The School Near Babiyar - 3

THE SCHOOL NEAR BABIYAR

One night after dinner, at the same school near Babiyar, I sat listening to Hindi film-songs and watching out over vast distances across the valleys in the moonlit night. The night was somewhat cloudy, with the breeze blowing the clouds across the sky from the south-east to the north-west. The clouds were somewhat transparent, and the movement of the clouds gave the impression that the moon was running somewhere in a hurry, yet frustratingly fixed to a point. I’m sure all of you have had this impression when you were young. After listening to the transistor radio till 10:15 p.m., I rose to retire for the night.

As usual, I loaded the wooden chair with tins and cans and sundry items and placed it against the closed door to secure it from the inside as the door did not have a bolt and a latch. Putting out the candle light, I later crawled into the sleeping bag, which had a zip that fastened upwards from the navel, up the chest, right up to the chin. I had fallen off into a deep slumber and was totally lost to the outside world.

It had so happened that sometime during the night the weather had turned severely bad and a fierce storm was raging. I was blissfully unaware of all this and was in deep slumber. At one instance a severe gust of wind blew fiercely against the door and sent the heavy chair flying together with all the cans and tins and the sundry items. I was rudely jolted by a loud noise caused by the chair sent hurtling across and the cans crashing on the floor. I suddenly opened my eyes and found the door widely ajar and a fierce wind in the room. At that instance I did not even know where I was and could see the silhouette of a widely open door and felt a lot of breeze in the room.

I had forgotten I was inside a sleeping bag and I tried wildly to flay my hands and found my movements totally restricted. As I had zipped myself to the chin, even as I tried to rise up, I felt severely constrained. The darkness added to my sense of panic. For a while, I felt as if someone or something was restraining me in that desolate room. It took me about 10 seconds to completely gather my wits and realize what had actually happened in that lonesome school in a random place called Babiyar in the Kumaon Himalaya.