Page 165 - Musings 2020

18

Omen!

Devesh Todarwal 2017B4PS0518P

In the market places here, around the Pilani outskirts, there is an ancient trash shop-filthy,
shady and clandestine - to which I pay frequent visits, looking around, pondering over the
stuff present there searching for valuable things that someone might have had the misfortune
of losing, resulting in the worthwhile object ending up in the neglected junk shop. More often
than not, I come across items that seem not useful but have a great utility for their price, but
these usually skip under my nose and I am unable to find them. I was, however, attracted to
an old but well-preserved broom standing in an isolated corner of the shop. A long-handled
broom was just what I needed. I had no servant to sweep out the rooms of my cottage, and I
did not enjoy bending over double when using the common short-handled supdi . The old
broom was priced at ten rupees. I haggled with the shopkeeper and got it for five.

It was a strong broom, full of character, and I used it to good effect almost every morning.
One day I found an ominous large black cat sitting on the garden wall, while I was working
in the garden. The black cat had bright yellow eyes, and it gave me a long, penetrating look,
as though it were summing up my possibilities as an exploitable human. It almost looked as if
the Devil had come out of hell in his spare time to pay me a visit in an absolutely abominable
form. Though it meowed once or twice, I paid no attention, rather, I wanted to pay no
attention. As much as I want to deny it, but inside me, I know I am superstitious and
considering the vast accounts written about them, it was no surprise I did not care much for
cats, let alone the black ones. I stayed indifferent to the cat and went about doing my chores.
But when I went indoors, I found that the cat had followed and begun scratching at the pantry
door.

It must be hungry, I thought, and gave it some milk. The cat slurped up the milk, purring and
meowing throughout the ordeal, and then sprang upon a cupboard and made itself
comfortable. Well, for several days there was no getting rid of that cat. It seemed completely
at home and merely tolerated my presence in the house. It was more interested in my broom
than me and would dance and skittle around the broom whenever I was cleaning the rooms.
And when the broom was resting against the wall, the cat would sidle up to it, rubbing itself
against the handle and purring loudly. A black cat, right from the descriptions of T.S Eliot's
Macavity, and a broomstick-the combination was suggestive and full of possibilities... and
they gave me shivers every time I’d think of them. The cottage was almost a hundred years
old, and I wondered about the kind of tenants it might have had during these long years. I had
been in the cottage only for a year. And though it stood alone amid a forest on the outskirts of
Pilani, I had never encountered any ghosts or spirits.

Miss Sen came to see me in the middle of July. I heard the tapping of a walking stick on the
rocky path outside the cottage, a tapping which stopped near the gate.
‘Mr. Gupta!’ called a deep feminine and commanding voice. 'Are you at home?'
I had been doing some gardening and looked up to find an elderly straight-backed woman
peering at me over the gate. Her way of dressing in long robes and a weird hat seemed queer
in an unsettling way.

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