The Fun Agent

Standing on a footpath, Mat Grin looked forlorn at his Ford Angela as the snatcher sent by the money lender drove it away from the front of his office. The black car was the first one he had bought. Gone now, like the others.

With a deep pit in his heart, which he knew he would never be able to fill up, he dragged himself away from the building of Grin Incorporations. The imposing structure would soon bear some other name. From the fear of meeting curious looks of the employees he had retained until the day, the pity workers he had played and toggled with to meet his cunning purposes, he did not even glance for one last time at the empire he had raised. Neither those windows belonged him now, nor did he rule the people standing behind them. All was lost.

As he walked past a turn, he interested a taxi driver. And that was the confirmation of his defeat. Normally he wouldn’t notice the mundane things on the road as he would fly past those lost in some business papers sitting in a cosy sit of his car, but today, he was one of those. He still had some money in his pocket to pay the taxi up to his home, but no, his pride did not allow that. His feet would not turn towards the hire-car, they would rather walk all the way.

He suddenly realised that he was forgetting something he used to tell the staff members standing rigidly in front of his desk. Change with the time, or you’ll break - a quote he had followed throughout the last decade while the industries under his wing were multiplying and his name was getting stronger by the day. He halted abruptly as the quote rang in his head now. The times were changing for him, and he needed to change with them. The taxi man was still interested, waiting for a wave.

‘I’ve broken already,’ Mat whispered adamantly and pushed himself away from the taxi.

Have I really? he asked himself after a while as the busy evening blurred about him over the footpath. He wanted to believe there was some way he could regain at least some of what he had lost, but his brain hadn’t forgotten the logic yet. He was smashed flat, as he would describe his competitors some time back. Even the house that he walked towards wouldn’t be his the next morning. His wife had foreseen it all and already left him a week ago.

Just then a familiar whiff of roasted beef engulfed him, which his air-conditioned car hadn’t allowed to in many years. He was standing at the mouth of 17^th Lane, the place he hadn’t entered since long. Very long. It was the lane occupied mostly by poor people having their miserable dwellings on its either side. It was the lane he used to dash through over his bicycle as a kid.

Of late he hadn’t even thought about having a peep inside the 17^th Lane, one of the most notorious parts in the high society. But today, the lane offered him the closest way to his home, the one that would do a favour to his much pampered legs.

I will have to change, or I will well and truly break, Mat told himself and entered the lane, forcing himself to accept the truth that he was just as poor now as the few people who hurried up and down the way.

The roadside beef seller at the entrance had packed his mobile shop and was moving. Mat left him behind and gazed around wistfully. Nothing much had changed there. Only, the buildings had gone older over the years, some now were apparently vacant and some ramshackle. But the trees, the houses, the people, the smell… the life out there, it was all still all the same.

Mat laughed at his perfect decline, within his very first hour back to poverty he was in the 17^th Lane. Strange, but true.

‘You look sad.’ A husky voice disturbed his thoughts. Stopping, he looked in the direction.

A drunkard was looking at him sitting on a roadside bench. His hair was dishevelled and he had a stubble fortnight old. His cloths made of cheap fabric were probably stained and definitely stinking. He drank through a bottle, at the bottom of which some liquor churned.

Aw, a drunkard! Mat hated liquor. He hated every little thing that made men loose their logic and self control. ‘A man should always be in his wake to keep moving ahead’ was what he believed.

‘I can tell a sad man when I see one,’ the drunkard droned in a sluggish tone. His voice echoed on the walls around. The lane was almost hushed now, save a man or two walking nearby. The place looked quiet dismal in the low light cast by the distantly planted street lamps and the trifling moonlight.

Mat decided to leave.

‘Don’t walk away, friend,’ said the man. ‘Come, sit here with me. Tell me about your worries. I just might have a solution.’

Mat halted again and immediately wondered at himself for doing so. The very idea that a roadside drunkard’s offer interested him was a proof of his helplessness. He knew there was no way the drunkard could help him regain even a shred of what he had lost, yet he felt an inclination towards the man. He was lonely, he understood, and needed some company. All the well if a total stranger gave it to him, at least he wouldn’t know of Mat’s terrible fall. So ready to change with the times, Mat Grin, the founder of Grin Incorporations, sat beside the drunkard.

