My Paranormal Love Story

                                                               

How’s everyone doing? My name is Tanmay, and this is my story. Who am I speaking to? Who even knows, as my pursuit for love currently has me locked up in a cage. Yep, I'm caged. Who threw me in here, and why am I currently pacing the walls… heck, how am I even writing this? Well, some answers will be revealed, I promise.

A bit about me to start off. As far back as I can remember, I always wanted a good-looking girlfriend who's sort of popular. 

I am lonely and very few souls know me. Even dogs in my neighborhood shout at me. 

One day, a new girl transferred to our college. Kavya was her name. She showed up one day in class out of blue. She was perfect! Lovely fair skin, jet black hair, secretive eyes. 

One day, she mutilated and ate a bird... students said that. They saw her at lunch slicing open a bird on one of the outdoor stone tables near the college canteen. We got a lot of pigeons. Most of the kids would toss them leftovers during lunch, so these birds knew where to come every day for a good meal. According to the rumor, Kavya had managed to catch one. Students were watching as she gently picked the bird up, laid it down on the table before her, and proceeded to use a fork to slice it open down the stomach. People watched on in shock and awe as she then dipped her finger into its open guts and took a taste of its blood!

Now, at first, I thought this was all bogus. I was ready to rule it out, but then my best friend called me that night and told me that he saw it happen. I would have laughed at anyone else, but he didn’t lie. He called and told me something like,

“Dude, that freaky girl you like killed a bird at lunch today and drank its blood.”

He swore on all the characters of Game of thrones that it happened. The next day she wasn’t at school, as she’d likely been suspended, but all the students were talking now. 

By the end of that day, I heard that she was a Satanist, a serial killer and finally even a cannibal. Someone even claimed that her father ran a restaurant that was secretly serving human to wealthy weirdos, and the cops had caught on. I didn’t really believe much of it, as most of those claims should have wound her family up in jail, not just moving to another city. 

Now, if you think these rumors would have deterred me away from her, you’d don’t know me. What Bollywood movies taught us? More the contrast, more are the chances of eternal love. I'd already started dreaming about us… bird-slicing Kavya and her faithful boyfriend… Kauboy. Maybe someday, somebody will turn our story in a movie.

Kavya came back to school a few days later. I found her surrounded by two guys and a girl. They were shouting horrible things, calling her a witch, a bitch. Kavya was up against the wall, trying to walk past, but the guys kept blocking her.

“You going to cast a spell on us?

You going to turn us into birds?” the girl was saying. This was my chance. Feeling like Rohit from 'Koi Mil gaya' when he bravely stepped in to protect Jaadu, I shouted, stepped in between them and made my stand.

I was promptly beaten up.

When I came around, I was sitting up against the wall where Kavya was dabbing blood off of my cheek with her thumb. And you know what, I could have sworn I saw her lick her thumb at least once. I didn’t care though; in my mind, I’d just made the first move in Operation Kauboy.

“Why’d you do that?” she asked.

“Didn’t like seeing you get picked on. Three on one, two of them being guys, I had to say something,” I replied.

“Yeah, but I’m used to it. It’s like this at most schools. I stick out, it happens.”

She finished her strange ritual of cleaning me up and helped me to my feet. We spent a little time that day talking after school. She told me that she was new to the city; she hinted that there were some issues at her last school, but didn’t go into detail. I wanted to push further but didn’t want to scare her off either.

  

After that day, we met a couple of times, talked for a little while, mostly mundane stuff. But I was shocked when she asked me to come over her place for dinner, the next Sunday. Turns out Kavya told her parents all about my heroic intervention. 

I told this to my mom. After persuading a little, she gave me a green signal. 

On Sunday night, I was all set for the “date.” My mother insisted that I take food. I told her that this was a dinner and food would already be there, but she put something together in tiffin and insisted that I offer it to them as a symbol of good manners. I brought it with me at her insistence. I left home at 7, ride on the city bus and reached in time in front of Kavya's house.

