(A weird story.Don't look for logic)
The sky was
overcast and it was windy too.Vanamali went to the window overlooking the
backyard to close it. He saw his wife Vasuki standing about five feet away from
a big anthill at the corner of their fenced compound. She was looking at the
anthill intently. A newly married, he wondered why she went near it. He had
seen some neighbourhood ladies coming and pouring milk inside it on some
special occasions. But this day was no such one. He rarely went to backyard
much less near the anthill. He suspected some snakes were inside it. When he
wanted to have it removed years back, his mother had dissuaded him saying that
it was there since his grandfather’s days and that no harm would come to
anyone. She also warned him that if it is removed there would be a curse with no
progeny in the family He was still scared and was wondering why his wife had gone
there.
Vasuki was tall,
very slim and lithe in her movements. She had long hair coming up to hips and
walked very gracefully like an accomplished dancer. Extremely fair she
had narrow but long eyes that were very black. She looked beautiful even from distance.
He called her “Vasuki, why you are standing near the anthill? It is getting dark.
Come away” She was so engrossed, he had to repeat before she turned and looked
at him with a weird expression.
“Don’t you know snakes
are inside it? Infact I would have shifted long back but for this being
ancestral house”
“What if, the snakes
do not harm anyone unless they see a threat?” she replied
He did not pursue
the subject but was a trifle intrigued at her response. A week later on a
Sunday afternoon; they were watching TV in the living room. A strange smell
assailed his nose and he turned to look around. He saw a cobra inside the hall
with its raised hood staring at them. Immediately he jumped up on the sofa and
cried out to her to do likewise. He turned to find a stick or something long to
beat it. Holding his hand and dissuading him from such foolish thing she said ”Don’t
panic. Just stay put. I will handle this”
She stood where she
was a few feet away from the cobra and looked at it intently even as it stared
at her. Though for a few minutes, it looked like eternity before the reptile
slithered its way out through the door. Dumbstruck at her unflustered reaction
and unaware why the snake receded as if commanded, he asked her “Aren’t you
afraid of snakes? How do you know by staring at it, the cobra would go back?”
She did not reply
but looked at him with a smile in her face. He felt some strange fear creeping
him but continued watching the TV for a while before switching it off. He asked
her to come out for walk but she declined. He went out pondering over the incidents.
He was ill at ease and not comfortable.
That night as they
were in bed, she snuggled close to him, put her arm around him and leg on his
and brought her face close to his. He saw her glistening dark narrow eyes with
a twinkle close to him when a chill went through his spine. He pushed her away
but she was in no mood to let him go and enwrapped his body to bring it closer.
He let out a shrill ‘No’ and moved away as if in front of danger.
“What is it? We are
hardly married for six months. Why are you doing it to me? I have been seeing
you behaving strangely since a few days and looking at me as if I am a weird person” she
asked.
He kept quiet for a
while and when prodded for an answer, he said “Nothing like that, I am tired
today.”
She turned to the
other side while he too turned. This went on for a few days and there was no
discussion on this. She cooked the food, he went to office, watched TV and
everything was done in routine. There was no quarrel but the intimacy was absent.
In the nights when they slept in the same bed, he was like a scared animal
keeping his distance away.
One night he
suddenly woke up and found Vasuki looking at his face intently from close
quarters. The glassy black eyes that flitted from one side to the other
reminded him of the cobra. As he tried to get up, she pushed him down and
kissed him on his lips. A shudder passed through him even as his body shivered.”Be
quiet. Why are you like this? Am I not your wife? Hug me and kiss me. It has
been several days since we had been intimate”
“No, leave me alone.
I beg of you. I am scared” he cried like a child.
“I think you need
to see a shrink. Something is bothering you and you are not open” she said looking
at him with contempt as she left the room with a pillow in hand.
The next day Vanamali
during lunch time asked Ashok, his close buddy, “Do you believe it is possible
for a snake to take human form?”
That friend was
shocked at such a stupid question and asked him “What has gone wrong with you?
Have you been seeing some Vittalacharya’s films?” Vanamali gave a wry smile and
did not pursue the conversation.
The next day around
11 am someone came rushing to Ashok and said “Have you heard the tragic news?
Our colleague Vanamali was bitten by a cobra last night and had died”
It hit like a
sledge hammer as Ashok recalled the question Vanamali had asked the day before.
He rushed to Vanamali’s house. There was a small crowd of neighbours. Someone said
“It is unusual for a cobra to bite on his lips. There were two distinct marks.
The cobra must have crept to the bed. Normally the snake bites the legs. I think
Vanamali has beaten the snake dead before he passed out. The cobra was lying
there dead with blood all over”
“What about his wife?
Where is she? She must know what had happened” asked Ashok
“No, she is not seen.
The neighbours say they saw her even late at night at the back yard. But she
had vanished. It looks strange. The police are expected any moment”
Ashok was in a
quandary whether the dead cobra could be Vasuki.A shudder passed through his
spine too..