‘There you are,’ said the drunkard taking in a big gulp. ‘My friend is really sad. Unhappy, is he?’

‘What makes you think that?’ asked Mat unbuttoning his tweed jacket.

‘Simple. If you were happy, you wouldn’t be here,’ the drunkard said, his voice was shaky due to drinking. ‘You would be spending cash at some rich place.’

Mat laughed in a dejected tone. ‘Ahh, true. But gone are those days now,’ he said. ‘Bankrupt, I am. I’d never go to a rich place again.’

‘Hmm, that might be true, if you say so,’ said the drunkard observing the moon after a while. ‘However, it does not mean you’ll never be happy again.’

‘I don’t get you,’ said Mat. ‘All that I had earned was due to a very lucky chance I got a decade back. Do whatever I may, I’ll never get that chance again. And the life of an ordinary man can never make me happy. I am not used to it.’

‘There is a solution, friend…,’ said the drunkard. ‘It is my business to make sad people like you happy.’

‘What? As in, that is your profession?’ asked Mat amazed.

‘Aye. Perfect. I am a Fun Agent,’ the drunkard said.

‘Interesting. And Weird,’ said Mat. ‘Never heard of such a profession before. What exactly do you do?’

‘I make unhappy people happy.’

‘Yes, but how?’ asked Mat. ‘How will you make me happy like I was a couple months ago.’

‘You did not have the worries of life then, friend,’ said the drunkard. ‘I mean, even if you had some, you were not forced to think about them all the time. And there were ways out of those troubles. That’s why you were happy.’

‘And you can help me achieve that again?’

‘Yes. That and more besides.’

‘How?’

‘Simple. You’ll have to be a part of those people who are always happy,’ said the drunkard.’

‘Ahh. Where are such people, man,’ asked Mat in disbelief. ‘I don’t see them.’

‘True, you don’t see them, but they are everywhere,’ the drunkard said. ‘You don’t notice them because You yare too burdened by the worries of life.’

‘How do I notice them, then?’ asked Mat. ‘What do I have to do?’

‘I’ll show you the way,’ the drunkard said with a wink, then took out another bottle from his pocket and stuck it forward. ‘Drink it.’

Mat’s amazement vanished in a jiffy. ‘So that is your way to make unhappy people happy, eh?’ he said suddenly uninterested. ‘Simple it is, indeed. But no, I don’t drink liquor.’

‘Aww, my friend,’ said the drunkard taking up a tone of persuasion. ‘This is not liquor. This is a solution to all your worries. Drink it and you’ll be in a world where no worries will touch you.’

Should I drink it? Mat asked himself fixing his gaze at the bottle. What was the point in not loosing his logic now, not loosing the self control? He had nothing to guard anymore. And there was no other way to get out of his miseries. Well, he needed to change with times.

He grabbed the bottle and emptied the bitter liquid inside in one swallow. It felt as though his throat had been clutched, but only for a moment though. He closed his eyes shut and contracted his face and let the sensation pass. Then he felt lighter. He dropped the bottle and enjoyed loosing himself in completely another world. He dropped his head back ad felt all the worries leave him. The drunkard was right, it seemed.

After a while he opened his eyes. The drunkard was still drinking from his own bottle. ‘I think you were right, friend,’ he said to the drunkard and stood up to go.

Just as he was about to leave, he heard a man laugh nearby, merrily. A little surprised he looked at the bench on the other side of the street. Three or four men had gathered there while he had been drinking. They were having fun together. He felt a pang towards them, they looked the happy lot the drunkard had been talking about. He crossed the street.

‘Welcome, my friend,’ said one of the men.

‘So you just learned the trick from our Fun Agent, eh?’ asked another one.

‘Yes, it looks like it works,’ said Mat happily.

‘Oh yes, it does,’ said one, ‘It works for all of us, you see. You leave behind all your worries and we get another friend. The more, the merrier.’

‘It’s good to join you,’ said Mat not as earnestly as he felt. It was strange that he was amidst a pack of scoundrels. And even stranger that he was trouble-free as he hadn’t been in some time.

