A House in Ruins

I feel that I have written enough number of posts by this time to keep you informed about my Trivandrum days, especially about the hostel, where I spent some of my memorable time. To spy the new occurrences of that place, I called the Writing Pro, whom you met earlier in some of my posts.

He greeted me in his usual cheerful manner over the phone and informed that he was currently at his home town for a short visit. While answering my casual inquiries regarding the hostel, he hinted that everything is not going pleasant there. 

“Do you remember some incidents of missing valuables there? I think an incident regarding the missing of somebody’s cell phone was reported just a week before you left that place,” he said.

I was remembering it. “Yeah, I do,” I said. “At that time, an inside talk was there regarding our landowner’s son.”

“I never heard anyone mentioning his name in connection with those mysterious affairs,” he became curious, “what was that? Tell me?”

“As per what I eavesdropped while peeking in everybody’s business inadvertently, the landowner’s son did all those stealing to keep away certain occupants, whom he disliked,” I disclosed.

“Is that so? But, we got some clear hints about the real culprit behind all those games,” the writer said.

“Who are you talking about?” I asked.

“Do you remember him, that short one, with a plum like appearance, who lived in that marketing guy’s room?” the writer asked.

My memory failed me.

“Hey, don’t you remember him? The one who usually appeared alone, that reserved one, an introvert?”

Reserved! Suddenly I remembered him. A reserved nature never suited to his body appearance, that’s why the word ‘reserved’ struck my mind.

“Yes I remember him. We never talked. Whenever my eyes happened to meet his, either he or I used to withdraw the gaze, intentionally or unintentionally,” I said. “Are you telling that this guy did all those thefts?” 

“Hmmm...yes! There were no evidences against him, but till last week,” the writer said.

“That means, you found something against him, right?” I asked.

“Hmm...do you remember when was a theft first reported in our house?”, he asked. 

“Was that the case of the missing cell phone?”

“No man, try to make your memory a bit sharper. It was this introvert guy himself, who complained that somebody has stolen his money from his bag,” the writer said.

I suddenly remembered it. “Yeah, that was the case of some foreign currency, as he had claimed.”

“Yes,” the writer said, “Nobody knew that he had the collection of foreign currency.  We have only his word for it. He could have easily fabricated such a story of theft. What he actually had done was creating a virtual thief, under whose hiding, he could have done all the stealing.”

The writer continued, “Another issue popped up after some days. It was when a new guy in our place found his bike’s petrol tank filled with sand while trying to kick-start his bike.”

“How did you assume that it was done by him,” I asked.

“We had no doubts against him. But, we later found that this new guy actually was a super senior of our introvert guy in college. The new guy avoided him though they were known each other. What the introvert guy did was revenge.” the writer said over the phone.

“The next in the queue was the cell phone mishap. Somebody’s cell phone went missing. Later it was found lying inside the water tank completely soaked.” The writer recollected.

I said, “It was this time everyone suspected the landowner’s son, and some occupants believed that everything was done by the landowners themselves in order to initialize the close down process of the hostel”

“Hmm...these all happened when you were living with us. After you left, SK’s mobile phone was also stolen, no clue. But, when the software guy was locked up in the bathroom for more than 2 hours, we sensed danger. As far as the situations were concerned, only one person had the opportunity to lock the bath room, the introvert guy. He might have had his own motive for doing that.”

The writer continued, “The next was the worst. Our water-well was found mixed with washing powder. And this time, we caught him red handedly, with some circumstantial evidences. We are going to request the landowners to get him out; otherwise we all will leave the place. We can’t say if he would give us poison the next time.”

I asked, “So, what do you think about this guy? Why does he do all these mischief? What makes him behave like Heathcliff of Wuthering Heights? Is he a psychopath? Or a kleptomaniac? Do you have any reasoning about the queer behavior of an absolute normal person like him?”  

“He has some family issues, that’s what we know now. As we know, he is in a relationship with an older woman, who is actually the other woman of his own father.”

Readers, I think, this post is better to be treated as a fabricated story. I can at least save myself from the rage of the introvert guy, in case he plans a fatal revenge on the Blogger after reading this post.

In Last Picture: Actor Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff in the 1939 adaptation of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights