Return To Innocence...

This is the story of a young girl called Parvati. She was 4 when she first realized she loves animals and would grow up to be an ardent animal lover. Her mom would sing animal songs to her as she braided her hair and Parvati would listen with utmost attention, imagining every single animal in her mind...craving to touch the rabbit, cat, dog, kitten, pup, sparrow, parrot. "The world is after all a beautiful place, There must be God somewhere who created these wonderfully cute creatures", she always thought.

Soon she wanted to go out and play every evening because all the other children played!! She joined them and was the youngest in the group of 7 and was pampered a lot. Parvati's mom had instructed the eldest girl in the group- Pallavi -to make sure Parvati comes home safely everyday. Religiously Pallavi would come ring the doorbell for Parvati (since Parvati was too short to ring it herself) and wait until someone opened the door for her and then bid goodbye.

The children would wait to go out every evening and never got bored of playing hide and seek, catch-catch, ringa roses, help-help, lock and key, poison-medicine…until one day that is. One fine day everyone was bored to play these same old silly games. "Lets try something adventurous", they thought. Savita - the leader - suggested that the kids build a kennel for the new born stray pup in the vicinity. Everyone was enthusiastic and the tiny ones were running away to go look for the poor pup. They could only hear the pup whining in the distance and the kids imagined themselves to be detectives looking for it. 

There it was....in the corner of a warehouse. The group pounced on it and the pup was bewildered with all the sudden attention it got. Soon a fight broke out as to who should carry the pup and the gang leader Savita very peacefully reached a negotiated decision. Everyone gets to carry him for 1 minute, she said, until they reached back the playground that is. 

Parvati was thrilled to hold the pup when she got her chance. Her first encounter with a real animal!! "How cuuuute!!", she thought. She didnt want to put him down but they'd reached by then and her 1 minute was up. The kids collected bricks lying around and started building a 'kennel' - it should have probably been called a fortress. With limited number of bricks, the kids simply stacked up the bricks to form a tiny square and put the pup in middle. The claustrophobic pup felt suffocated and tried jumping out of it but Parvati was so concerned that she held him tight into it. The poor pup started wailing and soon people shouted at Parvati that she is hurting him. Terrified at the prospect , she released the pup who in an instant flew with a silent scream translating into 'Help me' and vanished in an instant.

The bored children couldnt think of anything better to do and lacking patience, they had had enough of the kennel business too. Soon it was dark. All the kids had been instructed by their parents to come back home before it is dark. And to make the kids obey, their parents had resorted to the age old golden rule of inducing some fear that automatically compelled the children to do as the parents wished. In other words, it amounted to taking advantage of their innocence. So while Parvati believed that there would be ghosts in the dark (although this wasn't told by her parents), Savita knew about dangerous people who kidnap children and Pallavi thought of snakes, Others thought of ants, mosquitoes, demons and all the most disagreeable creatures in the world. But very soon the baccha-party overcame all fears and were adamant to NOT go home so soon. They came up with the next adventure, a night-time one. Let's visit the top storey of a tall building,they decided. Soon they were chattering away on their way to the top floor of a 6-storeyed building. 

The staircase was eerily silent and Parvati's imagination was running away in the scary direction. She was thrilled at the prospect of seeing ghosts!! Savita thought of the dangerous psycho child-lifter who could be lurking somewhere. Pallavi was calm, quite sure to not see snakes in there. They reached the top floor and admired the view from there, whatever little was visible that is. But soon Savita noticed the little Parvati's scared facial expressions and decided to have some fun. She started telling the story of one of the apartments nearest to where they stood. About an old lady that once lived there. 

The story went-

"That lady died when she saw a ghost in her bedroom. It was a pitch dark night just like this one. She was in bed but awake. But she saw that moving shadow, and died immediately of a heart attack. She soon became a ghost herself. Now there are people who say that if you go near that apartment you can hear her screams. Once a couple of kids tried to knock on the apartment door and the door knob turned on its own. And every once in a while you can hear the sound of anklets and see a woman with a candle in her hand."