‘What trouble nagged you?’ asked an old man.

‘Ah, I got bankrupt,’ said Mat.

‘Oh, sad. But don’t tell me you have nothing to give to the fun agent now?’

‘What, no, there was no deal as such,’ answered Mat a little perplexed.

‘Well look, the rule is,’ explained one of the men, ‘you give all your belongings to the fun agent, because he gets money from nowhere else. When he gets money he can have liquor and food. As long as he is up and alive we keep getting new friends.’

‘Yes,’ said the other man. ‘We gave him whatever little we had.’

‘I won’t do it,’ said Mat, ‘All that the court will let me have is a very little amount and possessions to live. I won’t them to him.’

‘You’ll give them to him. Sooner or later. And you’ll do it wilfully.’

‘That’s weird,’ said Mat. ‘You pay him so that he makes more men drink liquor and they join you?’

‘He didn’t make you do that,’ said a man mischievously.

‘Oh, that’s what he did,’ said Mat. ‘You were not here. He made me drink liquor.’

‘You are mistaken,’ the old man said. ‘We were here all the time and watching you. Only, you did not notice us, because you were not one of us. I heard the Fun Agent tell you it wasn’t liquor, and he meant it. It was poison, my friend. A solution to all the worries of life. Liquor was what he was drinking.’

"The above story is protected under intellectual property laws. Copying it or any part of it without prior permission of the author could and will lead to serious legal consequences"

The Legend of the Treasure Guard

Back in the June of 2005, when I was working on the project of a tourism CD, I witnessed the weirdest and scariest incident of my life.

The plan for the day had been that I pick up Mr. Lambat, an elderly friend of mine and an enthusiast about historical places, and we go to the caves of Ellora for a daylong visit and photography. I packed my camera, a tripod, a torch and extra batteries in the bag and turned up at Mr. Lambat’s place. He had been eagerly waiting for the doorbell. Within next five minutes we were on my bike and a move, ten minutes earlier than the scheduled time of morning seven.

The weather was hazy right since the beginning. The murky sky promised to be a killjoy.

‘You’ve chosen a wrong month for this project, Sarang,’ said Mr. Lambat from behind me as we were speeding on our way. He observed the lurking clouds through his specs rather worried.

‘It’s another thirty kilometres to go,’ I said over the wind hoping things would be different at Ellora. If not the bright sunlight for nice and clear pictures, I begged it did not rain at least. I raised the accelerator as we hit the highway.

However, the clouds got depressingly darker mile after mile. And finally, when we were on the halfway mark and passing from the feet of the grand fort of Devgiri, the heavens descended upon us with all might. We took an instant shelter inside one of the restaurants in front of the fort. As we helped ourselves with hot bhajiya and tea (rather enjoyably instead of an early setback), the rage outside became fiercer by minute.

An hour later the pour reduced to a light but steady drizzle. We stepped outside. Conditions greatly unsuited bringing out the camera for a long session, and even more - moving ahead on our way to Ellora over the sinuous mountain way that would begin after a kilometre. The road onwards would offer no shelter if the rain got heavier.

We decided to take a small trip around Devgiri fort (which we had already covered the other day) and try our luck at a distant shot or two for the CD.

Cleaving the Daulatabad village that clings to the fort we came onto the planes behind it for the first time. The shapely structure of the pyramidal fortress looked quite exquisite (however, a little murky) on the background of clouds. Leaving the bike at a point from where we couldn’t take it any further, we walked closer to the fort. Holding the camera underneath the shelter of bag, I got some of the best shots for the project until then. Satisfied that we had at least grabbed something, we walked further to the west of the fort.

That was precisely when we spotted the intriguing structure of an old, historical palace standing on a green hillock a kilometre away from the fort.

‘What’s that place over there,’ I said as both of us noticed it for the first time.

‘Let us find out,’ said Mr. Lambat already attracted by the dilapidated structure.

As we left half a kilometre behind us, the skies cleared all of a sudden and cast a gentle sunlight upon us, as if to put us in a dilemma over choosing between the unknown palace and loosing another precious hour from our Ellora visit.

‘Can we go to the Caves tomorrow? As it is, we have lost so much of time,’ I said expectantly to my companion.

