The lights came on

April and May meant summer vacations and happiness forever! Well atleast for 2 months. It meant we were free to zoom in and out of homes of our friends and play in the park till it got dark!

My dad had to travel to a remote city near Jamshedpur and since my uncle lived there, he took my granny  along with him.

That meant mom had to now manage the 3 terrors and home all by herself.

Every dad is his daughter’s knight in shining armour and so my strict grandpa came trotting about from Chennai to help mom with the 3 of us, while she went to school for half day duty.

And so with the arrival of grandpa we did get back into a routine. He was a Railway Station master you see, and keeping time for everything was sacrosanct.

Most days were filled with fun and frolic with friends, there were only 2 rules, back home for lunch and again back before it got dark in the evening.

It was another sunny april morning and I valiantly tried to ensure that my pesky brother did not accompany me, but failed of course. He was just a little bit more than a pain in the wrong place. At 4 years,  and 3 years younger than me he was an imp, from whom I liked to get away for the longest time.

I had been trying to tell my mom and grandpa that all my friends teased me about bringing my younger brother to play with me all the while, to my disdain they  would not bother and insisted that I take him all the time. My elder brother was off the hook you see, Rahul was 11 and Bharat was 4.

Every single day I would wake up asking for a my younger brother to vanish for a day so I could play in peace!

I have always been told that if I wished for something with all my heart it would come true. Indeed I  wished that Bharat would vanish and I did not have to watch over his antics when he interrupted our play.

One Friday morning, my wish was granted. I managed to slip away  to a friend’s house, relieved not be babysitting  the little pest. It was all laughter and freedom till noon.

I got back home at noon, all happy and singing to myself, and asked grandpa for my lunch. Rahul came in a few minutes later and we sat down to eat.

That is when grandpa asked us where  Bharat was, I didn't have a clue,  Rahul had no inkling  either. So we just assumed that he must be playing at the neighbours home. 

We were told to finish our lunch and then bring him back.

We tried to do just that . The neighbours home yielded no Bharat, and nor did any other place. So we split ourselves and went looking for him at our usual haunts.

A few hours later we returned , we had not found him yet. Grandpa was nettled and tense and stepped out yet again looking for Bharat, while giving us instructions to stay put at home.

It soon turned 4.30 pm, and we had no trace of him. Mom walked in home after a long day of evaluation, only to be told that Bharat was missing.

At first she thought it was a prank, but the moment she realised that it was indeed the truth, she panicked.

6.30 pm and we were all fraught with tension, wondering what to do. I tried to hide my tears and my guilt for wishing this . Grandpa was a bundle of nerves, how would he answer his son in law? How could he have let the young boy slip away?

7.00pm darkness set in, yet no sign of the toddler.

Mammoth guilt starting to well up inside me for not taking him along with me.

Grandpa said he would go to the police station and mom went again looking for him at the park. Rahul borrowed his friends cycle to look for him further than what we had earlier done.

We had given up and wondered how we would spend the night without the little heart stealer. Or if he would even come back?

Pacing in the balcony, I thought I heard something in the living room. I mustered the courage to walk in alone, and see the lights in the room had come on! 

Did I really hear something? How could the lights come on by itself? Very frightening. I walked into the room in trepidation, telling myself that ghosts did not exist.

As I walk in I heard some scuffles, the sound of movement in the room. Panic clung me and I ran out. Being solo at home and the overdose of the spooky movies and novels only added to my fear.

I stayed still right in the balcony, positive that the lights had indeed come on some time ago. A deep sense of foreboding within me. I waited there until Rahul came back.

As soon as he walked in I told him that the lights came on and off in the room. He sensed my uneasiness and walked into the now dark room. I meekly stood away.

He flicked the lights on and said, look there is no one here. It’s your over active imagination at work. I could not believe it, and we came out of the room, when the lights turned off again. This time Rahul was a little scared too, and we went in to see a tiny hand flicking the lights on and off from under the bed.

We bent down to feel flooded with relief as we saw the prankster was none other than Bharat!! Who resorted to flicking the lights on and off.

And that solved the mystery of the lights coming on , of course the light of our lives was back too with a prank that left us reeling for an entire day!

Much to our relief this was his part of the story –

He had climbed up into the loft in the room and hidden there all day. Defiant that neither of us took him to play with us, the naughty mischief monger had climbed up onto the attic and hidden there all day. We still don’t know how a 4 year old managed to climb all the way up the attic . But by evening, afraid of the darkness he climbed back down to switch the lights on.

And that is how  “The mysterious lights came on” flooding us all with relief.