into the hell-deep well. Just as I was about
to nosedive, I sensed someone pounce from nowhere at
lightning speed, snatch me from the momentum of Neesan’s
push, thus preventing me from crashing into the well,
and then drive a gleaming knife into Neesan’s stomach.
There was an ear-splitting wild scream, which echoed the
vast jungle. Neesan the devil slumped to the ground in a
pool of blood. An icy calm descended. It was the
Bootharasi, who, rushing to the scene from his hideout,
saved my life and took that of the devil.
The shopkeeper and I then briskly walked back home. On
the way, he assured me not to be afraid as no devil
dared to come close to him. He promptly restored me to
my parents, giving a brief recap of the hair-raising
episode. My parents were shocked and astonished. They
deeply thanked the shopkeeper for saving my life. They
then cautioned me not to be lured into such deadly
tricks by any friend or foe in future.
In the morning a team of villagers, including the
shopkeeper, my father, uncles and I, visited the site of
the horrific overnight events. We saw near the well in a
pool of dried blood the carcass of a garden lizard with
a knife slash to its belly, precisely where the
Bootharasi had struck Neesan the devil with his knife
the previous night.
All of us returned home and promptly held an inquest.
The Bootharasi asked me to recount the events right from
the time I left Kavalkinaru, which I did. He inferred
that I might have unwittingly angered or insulted the
sitting deity at Muppandal by racing away on the bus
without halting depriving the shrine of some offerings,
which perhaps was construed an insolent act, hence I had
to be punished. The devil, the personified spirit of
evil, took upon itself to carry out the punishment
without anyone’s order, perhaps to satisfy its sadistic
urge. That’s why it had come all the way to
Azhagappapuram masquerading as my friend, Neesan, so it
would seem credible and I would be unsuspecting.
Later on, I met the real Neesan and narrated the
dreadful events to him, which, doubtless, left him
speechless.
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