[#1] The Haveli
A tale told by Apurva Chawla
It was an early cold morning in January. Saafiya couldn’t get any sleep that night. Something didn’t let her sleep. She had always wanted to visit this place, after all, she grew up listening to stories of this place by her grand parents.
Her grand parents were refugees and at the time of partition between India and Pakistan, had settled in this small and beautiful village near Himachal Pradesh called Kibber. The village, as she had always heard from her grandparents, was one of the most advanced villages of the world.
Saafiya never believed her grandmother, Momo, as she called her, when she told her that there were people in Kibber who claimed to have found the secret of time travel and chose not to disclose it to the world because the future they saw wasn’t good. She had promised her grandparents to take care of their Haveli in Kibber after them. After their death in a bomb explosion in New Delhi 7 years ago, Saafiya insisted a lot to her parents to let her go to Kibber but her parents were as supportive as any orthodox middle class parents in India are. They wanted Saafiya to complete her education and marry a decent guy when she comes of age and forget about the Haveli.
Her parents had always been against her grandparents telling those stories to Saafiya. Nevertheless, she was adamant. After 7 years of her education in Pennsylvania, she was an independent strong woman and a renowned global orator. Yet, her childhood desire to visit Kibber was still alive. Something about that place was very intriguing. At times she felt that the village called out her name. She dreamt of that village even though she had never been there.
In January of 2016, she got an invite from an arts and literature university in Himachal Pradesh to speak at their inaugural ceremony. Saafiya knew this was her chance to visit Kibber. She invited three of her best friends to accompany her. These friends were her school friends who had often heard about the place from Saafiya since childhood. They readily agreed to meet her in Delhi to go on to Kibber on a roadtrip.
The Haveli had been maintained by a caretaker named Ramu. He was a man in his sixties with short height and from appearance looked very decent and educated for a man of his stature. He had been a loyal servant to Saafiya’s grand parents and continued to serve them even after years of their demise. Saafiya and her friends reached Haveli late that night and went to sleep soon after being allotted their rooms by Ramu. Saafiya too went for a hot water bath to remove the long journey’s fatigue and went to bed.
Usually, she would sleep in no time. She loved her night sleep and nothing could ever make her compromise on her sleep. This night was different. This night she felt uneasy — a weird kind of unease. Surprisingly, she had no thoughts in her mind but still couldn’t sleep. It was an eerie kind of peace in the Haveli that didn’t let her sleep.
After hours of struggle, she leapt off her bed and went outside to check on her friends. She didn’t find anyone awake and went on to the balcony Momo always talked about. The chilly winter morning reminded her of her home in Delhi which had a fire place that she loved sitting beside. It was too cold outside and she decided to go back to her room.
On her way back in the corridor, she saw Ramu entering his room. She thought of talking to the old man about her grandparents. She followed him into his room.
“Ramu kaka?”, she called out while entering.
“Uhh.. oh Saafiya! You didn’t sleep?”, startled by seeing her awake, said Ramu.
“No, I couldn’t sleep. Do you mind if I sit here and talk to you for a while?”
“I was.. oh okay. No problem. What happened?”
Saafiya could feel the awkwardness building up but still stayed and asked, “Can you tell me more about this place?”
“What about this place?”
“I don’t know, maybe, let’s start with my grand parents, how long did they live here? What did they do?”
Ramu stared at her for a moment and asked, “You don’t know what they did here?”
“No, I just know that both of them were school teachers here.”
Ramu looked startled for a second and laughed, “They did it with you too, my child!”
Saafiya got puzzled, “What do you mean? What did they do with me?”
“They were time travelers. They changed the fate of this village”, he replied.
The story continues:
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