‘I think I’ll call a colleague later and get my tomorrow’s shift rearranged,’ answered Mr. Lambat taking a step ahead. I smiled at the man’s curious nature.

Minutes later we were at the base of the hillock. Shaped like a train bogie, but many a times larger, the neglected edifice looked mostly in ruins. I took a few distant shots and we began climbing up the hill.

‘Looks like an old palace,’ said Mr. Lambat panting slightly as we finished the climb. ‘Such buildings were used by the Lords of old. They would often come to spend leisurely hours at such palaces.’

Yes, the place must have been a palace, I thought. The walls, however strong, were delicately decorated from the outside. The crust of an expensive bluish colour they would make using natural resources in this region was visible in patches. Such an extravagance would hardly be allowed for an ordinary building. Doubtful of finding any stairs intact, we climbed up above the four feet high base of the construction and stepped onto the floor for the first time.



A creepy sensation came over us. The place as though asked us politely to step down and go away.

Should we go inside? I asked myself. And as if my feeling was contagious, Mr. Lambat asked me the same question loudly with a weak laugh revealing his nervousness.

‘Umm, let us take a round first,’ I said cursing myself in mind for being weak-hearted. We jumped off.

For the next twenty-five minuets we strolled around the construction. We examined and shot (with the camera) a large elephant house a hundred meters away at the backside of the palace, studied a cleverly constructed, concealed water reservoir nearby and returned to the same point again.

‘I think we must go inside,’ I said climbing up the base again. The creepy sensation was back.

Pillars, some broken some still erect, halls, some housing the ceilings collapsed inside and the rest dense bushes, many strong staircases of stone going towards the roof and windows giving an intense feeling of isolation, was all that we found inside. Howling wind made eerie sounds beating upon the walls covered with fungous and escaping through the age-made holes in them. The place, wet with the recent rains, had a deathly chill everywhere.

We climbed up the stairs and walked around the place over the broad parapet-wall that once must have skirted an intact roof. As we gazed at the land around the palace, we noticed there wasn’t even a single residence (or the signs of it) in the circling kilometre. We (mostly Mr. Lambat) deduced that the palace might have served the Lords as a point of contact with ordinary people that the fort didn’t offer. And if not that, it might have offered a peaceful dwelling for a day or two away from the business of the fort, yet comfortably near from it.

‘Done,’ said I after I had taken as many pictures as the memory chip of my camera allowed. We climbed down and got off the palace at once. Just as we stepped onto the grass, the strange weight that had mounted over us vanished. It relieved us to be out of the palace.

‘If we knew something truthful about the place other than our deductions, I could include it in the CD,’ I said.

And as if it were a wish made to a jinni, Mr. Lambat spotted two young boys leaving for school towards Daulatabad. They probably lived in a nearby village.

‘Hey there… my friend, come here,’ called Mr. Lambat.

The boys, who had already spotted our bike standing about a kilometre away from the hillock, looked at us. They exchanged a few words and stopped beneath the hillock.

‘Can you please come up?’ asked Mr. Lambat.

The boys stared at us dumbly.

‘Do you stay around here?’

No reply again. Only the stares.

‘I think we will have to go down,’ I said and we jogged down the mount.

‘You stay nearby?’ I asked as we reached up to them.

‘Yeh, ‘round there,’ said a boy pointing northwards at a wooded area where there seemed to be a village. Both of them looked around fifteen years old.

‘Do you know this place?’ I asked pointing at the palace.

They exchanged dark looks. ‘We’ll, yes. But we never go there like you just did,’ the first boy said.

‘What is your name?’ asked Mr. Lambat.

‘Shiva,’ the boy said.




‘I see. And that of this place?’

‘It is called Rangmahal,’ the boy mumbled.

‘And why don’t you go there?’

‘They say that inside, there’s a cruel snake with two mouths and long moustaches,’ told Shiva.

‘A snake? With two mouths, and moustaches at that? Interesting!’ I said in a flippant tone. ‘What does it do?’

‘It guards an ancient treasure,’ said Shiva.

‘Ahh, we just had been in there,’ I said jokily again. ‘We didn’t see any signs of a treasure. And forget the snake there’s not even a lizard.’ I was sure we had seen all of the place that we could.

