The driver had slowed down the car in front of a two storey building, which stood in isolation after a U turn from the main road. However, there was a lot of green around the place and a large part of the building remained hidden behind that. The building was not a huge one, it almost resembled a large house instead of a guest house from outside and the “good caretakers” were taking all the time of the world to open the main gate.
Having received no response to the honking of the horn, the Nazir got down from the car and opened the front gate and the car slowly crawled on the semicircular path between the entrance and the exit gates.
A sleepy looking creature opened the door of the house as Rahul entered the drawing room along with the Nazir and car driver.
‘Bishu, saub theek aachhe to?’ Nazir asked the caretaker if everything was fine.
‘Ghaar kaun taa diyecho Sahib ke?’ was the next question as to which room had been allotted to Rahul.
The caretaker told that it was room number 3 on the first floor. The next room was allotted to a Secretary who was to come in the evening.
The Nazir was all praise for the building, ‘Sir, this building was to be the residence of the CEO, but he did not come to stay here, So it is used as a guest house- newly built, all new furniture, gates and fittings in perfect shape, neat and clean mirrors……’
The building almost fitted the bill, but something was missing. That was for sure but somehow Rahul could not catch it, so he asked, ‘Why did the CEO not come to stay here?’
‘Sir, this is a lonely haunted place, CEO is a family man and so he did not come here. There is no shop in the vicinity, no store; you don’t even get fish and vegetables here. Hardly anyone stays here so there is no functional kitchen in this building’, he informed.
The middle aged man with his teeth all red and decayed by chewing tobacco smiled pleasantly in anticipation of what impact ‘no functional kitchen’ would have on Rahul, who preferred to stay quite since he was not sure what impact that would have on him.
As the care taker served the tea to Rahul, he murmured in Rahul’s ear, ‘Sir, Please tell the Nazir babu to get the dinner sent here as there is no hotel or transport around this place. At night it is even scary to go out’.
That was worrisome, so Rahul asked ‘Nazir Babu, how do the guests get the meals here?’
‘Sir, this boy Bishu is very hard working. He will get you whatever you ask him- meals, snacks, bisleri, wine’, Nazir Babu again gave a naughty smile, for he had forsaken any task which could have come his way while Bishu looked in despair towards Rahul.
