‘THE NIGHTMARE CHILD’

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Lalit Dagar, was the driver as well as the owner of Delhi Taxi Service (DTS) in Mehrauli, South Delhi. He lived in a shack which was adjacent to his taxi-stand. A tall and lean man, the 30 year old always kept to himself. It was a rare sight to see him laugh. He would just smile or at most grin, even on the funniest of jokes.

But there was a reason behind this demeanour of his as according to his friends he used to have regular nightmares of a wailing child.

He would wake up in the middle of the night sweating and panting even in the month of December. "I don't know who the child is. Moreover the face is always covered with a scarf", he told his friends frustratingly.

Lalit had come to the capital from Jhajjar, Haryana five years ago. According to him he got married eight years ago. He became a proud father of a healthy and a beautiful baby, an year after the wedlock. But both his wife and child were killed in a tragic accident five years later, Unable to recover from the incident he came to the capital to begin a new life.

He was driving since the day he got a valid driver's license. So, in his 12 years he had heard horror stories galore. And all of them were ‘real’ according to their narrators. But Lalit always rubbished them because he didn’t believe in ghosts.

He argued that those who supported the argument that ghosts do exist are cowards and that they can never be fully devoted to god. As for him there was only one supreme power in the whole world and that was Lord Krishnaa.

He used to fast on Tuesdays as he believed that such rituals help in cleansing the soul and all sins are pardoned. And the way he talked about these things had to be seen to be believed. He would get very aggressive and exasperated if anyone argued with him on this matter. Interestingly, it appeared as if he was trying to convince himself rather than others.

It was a Saturday morning. Being a weekend taxi stand's parking lot was almost vacant as all the cabs were booked except for Lalit’s Indica. He took the day off to catch up with some sleep as he had returned from Himachal Pradesh that very morning.

He got up at 3 in the afternoon and seemed a bit lost. His best friend and fellow driver Bhoop Singh was having aloo paranthas with white butter by his bedside.

Lalit looked at the food and went straight into the nearby jungle to answer nature’s call. Bhoop Singh knew that something was wrong because Lalit just loved aloo paranthas with white butter.

On returning Lalit joined his partner and they both were having tea. He was sitting very quietly and seemed a bit lost. Bhoop inquired the reason behind his silence but got no response.

After repeated requests finally, Lalit agreed to talk and narrated an incident that had happened last night.

He was driving down the hills at a steady speed. The green backlit of the digital clock on the dashboard showed 03:01 A.M. All the passengers were fast asleep and he was feeling a bit drowsy too. He put some paan masala in his mouth and lit a beedi to help him concentrate on the road better.

Just as he reached a sharp hairpin bend, out of nowhere he saw a small child sitting in the middle of the road. It was the same child. In a split second before he could react, the kid got up, removed her scarf and gazed at Lalit. He braked hard and swirled around her. His car came to a screeching halt; he got out, rubbed his eyes and tried to figure out what had happened.

Meanwhile, the child started walking towards the edge of the cliff. Still confused he took a few steps forward. Suddenly, the girl jumped off the cliff. His heart skipped a beat and a chill went down his spine. Lalit just froze with fear. He was clutching his fists so tight that his finger nails dug deep into his palm. He was so horrified that he did not even realize that he had wetted his pants. Regaining his senses, the scared soul jumped into his car and sped from the spot. Surprisingly, none of the passengers were awaken by the sound of the tyres screeching. It was as if the whole incident was played out only for Lalit.

Bhoop Singh noticed that while speaking, Lalit’s whole body was shivering. So, to help him overcome his trauma he asked him to read the Hanumana Chalisa 10 times daily and gradually he’ll forget about it. Lalit obliged and arranged a havan at his shack and visited the nearby temple daily. Days passed by and he slowly forgot about the incident.

Five years later, the shiny calendar hanging on the wall read 12^th December in bold red. After finishing his chores he washed his car and in the evening played cards with his friends. At 11, he left for Inderpuri to pick up one Vijay Bansal who had booked his cab.

He reached there at around 11:45 p.m. and Vijay came out of the house with a huge bouquet of white lilies. "My daughter is arriving from America", he said ecstatically.

As soon as got seated, Lalit fired the Indica’s ignition and left for Indira Gandhi International Airport. The road leading to the airport was quite dark because the street lights were not working. He found the whole atmosphere a bit eerie. But as the roads were deserted they reached the airport in no time. The sights and sounds of the airport diverted his mind.

The flight was on time and arrived at 1 a.m. After completing all the formalities, his daughter came out an hour later, Vijay hugged her and both of them sat in the car. They started off for Inderpuri and as they were exiting the main gate Lalit felt an urge to answer nature’s call. As there was a lady in the car and it was very late in the night he did not think it would be appropriate to stop the car. So he kept on driving and returned to Inderpuri by 3 a.m.

After collecting his payment, he drove back home towards Mehrauli. There was a boulevard that connected Inderpuri to Dhaula Kuan which was said to be haunted. People had claimed that they had seen a small girl climbing down a tree and disappearing in the middle of the road. But Lalit did not know. Controlling his urge desperately, he was driving through the long and dark stretch of the road.

Just as he reached the middle of the road, he could not hold back and parked the car on the roadside. The silent and deserted road could deceive one into believing that he was in a hamlet instead of a city. There was not even a stray dog in sight; it looked like a ghost town!

Gathering courage, he got down and gazed around. It was a chilly December night and he could feel the nip in the air. As his breath formed clouds of fog in the air he stood under a tree and unzipped his pants.

Just in the middle of it he heard someone crying in the bushes in front of him. He was dead scared as the thought of the ‘nightmare child’ came rushing back. But he couldn’t ignore the voice as the second time it was much louder and came from the bushes of the tree he was peeing against.

As he looked up, the sight appalled him. He saw the same child from his nightmares crawling down the tree. She had a pale face and her eyeballs were white. Her neck was red with strangulation marks. Staring in Lalit’s eyes with her hand held out towards him, she uttered “Papa”.

His whole past flashed in front of his eyes. The 'nightmare child' was his own daughter. His claim that she had died in an accident was a white lie.

He always despised the idea of a girl child and only wanted a boy. But now that god had other plans for him, he was 'stuck' in the situation. To make matters worse his family members always taunted him. They would keep bothering him with questions like; "How would you arrange her dowry?" or "What if she eloped with someone?"

Lalit became desperate. So, one night he came and was dead drunk. All day long he had been troubled by those questions. To put an end to his worrying, he decided to get rid of his daughter once and for all. In a fit of rage he choked the five year old to death with his bare hands and buried the body in his fields.

The mother could not bear the trauma, she lost her senses and had to be admitted in a mental asylum.

So, to forget his past, he left his village and came to Delhi. But now the skeletons were out of the closet, his past had come back to haunt him.

Lalit was motionless, as if a mannequin, he couldn’t believe his eyes and dropped on the ground.

Next morning the car was found parked at the same spot but Lalit was missing. Nobody knows where he disappeared. That road still exists and sports the same deserted look. Even today there have been sightings of that little girl on that road near that tree, but now, she is in the arms of a man and both are wailing!