‘You say so because you’ve seen nothing,’ said the boy getting pumped up by my tone. ‘It was just the first storey you visited. The snake doesn’t stay there.’

‘You mean there’s a second storey as well? Where?’ asked Mr. Lambat intrigued.

‘Not above the one you had been into, beneath. There are seven stories in there, Saheb. One beneath the other. They go down even lower than this hillock,’ said the boy receiving the looks of surprise from us he had expected.

‘Tell more,’ we said.

‘When this land was rich once (we took this for the period of 12th century), there was a lot of gold in the fort,’ began Shiva. ‘You might have heard their is a big network of underground tunnels beneath the fort. Those secret ways used to serve the spies in times of besiege. One of those tunnels connects Rangmahal with the fort –’

‘You mean there is a tunnel that long?’ I interrupted.

‘Well, that has got to be the shortest of the tunnels,’ the boy
replied putting hand to another mystery. ‘There are tunnels so long that you could go to Ellora (fifteen kilometres away). Some months ago, the goat of a man from Daulatabad entered a tunnel down there (he pointed towards the fort). He thought he had lost it. But couple of days later it was found wandering alone near the caves of Ellora. No doubt the goat was same, it had the same colour and the thread around her neck, also a pierced ear that would be the man’s mark on every of his goat.’

‘Goshh, that’s some tale,’ I said amazed.

‘What of the Rangmahal?’ asked Mr. Lambat after a while.

‘Yes. So it is said that they carried whole of the gold from the fort through the tunnel and stored it over here at a time of besiege,’ the boy began again. ‘They preferred Rangmahal, because they thought it was safer than the fort. The battle was lost and the fort was taken (not by force, Devgiri fort was simply impossible to be conquered forcefully, its every defeat was tactical) by the Mughal. All the gold, filling seven stories jam packed, lay forgotten. Then, a hundred years ago, a man found golden coins and ornaments while digging around this hillock. After that, as the word spread, the search began in the surrounding areas and people found gold in big quantities. However, the main treasure inside the palace was still neglected. When someone found a golden statue in there, in the Palace, they started going in with pickaxes and digging everywhere. That was when the Snake came into knowledge for first time.’

‘How? Did it attack those treasure-hunters?’

‘Oh yes,’ the boy said. ‘They say it warns you first, but if you go on, it kills you. It either melts your dead bodies or gobbles them. You never return!’

‘How then do you know what the Snake does, if none has ever returned?’ I asked intelligently.

The boy looked at us perplexed. ‘That, I do not know, Saheb, but I told you what I’ve heard.’

I wanted to say that the tale is hard to believe, but I thought it might not sound polite as the boy seemed to believe it firmly. So I asked the boy, ‘what makes you take the tale seriously? Have you ever witnessed a proof?’

‘Of the gold? There are many proofs,’ the boy told us zealously. ‘One man in Daulatabad found some gold around here fifteen years ago. He disappeared with it for a month. When he returned he had sold it all and had lot of money. He was one of those cunning villagers who hid it cleverly from the government (he meant the archaeology department). Now he’s a well-to-do man. He has his own house. If you go to him he might recount you that, as he has to some of the villagers. But he is generally wary of the city-men like you.’

‘Hmm, that’s something,’ said Mr. Lambat smiling in appreciation. ‘But is that all?’

‘No, there’s a man in my city who found a sword with a golden hilt,’ the boy delved into another account. ‘He found it somewhere ‘round here, but the government people got a hint of it and took it away from him. That happened some ten years ago. After that the government set a ban on the diggings.’

We remained silent for a while. ‘All right, there might be gold,’ I said, ‘but what of the Snake? How do we believe that?’

‘I have no proof of that, Saheb, but there are some people who returned after receiving the warning,’ said Shiva. ‘Though I know none personally.’

‘What say you, Uncle?’ I asked Mr. Lambat. ‘Can there be a snake?’

‘Hmm! Such tales are hard to believe, I agree, but when people say such things they cannot be completely baseless, can they!’

‘Yeh, there has to be some point,’ I said looking at the palace, now with some dread.

