Why It’s Scary To Be Home Alone.

So, I live in a suburban 2 BHK apartment, nothing out of the ordinary.

It’s not like the building was constructed during the time of some great genocide or it was built over some graveyard or something, as I’m told much of Mira Road is.

I don’t have regal, but nonetheless creepy chandeliers that could threaten to crush my skull. In mean, who has chandeliers in an apartment? We don’t live in Malabar Hill or the 40’s when ceilings were so high, you could pretend you were in a museum rather than a house.

I don’t have an excessive number of strategically placed mirrors and I don’t hear noises like footsteps thudding across the landing, suddenly.  Well okay, maybe sometimes, but that’s just the annoying kid that lives on the floor above. Hmph, ‘kid’, my well endowed posterior. More like Jonah’s whale  swallowed the kid and they somehow morphed into one being and now he’s a kale (kid-whale). That would explain the body mass.

So I have proved my point, there is no proverbial haunting of sorts, in my very regular house.

The source of my terror is more due to the strangest things that happen to me (contiguously, as with the rest of my life- happenings) and in part, due to my paranoia.

You see, first I should mention that there is a ghost in my bathroom attic/storage space. But oh, no. This is no translucent, pearly white Scream-faced ghost. There is the ghost of a SPARROW. That lives in my bathroom.

You may laugh, but it is really, reeeaaaaally creepy. Imagine you’re sitting with a bunch of friends in your room, you know, chilling. Talking about something or the other. There is that momentary pause in conversation. And then, out of nowhere, everyone hears the distinct “cheep cheep cheep” of a sparrow.  Or imagine that your boyfriend/girlfriend is sitting on your bed and you are facing him/her. You have forgotten to turn on the lights because you are in the middle of that intense staring-and-smiling-moment. Cue creepy chirping.

God forbid you are watching a horror movie. A horror movie that takes place in a forest.

See what I mean? I have emptied that entire storage space of bundled up Christmas decorations, a ladder, some 10 different (equally creepy) porcelain dolls, electrical wires. No sparrow; toy, translucent, or otherwise.

Second, my electronic appliances are out to grip my heart with fear. My Bose speakers will suddenly crank up the volume by themselves. Sometimes, I can hear the computer in the other room has shut itself down and when I run to see how that happened, the screen is grinning ON at me, ever so mockingly. Like I’ve lost my marbles.

Lastly, watchmen are scary. It’s stupid, I know, but all thanks to our society, I now have absolutely no faith in the police, watchmen, guards and anyone else that are supposedly stationed to ‘protect us’.

Especially when I get asked, on a regular basis, “Papa vaapas kab aayenge?” (When will your father be back?) and every time I try to offer a pleasant, but rather weak smile, he responds by fishing his cellphone out of his pocket and makes a phone call with the hungriest expression.

And what do I have to protect myself with?

A Swiss Army Knife that is so blunt that I could only use it to tickle someone with.

A cauliflower, the solitary vegetable in my refrigerator (because I couldn’t be bothered to purchase food that is actually nutritious and takes more than 5 minutes to make). If I swung it hard enough, it would maybe cause not only a minor head injury, but also a scenic fake-snow-effect from the cauliflower disintegrating and scattering through the air.

Or maybe I should just jump onto my piano stool and start playing Bach for him. My teacher told me that I play Bach so badly, I make her ears bleed.

…..Suddenly I don’t feel so defenseless anymore.