The Scientific Indian

Published on Dec 24, 2008:
Introduction
This story is one of the two selected stories in the 2008 Scifi Contest. A mad scientist creates a house that is alive. He is caught it in it without being aware. The house keeps all intruders at bay; anyone who breaks in is toast. A young journalist working for a sensationalist media decides that there is saleable story in the house and decides to check-in. A light-hearted story that gives 'trashy journalists their come-uppance' (in the authors words).
About the author
Aditya won the first contest in 2006 for his story Asylum in Bergen. Aditya Sudarshan lives and writes in Delhi. His particular literary interests lie in fiction that combines emotive weight with suspense. He admires the works of such writers as Roald Dahl, Daphne Du Maurier and Isaac Asimov. His first novel, a mystery novel titled 'A Nice Quiet Holiday', is scheduled for publication in India by Westland Books/Tranquebar Press in March 2009.

Vir Saxena stood in the sun outside House No. 3, Block B, Nizamuddin East and considered his next move. He hadn’t done this kind of thing for months. He hadn’t needed to. April’s murder and molestation case had done so well, for so long, that the ‘young, intrepid’ team at Aaj Ki Khabar Ab had pretty much put their feet up.

Then the ratings had started to fall. Now they were dropping like a stone. Suddenly, it seemed, people had tired of the grisly fate of that particular little girl. Something freshly lurid was needed, and quick.

‘If Taaza Andaaz can get the two-headed ape scoop; if Bharat By the Minute can get the Great Khali photo shoot; if Info 365 manages a gangrape each week - then why the hell- why the HELL- can’t any of you?’

Except that Sameera Bose, Chief Editor, didn’t say ‘hell’.

For the young journalists it was time to produce or perish. So here stood Vir, looking at the walls of House No. 3, his own chosen baby.

It was one of Vir’s many conceits that he knew the ingredients of the perfect story. It had to be shocking and at the same time it had to be absolutely cozy. It was true the viewer loved being unsettled- but not in his mind. Only in his stomach. The first story Vir had done for the channel was a good example.

‘Live and Exclusive: Blood-Sucking Witches Roam the Streets of Patiala!

That, he recalled, had beaten out some insipid piece on ice caps melting in Greenland.

He knew also, that the more fantastical the better. One class of viewer was notoriously superstitious, and the other class was notoriously bored. Either way, they lapped up the thrills.

So a haunted house was alright. And a haunted house bang in the middle of a posh South Delhi neighbourhood was better. And a house where two mysterious deaths had occurred in the space of two months might just be ‘breaking news.’ ‘House of Horrors’, thought Vir. Cliched as hell, which in this business was just as well. They could flash that title a dozen times. They could lay on the blood and doom and gloom.

They’d have to, as well, because the bare setting was so picturesque. As far as the eye could see were leaning trees; quiet, shaded roads; a park full of flowers in the middle of the block- and the house itself.

It was a strange, splendid building; three storeys high and nicely spread out, like a tall figure stretching its arms out wide. The walls were built from polished wooden boards and dotted through with windows that gleamed in the sun. There were terraces at each level that pointed in three different directions. And the whole structure was set back from a grassy garden full of red and yellow and purple flowers.

Add to this cheerful opulence, that there was no gate and no guard and seemingly very little activity indoors, and the place was crying out to be robbed. So it wasn’t surprising that two enterprising young men had already tried. The surprise was what had happened to them. One had dropped off the top-most terrace and broken his neck. The other had finished up asphyxiated on the floor outside the kitchen.

Vir, who lived not ten minutes away in an apartment in Block C, had heard all the rumours. His neighbours loved to gossip.

‘There is a bhoot. The house is haunted by a bhoot.’

‘It came up three months ago. Till today no one has seen who lives there.’

‘Of course people have. The owner has to buy things, no?’

‘No no there is no owner. It’s an empty house. It’s an uninhabited hou-’’

‘Why don’t you go check?’

‘Are you crazy? I don’t want to end up like the others.’

‘You’re all talking nonsense. The house isn’t empty. A man lives there. His name is Achrekar. He’s a scientist. Yes I know you never heard of him. But he used to be pretty famous.’

That last comment, uttered by the lawyer who lived in C- 64, was true. Vir had done a spot of preliminary research. Just a little bit, because it was hardly important for the ‘House of Horrors’ show, just enough to know whom he was calling on that afternoon.

It turned out that Mohan Achrekar was a biologist who for twenty years had taught the theory of evolution at Delhi University and then two years ago suddenly retired. What he’d done after that was a mystery. Apparently he’d left the city. Perhaps he’d been travelling. Nobody knew for sure. Certainly nobody cared. In the last year this house of his had come up and of course it was an odd thing to look at. But all in all, considered objectively, Achrekar seemed just another well-off old-timer coming home to seed in the pretty environs of a plush colony.

‘Retired Mad Scientist Returns’ was the tag-line Vir was considering. Now all he needed was the material to go with it.