‘But people have died around here,’ said Shiva with a spark in his eyes. ‘Come I’ll give you a proof of that.’ With that he, and after him us, set off towards a sparsely wooded area near the hillock some distance away. His friend joined us as well.

Shiva showed us several holes on the way that were surely not natural. There lay dug out earth around them in heaps. I did not realise it then, but I was beginning to believe the boy’s account slowly, even the bit about the snake.

‘Look there,’ said Shiva looming over a well that soon approached.

We peered inside. ‘What?’

‘See those bones at the bottom. They were men once. Died, or rather, were killed while treasure hunting,’ Shiva told us.

We did spot the bones, but it was hard to tell whether they belonged to men or some animals.

‘Complete skeletons have been discovered from this area in past,’ said Shiva. ‘These bits lay ignored somehow.’

I still wasn’t convinced fully, but, I have to admit, I could not be flippant about the tale anymore. Whatever little belief I had now gathered over the tale acted like a fuel to go further. ‘Let us go in,’ I said to the boy.

The boy dismissed me with a mere gesture.

‘In where? We’ve been there already?’ asked Mr. Lambat.

‘That was just the first (actually the topmost) storey,’ I said, ‘let us see if we can find the entrance to the lower-next storey.’

‘I’ve heard the second storey can be found easily,’ said the boy. ‘It is the third that you can’t find or get into.’

‘If that is so, we are going,’ I said and started climbing the hillock again. Knowing that I wouldn’t listen and curious himself as well, Mr. Lambat got on. ‘Come,’ I shouted at the boy over my shoulder. ‘We’re together, don’t worry.’ I lingered suddenly as I saw hesitation over the boy’s face which I hadn’t expected. Shiva looked at his friend uncertainly.

‘Don’t go,’ the other boy said.

‘Are aa jao,’ I persuaded Shiva. ‘Even if we find the second storey, we won’t enter. The first storey is safe. We’ve been there before just a while.’

‘All right,’ said Shiva putting up the courage.

‘You go if you want to,’ the other boy said. ‘I’ll wait over there.’

With that Shiva’s friend went back to the place we had met each other some time ago and the three of us left for the Palace. We reached the base of the first storey in a minute or so.

Before any discouraging thought touched my mind I climbed up the base and stepped onto the first storey and ignored the creepy sensation that made no delay in returning. My two friends did the same.

We wandered inside the ruins again, but with a purpose this time. After five minutes or so, when I was climbing down from the parapet down a staircase I hadn’t taken the last time, something grabbed my attention. While going towards the ground the stairway wound around a large pillar, which, as I noticed now, wasn’t a pillar at all. It was actually a hollow structure. And there was a large hole in it, through which branched off another stairway that descended towards the underground floor.

‘Here it is,’ I said.

Mr. Lambat and Shiva joined me.

‘What do we do now?’ I asked as we all observed the stairway with racing hearts.

As none replied, I climbed down the stairs and bent to get inside the opening.

‘Are you going?’ asked Mr Lambat curiously.

‘Yeh,’ I said knowing he would definitely follow. I wasn’t too sure about Shiva though.

As soon as I entered the hollow I smelled a terrible stanch of decay, which grew stronger with every step down. When I stepped onto the floor, I found myself in a medium-sized chamber. And surprisingly, there was light. As I looked at the source of the light, to my shock, I saw a door which was another entrance to the second storey that we had completely missed while taking the round of the palace.

‘Oye, how did we miss that?’ said Mr. Lambat just as amazed. He had a keen eye for such things.

Just as his words echoed in the hall, a huge commotion rose somewhere close.

‘Bats!’ we said at the same time. There were, probably, thousands of them nearby.

At the end of our chamber was a door that led to another chamber.
As I stepped towards it, I splashed my foot inside a puddle formed by the seeped-in rainwater. Such puddles were all across the floor. I shuffled across the hall crossing the deep and shallow puddles and peeped inside the next chamber. Just as my eyes took in the view, I stood fixed at the ground. There was hardly any light in the next hall, yet I could see a whirlwind of stridently screeching bats unsettled by our arrival.

‘There must be a lot of them!’ said Mr. Lambat as he joined me.