I was nervous now. Yes, part of it was that I was going into the home of a girl that I really liked. Another part of me thought about rumors. Could any of that be true? If so, how’d I respond to it? Well, no sense in just standing out on the pavement wondering, it was time to go in and find out what the real deal was all about.

Her father answered the door, he was an odd one. Tall as hell, the guy had to be pushing over 6 feet, with a neatly cropped beard that was as black as night, and some really intense eyes. He looked like the father of a bird-killing cannibal. 

“You must be TANMAY!” he said in a voice that was a bit too jolly for his appearance. “C’mon in, we’ve been waiting for you!”

“Thank you for having me over,” I replied with a nervous tone.

He took the tiffin from me and sat it down on their dining room table. His wife came out to join him. 

“Welcome beta. I am Kavya’s mother.” She said

I was led through to the living room, where I assumed I would get grilled a bit by the parents, and that’s when I saw it all. They had two lamps, both appearing to be made out of human remains! Bones created the lamp base, and in place of a traditional shade was a thin filmy substance that I thought for sure was human flesh. It was stapled together at the seams.

“Do you like the lamps?” auntie ( Kavya’s mother ) asked me.

“Well, I…” I stuttered.

“I hope he likes them, they cost me a fortune,” uncle replied.

“Kauche pappa, when you insist on buying props from popular movies, you have to be prepared to spend a little” auntie replied.

“Props?” I asked, trying not to sound too shaky in the voice.

“Yep, Khopdi! Actually, it’s the first movie your auntie and I saw together. It’s always been special to us. They filmed that movie near the place where we lived by then. Turns out they were selling off some of the old props, and when I saw those lamps, I knew I had to get them for our home,” uncle explained.

Okay, I could breathe again.

“I feel so bad for what happened at school with Kau, I mean Kavya” 

“It’s all his fault, you know,” auntie stated pointing toward uncle.

I was about to ask for more information, what really happened when suddenly I heard the stairs creaking from overhead, and looked up to see Kavya herself coming down. She looked stunning. She was wearing a long black dress, had her hair up, lips lipsticked and was almost flying down the stairs. If there was ever a time in real life for Aashiqui movie songs to play, this was it.  

“Tanmay, so glad you’re here!” she announced, sounding very honest in her joy. My heart jumped like a frog.

Auntie led us all to the table. Kau sat next to me. If it were possible to go to Heaven, die there, and go to like, Super Heaven, this was it.

“Let’s eat!” uncle stated with excitement, maybe a bit too much, and I saw how wide and hungry his eyes became.

A domed plate was put in front of me. “Guests always go first,” auntie stated and gestured for me to remove the dome.

I pulled up the dome and almost jumped from the table. On the plate in front of me was a dead bird, a Pigeon!

“The culprit himself,” uncle joked.

“What… what is this?” I asked.

“That’s the reason why our daughter is getting bullied,” auntie answered. 

Kavya reached over and grabbed it. I watched in stunned silence as she jabbed her fork down into the dead bird's stomach, producing a red liquid. Just as I’d heard she’d done at school, she dipped her finger into the pool of slime and took a lick.

“We thought it’d be funny if she brought it to school to show it off,” uncle said. “Turns out not so much.”

Auntie sighed, “Another of my husband’s stupid props. It was a prop from Zee horror show serial. You fill the rubber bird with tomato jelly and bite into it for effect. I guess we figured Kau could show it off, impress some friends or something. Who would’ve believed those kids would actually think it was real?”

“You mean, it was a fake bird?” I asked, failing to hide the slight nervous undertone of my voice.

“Of course. My parents are both artists, we actually owned a studio out in Dadar. Things were going well enough until pappa got the idea to do a damned over-the-top exhibit on the streets.”

“Hey, that exhibit was brilliant. I created a real-life horror show. I had a beheading, a disemboweling, all free for the public to view. I had no idea that the police would get called out because some psycho actually thought I was murdering someone on the sidewalk,” uncle explained.