She was a good story-teller and within no time, all 7 girls were engrossed in her story. She enjoyed every minute of her terrifying story, watching the scared bunch of kids around her getting more and more scared. But Parvati was defiant. She found loop holes in her story and was soon getting very magnificent doubts. "But, Savita. Why would she carry a candle? If she is a ghost she should be able to see in dark. And Savita, why should she scream now? She is a ghost, so we should scream when we see her. And she should have screamed when SHE had seen the ghost, but instead she chose to die immediately. And if she is a ghost she should have red eyes and be wearing white clothes. I would want to see her. Lets go knock at the apartment.. ". Now it was Savita's turn to be scared. She knew that the apartment had been empty since many years, but she was worried for some reason. "Come, lets go home", she said. But Parvati was adamant and the others were too scared to speak.

Off went Parvati to knock at the apartment door while the others held on to each other in fear and shouted "No, Parvati , nooo". But brave Parvati was more interested in seeing the ghost than reassuring her friends. Within no time she reached the door and...there it was, right in front of her, the door knob was turning on its own!!! Bewildered and thrilled as she was, she still thought she had imagined it. Turning around she saw her friends pale as ghosts themselves, frozen by fear and utterly quiet. She realized that they must have seen it too. She was rooted to the spot in fear. Finally all of them heard it, the sound of anklets. They looked towards the entrance to the roof top,a flickering light that looked like a candle was appearing out of nowhere. That broke all the paralysis that had set in and they screamed in unison (Parvati included) and they flew down the stairs, taking multiple stairs at a time and a couple of them went sliding down the stair-railings, screaming at the same time. And then another scream (of the 'ghost') drowned their screams, as if there was a screaming competition. Savita was petrified to imagine her invented story had taken shape. Within seconds they were out of the building in the dark and running away at top speed. After running non-stop for what seemed like an hour, they all reached the playground again and fell down on the soft damp grass. Panting and gulping fresh air for breath. 

Pallavi spoke first and said...."Savita, you must be so brave, to tell that whole story without fear, when you knew all the time that all of it was true. I had not believed one word of it until I saw the whole thing happening in front of me". Parvati spoke next, "Savita, You really pretended like you were just telling a story, when all the time you knew it had actually happened sometime. Even I had not believed you for a second, but now I do". Savita was sheepish and scared as ever. She felt guilty, and strangely felt like she was being watched by the ghost, like the ghost had taught her a lesson. The others were too shaken and tired from the running, not to mention the event that had caused the running.

It was decided that they had better gone home. But since all were equally scared to take off alone, a plan was made to make sure each one of them had company. Parvati and Pallavi lived close by, so they had each other's company for sure. They ended up escorting everyone else till their homes and finally walked back together at top speed. 

Back in the building some things were happening. There was huge laughter. Deepak and Anil- Savita's elder brothers- were laughing their hearts out. "That was wonderful…getting into the apartment and turning the knob. And hiding on the roof and then coming down with a candle!! We ruined Savi's age-old story!! Hahaha…".

Back at home, Parvati got the scolding of her lifetime for coming home late, which came close enough in its terror-element to the evening's episode. But she carefully hid her fears and listened obediently and apologized like a good girl.As she sat down for dinner, she looked at her mother and said "Amma, I will never go and play after dark again. I promise". "Well, you are a good girl after all" smiled her mother, secretly congratulating herself on her own scolding skills. Parvati on the other hand thought "I suppose good girls also don't tell their parents the most dangerous adventures they indulge in, so that the parents don't get tensed". She promised herself not to ever disobey her parents, and yes not to be 'adventurous' for sure. 

Just as she finished eating, the phone rang. Her Dad called out "Parvati, it's for you." 

She picked up the receiver, "Hello."

"Hey, it's me Savita. Listen, tomorrow come early to the playground, by around 5 p.m. We are going to the old abandoned bungalow by the forest, my Dad was warning me NOT to go there because supposedly the psycho child lifter hides the kidnapped children there. "

"Wow, really?" asked Parvati.

"Yes, and that's why I have decided that tomorrow we MUST go there and give a shot at getting him apprehended. Imagine, we are 7 of us. It should be pretty easy. We can even take help from those kidnapped children. And the police would give us a reward."

"Sounds too good. I'll be at the playground at 5 sharp." said Parvati.

She kept the phone and turned around.

Her parents were busy making the bed. She looked at them and remembered the promise she had made to herself. 

Then she looked at the mirror and smiled sheepishly, "One last adventure…I promise." :)