I took the torch out of the bag and handed it to him. Then turned on the display screen of my camera and quickly deleted about twenty of the less important pictures to free some memory. I did not want to miss a bit of what I was watching. With the aid of my camera flashlight and the torch we took a few pictures of the chamber we were in. Then I decided to move into the chamber of bats.

‘They might bump into you,’ said Mr. Lambat.

Let them bump, if they do, I thought, but let them not behave like those from the movie ‘Bats’.



‘They might, if that cannot be avoided,’ I answered Mr. Lambat (more bravely than I felt) and shuffled ahead. Before I left the hall, I noticed that Shiva had joined us as well.

The second chamber in the link was a total mess of scary missiles flying at random. The noise was simply deafening. Holding camera in front of my eyes to protect them I clicked pictures randomly. In the flashlight, I saw that there was yet another door going into yet another chamber. The palace was tricking us in, it felt. That was precisely when a bat struck square on my hand holding the camera. The camera slipped from my grip but did not fall down as its chord had been looped around my wrist. I returned and joined the party, rubbing the fingers the bat had struck.

‘Did you get a good picture?’ asked Mr. Lambat hopefully.

‘May be, may be not,’ I answered examining the camera for any damages. The functionality had not been affected, but a corner of it had been marred permanently. May be it was a claw that did it. But to hell with the scratch, I could still take a few pictures with the thing.

‘There’s another chamber next to this one.’ I informed Mr. Lambat.

‘Is it necessary to go in?’ he asked.

‘Those bats can draw blood,’ said Shiva. I believed him.

‘I think we’ll be okay if we dash across real fast. They seem to miss you if you don’t flash light at them.’ I said and looked at them expectantly.

The two remained silent again, neither affirmative nor negative. I took it for an ‘all right’ and entered the second chamber again. As we kept the torch closed this time and took no pictures, the bats did not bump into anyone of us. Within seconds we were in the third hall.

There was no water here. And the number of bats was relatively low. As Mr. Lambat put on the torch and turned it at the floor, we saw what thrilled us greatly. There were holes dug in the floor, heaps of rubble surrounding them.

‘Such holes were there in the first chamber too. That’s what the puddles were,’ I said, my voice echoing around. The chaos of bats was still going on and on in the previous chamber.

‘Yeh, they are everywhere. All around the place,’ said Mr. Lambat. ‘Who knows, someone really might have found gold from one of these.’

‘I think we should go back,’ said Shiva in an anxious voice.

‘Yeh, all right,’ I said observing the ceiling in Mr. Lambat’s torchlight. Most of the bats had escaped into the previous hall. Those who had remained had chosen to stay stuck to the ceiling and walls (except one or two stupid ones that still fumbled about). Just as I took the picture of a group of dangling bats, Mr. Lambat nudged me in the ribs and brought to my attention what he had spotted. There was one more chamber ahead yet. And this one surely seemed to be the last one.

Before Shiva could protest, as we both thought he might, Mr. Lambat pushed me towards the final hall. I obliged. With a little grunt, Shiva followed after us.

The last hall was the smallest, and, I had to admit as soon as we entered, the one with the scariest feel about it. It was the most daunting. There was no trace of light whatsoever. And the smell of decay was at its peak. The lack of ventilation made the room extremely stuffy.

The very first feeling that came upon me as soon as I stepped inside was that I should return as quickly as possible. And my second feeling was that I was doing something sinful by not listening to my first feeling. I knew it was a place with something more to it than just the dereliction. For many a moment none of us said a word. We all stood close to each other. The distance of the three chambers we had left behind suddenly seemed a lot greater than it actually was.

After some restless moments Mr. Lambat turned the torch towards the floor. Yes, there were holes here as well. He took a look at the walls. They were covered with fungus.

Just get out of here! a voice inside told me, but I did exactly opposite of that. I took a step inside.

‘Where might be the entrance to the third storey?’ I whispered observing the holes on the ground.

‘We should leave,’ said Shiva. The sound of his breathing was just as loud as ours.

Mr. Lambat followed after me ignoring Shiva. As he held each hole on the floor in torchlight, I noticed they were a lot bigger than those in the previous halls. When we came to what might have been the biggest we would encounter, I stuck my foot underneath a broken flooring slab to move it aside.

