Grotesque

I was never scared with ghosts. But when I was in the remote village of Annakur in the Trichi district, I had a neighbor who would scare the living shit out of me. Not because he was dead, no. But because he was so grotesque that just looking at him would make a chill run down my spine. He had the eyes of a serial killer and the skin color of polished charcoal. His hairs were like knotted coconut timbre, his nose was like a half-bitten loaf of bread. His ears were exceptionally big compared to his face and would sometimes twitch when he laughed. His laugh, if that was called a laughter, was more a like a deliberate flash of his uneven and asymmetrical teeth. He was over six feet and four inches in height and was hunched from the weight of his over-sized head. His hands were longer than a normal person’s hand and would almost go up to his knees when he hung them by his side. It made him look like a gorilla – dark, extremely long arms, hairy, grinning and scary.  

His name was Illanaru Aramuswamy. We used to call him Illa. Like me, he was working in another construction plant ten kilometres outside the village where we stayed. He rented the next room to mine in the apartment where most rooms were occupied by people from our company. Most of these people stayed away from their families like me but almost everyone talked about their families except Illa.

One day, I was late to leave for office and all other people in the apartment had already left for the site. I was sitting in the make shift canteen on the 1^st floor where Raghu would manage the kitchen for all of us. I was gobbling down a vada and sambhar when Raghu said – “Bhaiya, never talk to Illa about your family. He knows black magic and will cast a bad spell on your family.” When I asked Raghu why on earth would he do something like that, Raghu said – “Because of jealousy. You see Raghu was not always this ugly. Many years back, he was a handsome young man and was married to a beautiful bride. Three years after marriage, they had a child, a son. But when that son turned five years of age, Illa sacrificed his wife and son and left his home.”

“You mean he abandoned his wife and kid?” I asked, the half sliced vara softening in the sambhar pool.

“No bhaiya, he killed his wife and son. He left his home at the middle of the night after committing this heinous crime and never returned to his village. His father-in-law was a renowned priest in their village and the villagers respected him a lot. He hired a shaman from a far-off island who cast a spell that made Illa ugly for the rest of his life. Ever since he lives in this village and practices black magic in the heart of the night.”

 

It was a tall claim, what Raghu said. But it was also true that even though we all talked about our families who we have left back at home to come and work in this godforsaken village, Illa never talked about his family, though he mentioned on one or two occasion that he does have a family. It was also true that Illa has been living in this village for a long long time now and never goes to his home. We all get transferred eventually in three to five years but Illa has been working in his company and living in this village for over twelve years now. He never takes a leave to visit his home. No one calls him and he doesn’t call anyone.

One night, I woke up thirsty and heard soft murmurs from Illa’s room. The window to his room was two feet apart from the window in my room. Since it was summer, we all had our windows open at night to let the night breeze cool down the air inside the room. I got off from my bed and softly walked to my window to try and hear what the sound was that was coming from Illa’s room. The sound was a muffled whisper – as if someone was talking in rasped and cautious voice. There was only one voice that I could hear and it was certainly not Illa’s. His window was to the right of my window. I stood very close to my window, held the rails, turned my head to the left and pressed my ear between the window rails to get to hear better what the sound was all about. For over a minute, there was no sound at all, as if whoever was making the noise, was made aware of my presence. When I rolled by face back, I had an eerie feeling that someone just walked inside Illa’s room. The landing outside our windows was dark, so I couldn’t be sure, but I had a strong feeling that someone had in fact walked into his room.

 

Illa was not much of the extrovert type. He didn’t try to befriend people and when someone would walk up to him, he would flash his teen in an attempt to smile which would scare off the other person and Illa would turn his head and his murderous eyes back to his work. At many instances, I had a strong inclination to talk to Illa outside of pleasantries. But so repulsed was I of his appearance, that every time I faced him with a resolution to open a casual conversation, I would change my mind and shy away.

 

One night we had a party in the apartment and we all drank a bit too much of whisky. Many of us slept in the canteen floor, many ended up in someone else’s room. Illa had excused himself from drinking but a few of us (I didn’t participate in that group) almost forced him to drink for the fun of it. That night, Illa woke the whole apartment at 3:05 AM with his wailing. He was wailing like a wolf whose partner’s body has been crushed by a car on the highway and the wolf is sitting beside the remains of the body and complaining to god of his cruelty through his howls that tore away the skin of the sky like a sheet of paper. Almost the entire apartment gathered at Illa’s room that night. We woke him up, asked him to wash his face and drink some water. When he was slightly composed, we all retired to sleep in our respective rooms.

Illa was not found in his room the next day. He left an envelop with the current month’s rent in the apartment owner’s letter box. No one knew where he went or why. We were not that close to Illa to inquire about his whereabouts in his workplace. We believed that Illa was embarrassed by his wailing the previous night and being the introvert that he was, had felt extremely humiliated and hence left the apartment before we all woke up.

 

Many years later I wrote an imaginative short story about Illa in a local newspaper. In that story, I imagined Illa to have been born with some hormonal imbalance which caused him to grow out of proportion and rendered his physical features ugly. In my story, he had a beautiful wife and a kid, both of whom were killed in an unfortunate road accident. This incident left a trauma in Illa’s mind from which he never fully recovered.

 

The story gained some readership, possibly because of its human touch. One of the readers referred it to a friend of his in a national newspaper and it got published on a Sunday. Ten days later, I received my first and only fan mail. The letter was short. It went like this –

 

Sir,

Thank you for telling my story which I myself never could have. It means a lot to me. I pray to God for the well being of your family.

P.S: It was a fire in the apartment, not a car accident.

Your truly,

Illanaru Aramuswamy.