“So, that’s why you guys had to move?” I asked.

“Yeah” auntie answered.

“Okay, enough about that, let’s eat!” Kavya suddenly exclaimed.

“I hope you like meat!” uncle announced and gave me a strange wink.

“Oh, pappa, are we having rakt soup?! What a great start !”

Before I can ask anything she throws the lid away from a large bowl. The liquid inside it was dark red and thick. 

She looked at me, then eyed toward red liquid (blood?!!) and said, “B positive. Take it.” She poured some blood in my bowl, and some in hers, then drank her share in almost vampire style some red drops oozed out of her parted thin lips, kissed her jungle red lipstick & slid down her cheeks. She's smiling, licking her lips and saying, “umm… rakta, hot rakta” My mouth was wide open.

Her mother and father must've noticed this because they were smiling. 

“Stop it Kavya.” Her mother said, then turned towards me, “beta, this beats soup mixed with tomato pulp. We call it rakt soup”

“I guessed it,” I said, hiding my relief with a cheerful smile.  

“Okay, Tanmay, I hope you’re ready for the main course!” uncle announced. “I hope you like Mansache bhaje !”

Okay, there it was, no way that I misheard or misunderstood that. The man just said Manus, as in, people.

“I’ll get it!” Kavya said with excitement. I sat there in silence.

She returned from the kitchen a moment later with a large pot of what looked like whitish, pakode like kebab filled with chicken stuffing. The pot was placed in the center of the table. Her parents joined in with gathering more plates.

“Time for the Manus!” auntie announced and put the pakode in the plates.

“Tanmay, we understand if this isn’t what you’re used to. Not everyone eats this, we know. Feel free to let us know if you don’t like it,” Kau told me with a smile. 

Struggling for words, I began to sputter out something that was barely speech when she spoke again.

“Mansache bhaje are delicious. Anything made out of corn is delicious ”

“Corn?” I asked. 

Now, Kavyas mother jumped in,

“Oh yeah, I still remember the first time we had it. Kavya was just a little kid. We went to this restaurant and she overheard Kansache bhaje (corn pakode) ad Mansache bhaje and started to cry. She kept saying, ‘Dad, I am not going to eat Manus!’ over and over again. She…” uncle could no longer speak through his laughter. Auntie slapped his arm gently.

“You’re going to embarrass her again! First with the stupid bird, now telling baby stories, you know she likes Tanmay… Oops! Sorry, Kau.”

“Tu pan na aai…” Kavya said, blushing. 

We ate, I laughed and relaxed a bit.

“We want to thank you Tanmay. You really stood up for our daughter, and that means a lot. We wish people had stood up for us back in Dadar, but it’s good to know that bold people still exist.”

I said something about kaniski, I mean manuski.

“Shall we eat dessert?” uncle asked.

“Sounds good. Tonight we’re having Mr. Chitale!” uncle replied.

Yeah, of course, ice cream, I thought to myself. All night they’ve been messing with me, from lampshades to rakt soup to Kavya's strange way of saying Manus. I guess they wanted to get one more jab at me before dinner was over.

“You guys stay seated, I’ll go and get it. The fridge is right in there, I guess?” I asked, pointing at the kitchen.

The family nodded. No more games. I stand up and walked away 

I stepped into the kitchen to get the ice cream when suddenly there was a shrill scream from the dining room. This scream was followed by the loud voice of Kavya.

“Kau, get upstairs, Sunita, call the police!” uncle shouted

Oh crap, I forgot all about the tiffin. Damn it, mammi!

So, uncle came in and held me down. The cops came and put me in this cage that I now write from. I would call my mother to come and help me out, but I have a feeling she’s probably locked up in a similar cell as my own.

As weird as Kaus family was, I’m really disappointed that they reacted the way they did to the dish I brought.

Maybe it’s mom’s fault for leaving the uncrushed finger in it. I swear Kaus family had never heard of finger biryani.

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