‘Don’t, do that,’ said Mr. Lambat.

‘Why, the Snake?’ I asked trying to sound bravely funny (without any success).

‘If not the snake, there might some other, an ordinary snake, may be. Or a scorpion.’ he said.

But a strong urge had taken hold of me. What if there’s the way to the third storey? I thought. We have made it up to here this time. Might never dare repeat it again.

I applied force.

Don’t do it, said my heart.

‘Don’t’ do it,’ said Mr. Lambat.

But I had done it. The slab was pushed aside and it seemed that we had uncovered a vary big hole. That must be it! I indicated Mr. Lambat to put the torch on it properly.

However, that last act was not supposed to happen. The light was not to be shed upon that hole.

We heard a sound. A loud and angry sound. And that was of no other species on earth than snake. The Snake! As loud as the whistle of a pressure cooker, and as menacing as a wounded lion, the sound pierced our courage. But that wasn’t all, there was one more sound in the background. And that was of rattling, like that made by a rattlesnake. An overlarge rattlesnake.

The two sounds, surely coming from one source, shook us terribly from inside. From outside, we were glued to the spot. At first we couldn’t make out the direction the Snake (we were sure it was the Snake) hissed from. Then our eyes set over a large pile of rubble that lay at the end of the hall, just a few feet away from us. After hissing for about ten seconds the Snake went quiet.

That’s the warning!

My body was trembling. Without another look at the hole I had unearthed, I removed my foot from under the slab and hobbled towards the door. All three of us did the same, but none was dashing yet. We were too stunned and terrified to think or act fast.

That was when the sound came again. The second time.
This time the tone of the hiss, if that was possible, was angrier than before. But this time there wasn’t just the sound: the heap of rubble from where the sound was coming moved and shifted. The stones atop it (we saw less in he misdirected torchlight, but heard more) rolled down onto the ground. Something was coming out from beneath the heap.

Forgive me Snake, I want no treasure, I said in my mind, hoping the creature would listen to my plea.

With muffled shrieks and our hands trembling, we took off towards the door. Three bloody chambers to be crossed! I cursed myself for being there. And for being over-adventurous.

Stumbling over the pits and rubble, we crossed the two chambers and came into the first hall. Splashing through the water we crossed the chamber. The warning was dying behind us now. We took the door we had missed from outside and literally flied out of it over the staircase.


The clear sky opened above us and the fresh air entered our nostrils.

‘We have escaped,’ I said aloud, and that did not sound stupid at all.

‘I think we have,’ said Mr. Lambat as we sped down the hillock without stopping.

We stopped running only when we had reached near Shiva’s friend waiting for us at the base of the hillock. I threw a frightened glance towards Rangmahal, terribly scared by a thought that the Snake might leap out of the door and come after us, but everything about the palace looked still. The structure was laughing at us, and, I have to admit, I had no courage to give a stare back to the palace.

Walking speedily and without a word when we reached our bike, we noticed Shiva was not with us anymore. As we looked back over the planes we had left behind, we spotted two boys running in the opposite direction, towards a village they had come from. All that was on their mind was reaching home as quickly as possible. None of them paid us a glance. But one of them personally knew those now, who had received the warning and returned.



So we entered, so we escaped!



Friends, every word of the account I have stated here happens to be true. Even if I do not have the video filming of the incident, I have loads of pictures I took, including those of the bats soaring inside the chamber and the dug out holes. Besides these I have the two witnesses of the fact. But I am not too sure I’ll ever see Shiva again. And even if I do he will not entertain me even for a minute. However, Mr. Lambat is our man to speak to!

A group of friends went to Rangmahal after listening to my episode, but they returned from the first hall underground. Until they reached that far they were sure I had been trying to fool them, but after getting the feel of the place they seemed to believe the fact and needed no more deeper visit.



As a respect to the guard of the treasure, I did not include Rangmahal in my CD. And I ask you not to go there. Let the Snake be at peace, and be at peace yourself.

- Sarang Mahajan


Contact me for more pictures of Rangmahal on -
sarang_mahajan@rediffmail.com