Treasure Hunt

"Kohinoor," the word itself makes you think of precious jewels like diamonds. Yes! I am speaking about diamonds, which all lives run for.

Our ancient books are filled with scripts, which speak about hidden treasures and explorers keep on digging archeological sights in search of these precious treasures. Treasures which can change one's life, a destitute to a multi-crore gent.

   

A chest full of gold and diamonds, a dream of every soul. Treasure Hunt a tale that every book worm has run to read and go through but we have actually practiced it in real life. I, too, a bookworm, swollen dark eyes, buried in words had tried her hands on a treasure hunt. One may laugh and say a child's play. But searching an unseen delight is like hunting for a ray of sunshine after a dark night trail.

This is a story of my pre-teens, I was neither a child nor a girl of dreams. A tomboy who used to run around in jeans. As in those times, it seemed a taboo for girls to dress like the sex of the other stream.

Winter holidays seemed like a paradise of extreme adventure as we (my brother, four cousins and I) always traveled to Amritsar to our grandparents' house. Lush green fields, clear blue sky, as our train whistled in the land of five rivers and there our journey of escapades roots up.

It was a fine sunny morning of December 1992, I had just stepped in my pre-teens. My grandfather called out for us, come all you, let's have some fun. My younger brother, Rahul, and I. My cousins Ritika di, Amit bhai, Rakhi, and Priyanka. All of us circled around my grandfather, who said let us go for a TREASURE HUNT.

We all exclaimed in excitement, "What! A treasure hunt!"

"Wow, it would be so much fun."

Our Dadu told us that this Haveli has hidden a lot of secrets in its heart and today he would unfold one secret to us. He took us to the attic which was gloomy and dark. The room was filled will old pictures of independence time, some in embedded in gold frames and some in rustic condition. The room was filled with old chest, some lamps, and some old withered stuff. Our dadu opened a chest and took out an old scroll of parchment, tied with a sting. The parchment was light yellow in color, and it looked rusty. Dadu opened the roll carefully and kept it on the table. It was a map of dadu's Haveli and there was another scroll attached to it. When dadu opened the scroll, it had ancient inscriptions depicted on it, which was a bit difficult for us to understand. But from the inscriptions, we all could understand it was a map, which would lead us to unknown glee.

A shiver ran through our spine when we looked over the rustic map with a smile, a smile which was mixed with excitement and fear, and whether we could be able to understand the map and would be able to unveil the secrets of the map. In the peak of shivering cold, we were sweating as we held the scroll. Amit bhai told to let him "be the head of the mission unknown." All of us gathered around dadu, and sat on the ground. Dadu with the help of a stick pointed that it was the Haveli's ground, but the land had been drugged many a time, so it was clear that the treasure was not there.

"Treasures!" we all exclaimed, Amit bhai said "but dadaji it is not written you anywhere the treasure would be up here, as the other parchment depicts something else. Dadu's eyes rolled on the other paper. Dadu said Amit "why do you think so ?" Then both Amit and Rahul said, "as the picture in the inscriptions shows something else, as you see this is dummy, which is seeing up in the sky, but pointing down and this is the reason why you, all for so many years searched the ground. But know we will search the top rooms of the Haveli.

Then Ritika di stood up and said, "treasure is on the west side and not on the east, as in the mirror, we see everything topsy turvy, means right is left and left is right. So the treasure is somewhere up in the Haveli and it is on the west side as the dummy is pointing in the east. Dadu was surprised as to how all of us were opening ajar the secrets of the scroll which no one could ever open. Then a halt came when Rakhi di saw the portray of a lady in the attic and asked Dadu, "Who is this lady in the picture?"

Dadaji said, "This is the picture of the Maharani of Chatiwind and this picture is clicked in one of our Haveli which is up there." Rakhi said, "then the treasure is not in this Haveli it is in Chatiwind's Haveli, as you can see in this picture there is a chest behind the Maharani and it has the same dummy painted over it.

 Then Dadu said, "Hmm...let's go to Chatiwind tomorrow morning."We were all excited to hear Dadaji's decision and we told dadiji to pack our picnic bags. "There was an excitement in the air. Our driver, Bayant Singh Ji was asked to come along with us.

Early next morning red contessa was standing glittering in our driveway. Dadu, Dadi, Bayant uncle and six of us drove towards Chatiwind. After a drive of half an hour, we reached the village, which was a little less developed then Amritsar. But a huge Haveli was standing to welcome us. The watchman of the Haveli saluted and greeted us. His name was Vikas Kumar.

 Vikas bhaiya was the caretaker and the watchman of the Haveli. He took us to our rooms and said that the lunch had been prepared by his wife Vishakha, so we can freshen up and come into the dining hall for lunch. We all thought that we should question Vikas Kumar and his wife about the Haveli. So at the lunch table, we questioned him, Vikas bhaiya for "how many years you had been living here."

Vikas answered" for the last forty years, I came here at the age of 20 and after that, I have been living under the guidance of dadaji.

Then Amit bhaiya questioned him " do you clean all the rooms of the Haveli daily." Vikas hesitantly said, "No baba, Haveli has about fifty rooms, and we don't even have keys of all the rooms. So some of the rooms are closed for decades."

Then we all went and question dadu and dadiji, to hand over the keys of the rest of the rooms of Haveli. Dadaji answered, "I have to search the keys in the attic of the Haveli, as I believe my father, your great grandfather has kept it up there." Then we all went to the attic, with torches as it was in the basement of the Haveli.

The staircase which leads to the basement was dark and gloomy. We were all holding each other hands, the place was filled with dust and cobwebs and dadaji started scolding Vikas bhaiya, "I believe you haven't cleaned this place for years ."

