Identity

Recap:

Charu comes to India from New York to visit her ailing grandmother. She buys some books. In one book, on page 67 there is a polaroid photograph of an old villa. On its backside, there is an alpha-numeric code written with a small map that showed directions to the villa. The code read: MV02FK09. The map had a starting point at 'Hotel AB*** and extended till the villa. The endpoint was a drawing of the villa that read ‘Home.’

In her sleep, she hears voices calling her Sheryl. She asks the 85-year-old Vincent Uncle who tells that Sheryl Verghese had wanted to have a mountain named after her maiden family name. Her husband Anthony Delsworth could not do that, so he built a magnificent hotel and named it Mount Verghese. Their descendants sold the hotel. It was converted to a mall called The City Mall. The destination called Home on the map is now a museum. In the museum, Charu reads a book in which there is a chapter titled Hotel Mount Verghese. The details shake her up. Charu realizes she is a dead ringer for Sheryl Varghese. In one photo, in Anthony's hand, there is a sword on which it was engraved MV02FK09. She then heard the voice again in her head 'Welcome Home, Sheryl Verghese.'

CHAPTER 2

There was a swirl of thoughts going around in Charu’s mind – the sword, Sheryl wishing for a mountain and more importantly her being the spitting image of Sheryl. She wanted to find out more and thus went back to Uncle Vincent’s house but she was in for a disappointment. Ruth, the son of the caretaker Martha, told her that Uncle Vincent has left suddenly for Egypt. Charu was surprised as he did not tell her anything about going to Egypt when she last met him. She then asked for his contact details in Egypt and it was in for Ruth to be surprised now at the urgency of Charu to meet Uncle Vincent. He asked Charu to take a seat and went in to call his mother Martha. The moment Martha came in and saw Charu, she started shrieking. She called Charu “Sherry” again and again and fainted. A frightened Charu rushed back home with more questions than answers in her mind.

Why did Martha shriek hysterically when she saw Charu? She had to find the answer. So the next day she woke up early and went to Vincent uncle s house again. " Please come in", said Ruth.

" Is your mother alright?", Charu enquired.

She came inside and sat on the large sofa in the sitting room. She looked around and noticed that uncle Vincents house seemed pretty old with many old-fashioned furniture in the house. "Sheryl? My .. "

"Charu.. my name.."

"Cha..ru.. no no no no.. it cannot be .. how is that possible? You have an exactly similar face.

" Who is Sheryl Verghese? Why does she look like me? Why did she ask for a mountain? What's going on? Please tell me?", Charu broke into sobs.

" Sheryl Verghese had a love marriage with Anthony against the will of her parents. They disowned her after she ran away and got married. She was happy with Anthony but somehow could not forget her parents. She wanted to talk to them but all in vain.

Anthony often calmed her down saying he would bring her anything to make her happy and forget about the lost relations with her family. She would say that she wanted to spend the last days of her life on the mountain of her own, "Mount Verghese".

" Then?", Charu looked at Martha.

After a long silence, Martha started again, "Anthony started garments business which gave him a prosperous life. Sheryl too helped him with his work. Soon, he decided, to open up the new hotel to surprise her. He would often say, "Maybe, l could not buy the whole mountain but I can give her a better view of the mountains from this place".

Charu was about to ask her further when the telephone rang. " Yes .. hmm..hm.. what?? Like?? Ok ok.." Ruth almost threw the phone down and looked very panicked.

"Uncle met with an accident. What shall we do now? I told you not to let him go. That place is cursed!".

The next few hours passed by quickly when all three of them rushed to the hospital and waited till the surgery was over.

" Sorry, he is in a state of coma", the doctor told them.

" Noo.. noo... Noo please! Plea!.. see...ohhh", Martha started crying very badly. Charu tried to calm her down when Ruth told her to leave.

" Please do not ask us anything more. You wanted an answer your questions and see we are suffering the consequences already. I dont want to lose my mother."

Charu came back home and opened her laptop. She typed "Mount Verghese hotel" in the doodle. The search buffer was on when Charu got lost in thoughts. How did uncle Vincent meet with an accident? Why did Martha tell that the place is cursed? What if Vincent uncle did not go to Egypt? What if the sword has vanished from the museum?

The screen loomed up in front of her when she saw the first headline on the doodle search page which showed an article from March 1999 which read, " The outbreak of fire in Mount Verghese took tolls of life. Police arrests the Manager Christopher Desilva accused of improper maintenance of electric wiring in spite of repeated complaints from the tourists."

Charu read the full news as per information in the doodle and found out some more facts about the place. The fire outbreak took a heavy toll on life and after that, it was closed for few years. It was reopened after Anthony s death by his son Thomas but, shortly after, strange incidents were reported by the residents. They often complained of a lady jumping off the balcony in the corridor of the third floor of the hotel at night. The hotel staff has checked everywhere but no evidence of anyone dying, fallen down, or anything else could be seen. The CCTV cameras too showed that the woman jumped and disappeared in thin air. They were compelled to sell it to the builders quite against Sheryl s will and now the City Mall stood there in its place.

Charu had to find the answers but first, it was important to meet Christopher Desilva who could throw some light on the incidents given in doodle and her identity crisis may be solved soon.