The previous evening he had interviewed Inspector Patil from the Nizamuddin police station, the man who had investigated the goings-on at B-3. But the Inspector had been cautious.

‘Look’, he told Vir when they met, ‘Don’t quote me on anything.’

Vir just smiled.

‘All I can tell you is that I’ve been doing this job thirty years. And I’ve never seen any more inexplicable deaths, than the two that occurred inside that building.’

The first victim was a twenty six year old unemployed youth from a village in Uttar Pradesh. He had broken into B-3 through the door that faced the garden. He had abstracted a few knick-knacks from the mantelpiece in the living room. He had walked up the stairs to the landing on the second floor. That much was clear.

The Inspector’s brow furrowed.

‘We found the terrace door… torn open. It was hanging off the hinges.’

‘Did the thief do that?’

‘Who else could have? Not Achrekar. He is sixty five. He couldn’t have had the strength. Frankly I think no human being could have had the strength.’

‘Maybe there’s someone else in the house’, Vir suggested, ‘Someone in hiding.’

A Modern Day Frankenstein?

‘No. We checked thoroughly.’

Then the Inspector licked his lips.

‘I’ll say this though. More than once, when I was moving about that house, I turned to see who was watching. Of course there wasn’t anybody. But there’s something about the place. So very spacious and at the same time so strangely… oppressive. I didn’t like it.’

‘Or some animal’, Vir was continuing thoughtfully, ‘Maybe Achrekar keeps an animal. A pet tiger perhaps.’

The Beast of B-3. He made a quick mental note of that and then he asked-

‘But why would the thief tear open the terrace door?’

The policeman smiled grimly.

‘To jump off. Why would he jump off? What was he running away from? I don’t know. But he did- or he was pushed. Except there was no one to push him.’

‘Then what-’

‘Look, I told you at the start. I can’t make any sense of it.’

Stranger still was the second death. In the dead of night the burglar had made his way indoors via the front door that Achrekar had forgotten to lock.

‘He’s a careless old fogey’, the policeman muttered.

‘According to him he was sleeping in his bedroom and didn’t hear a thing. And when he woke up in the morning and stepped outside to make himself a cup of tea- there was poor Ghanshyam Das, all paid up for his sins.’

‘Nobody’, Vir pointed out, ‘suffocates spontaneously.’

‘Well this kid did’, the Inspector retorted, ‘He hadn’t been strangled. He’d just…run out of breath. It’s possible it was a heart attack. But I don’t think so.’

‘Then what do you think?’

‘I don’t.’

Thus had spoken the officer of the law.

Now, when the proper authorities leave their job undone the improper amateurs must take it up. That was one of the guiding principles of Aaj Ki Khabar Ab. Vir was aware that the truth of the two deaths could easily be something prosaic and harmless. That was neither here nor there. A few pregnant quotes, and a few foreboding pictures would do very nicely for an hour’s ‘special’.

And so, with the preliminary investigations concluded and a half-dozen exciting theories swimming in his mind, he walked determinedly towards the entrance of Achrekar’s house. He pressed the switch for the bell. Nothing happened. He pressed it again- and then again- and then once more. The door swung open.

‘Yes! What is it!’

‘Mr. Achrekar?’

‘Yes! Who are you?’

Mohan Achrekar was a small, frail, white-haired specimen, who looked at the moment decidedly displeased.

‘I hope I didn’t disturb you, Sir.’

‘I was working on a paper’, Achrekar grumbled.

Vir flashed him his best salesman’s smile.

‘Well I’m sorry to butt in like this. I’m one of your neighbours. I live at B- 18. Vishwanath- Vishwanath Sehgal.’

‘Oh…’

‘And I just thought I’d drop in- only to say Hello. I know about the trouble you’ve been having. These are dangerous times, and well- no security like the security of friends, right Sir?’

Achrekar frowned. He had a wizened face, lined with such wrinkles that at sixty five were probably premature. His eyes lurked suspiciously beneath thick eyebrows; his mouth was close and drawn. It was the face of a recluse.

‘So!’ said Vir brightly, ‘This is a purely social call. Can I come in? It looks a lovely house.’

Even as he spoke he slipped forward and past the bemused old man. Then he pulled out his mobile phone and started the recording. The video would be grainy and discoloured, which was just right for the eerie stories he planned to spin.

He didn’t bother concealing the instrument either. Something in Achrekar’s confused eye told him that secrecy wasn’t necessary.

‘I’ve heard a lot about you, Sir’, Vir continued loudly, ‘One of my classmates’ cousins used to be your student. Nayana Shroff- you remember? No, of course you wouldn’t. But she was a great fan of yours. Is this the living room? It’s really… unique.’

The floor was wooden, and so was the furniture, though there wasn’t much of that. In the middle of the room was a fraying, many-coloured mattress. At the edges were plants- jade plants, money plants, bansais, and various large, leafy varieties spilling out of their flowerpots. Overhead was empty space.