As we reached the end of the basement, Dadaji took the key of the attic from his pocket and tried to open the door. It took a lot of effort to open the lock as it has been not opened for decades.

As the do

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or opened with a cracking sound, a feeling of fear wrapped us all. We all stood close to each other. As Dadaji led us in the attic, he said: "We all have to search for the keys as I myself can't remember where I have kept." So we were on our way for another adventure.

Hunt for the keys started. Torches flashed on walls as there was no electricity connection. Chest after chest were getting opened. Some torn rig-outs, some artifacts started coming out of the chest. Some paintings, covered with dust, some jewels which dadaji had never been aware of. In the end, we all got tired and sat on the floor, as the keys of the rest of the rooms could not be explored.

We all told Dadiji that he must not have kept the keys like this in the attic. But Dadaji exclaimed, "that my memory is still sharp and I remember very well that I have kept the keys in the wooden cupboard of the attic ."

As he said these lines we all stared at each other and ran towards the wooden cupboard that was standing, like a king at the corner of the attic. Dadaji said that he was sorry as he has forgotten, and wasted our time. But we all said that we had enjoyed every second up here. As we came out of the attic, we had a bag filled with questions, which we were all waiting to ask Dadaji.

After getting refreshed, at the dinner table I asked Dadaji "for so many years why didn't you told us about this Haveli. " Dadaji said, "there are many, this is among one of them, and you all are really small to speak about these things ." Then I again raised a question "But we are still small. " Dadaji raised his eyebrows and said, "well, I thought that this is a beautiful time, and you all have grown up now to share my memories and show you all what I have."

Then Dadiji said let's finish with the dinner and explore the Haveli. So our late-night expedition to look over our huge Haveli started.

Fifty rooms, a map and us and our hunt for the treasure. Haveli had three floors and we were interested to explore the west side. First, we opened the first floor of the Haveli. It was difficult to open these rooms, as they had been locked for centuries and were adorned with dust. As Dadaji opened the rooms one by one, we saw each room really big and had four poster carved bed, A huge mirror and a writing table, two chairs, and a huge trunk in front of these beds .After opening all the rooms, Dadaji said we should sleep now and explore the rooms in the morning.

At the break of dawn, we all stood awake and yawned, as in excitement we couldn't sleep for an hour. In our night lounge, without waking Dadu and dadi we thought of exploring the historic rooms. But we were amazed that both Dadaji and Dadiji were standing in front of the room's gate. They said they couldn't sleep, in the dark hours due to extreme excitement, was running in their mind.

As we explore one room at a time, we couldn't find anything, but some value-added advice, some stories of old times. After our brunch, we asked dadaji and dadiji to relax and adjourn the hunt . As we knew they were tired. While they were sleeping, we thought to look over the map.

When Ritika di bought the map, we opened it and tried to solve the mystery, as till then we have not been able to find the clue

At that time little Priyanka yelled see there is a sun and a moon drawn in the map and the dummy is pointing up. Then Rahul said, "How come we missed it. It seems that the mystery is solved."

All of us said, "How come ?" Rahul said, " see when both sun and the moon are in the sky, it means either during dawn or in the evening, neither up in the sky nor under the earth, it means the second floor ". Their Rakhi said" See something is drawn on the map of the Haveli. "There we were, saw that the Haveli's second floor had many more windows then rest of it, and one of the window was sketched in red color.

We all shouted together this is the place where the treasure is hidden.

As the sun was about to set, we all jumped out of our nest and ran to the second floor of the Haveli. But something clicked my mind that the rooms weren't open of that floor. As all had run upstairs to the second floor, I crept in my grandparents' room and

took hold of the keys which were lingering beside dadiji's side table, and I ran towards the stairs.

As I stepped on the second floor my heart was bumping in my mouth, as I handed the keys to Amit Bhai. He patted my shoulders and said "Good job."

There our hunt started to its brim . As we tried to open the doors of the ten rooms of the floor. Lack of time, as the sun was about to set any time.

One by one the doors were opened with great force and then when we opened the fifth room we saw its window frames were red in color. I exclaimed in the excitement that this was the room.

In excitement, I opened all the windows of the room all asked me what exactly I was doing. I said quickly " see when both sun and moon will be together in the sky, at that time their rays together will light up the treasure. "

As I stopped speaking, at that moment rest of them laughed at me mocking me " How come a tube light is using her brain like lightning in the sky. " But at that very moment, the room got brightened up by the celestial rays and started sparking that we had to close our eyes.

 But somewhere in my brain, a question raised what was making the room so shine? So I ran out of the room, from where I can see clearly. From there I saw that the Rays were falling on the bed's back where something was shining. Soon the celestial rays died off.

Everyone was bewildered by the rays, that how could the room had brightened up, as if the sun was in the room. But I had answers to all the questions, I went close to the bed's back and checked it out clearly. Their I got answers to all the questions.

  I said to all to wait and I went to call my grandparents. When they came , everyone asked me what happened. Then I said, "I have got the treasure,and that is why I went to call dadaji and dadaji. "

  Dadaji said "How? Where is it! "

  I said to all "It's in this room."

All of them said, "Where? we cannot see."

I went near the bedstead and pointed out at the dummy and said, this is the dummy whose picture was drawn on the map and the celestial rays touched the dummy and lighted the room as it has this diamond embedded in its hand.

Their every one was amazed how I solved the mystery.

Dadaji took hold of a knife and pulled out the diamond from the dummy's hand.

Our hunt was over and now it was time to go back to Amritsar, with a valuable that was estimated more than we could have thought for.