Dear Anuj,
The meeting with the client in Mumbai has been arranged on 28 Feb 2019. Please make your
travel and stay arrangements and claim for reimbursements. The brief about the meeting is
expected by the end of same day.
Regards,
Rashmi Mehta
Sales & Mktg,
Pride Software Solutions
The email from Anuj’s colleague was crisp and clear. He was expected to travel on a short notice of
24 hours from Indore to Mumbai. He worked for the marketing department of a midsized software
company and travelled often. The travel was usually planned in advance. This, however, was an
exception. He logged on to a travel website and checked for ticket prices. Late-night flights were
slightly cheaper. He decided to get a late-night flight that departed at 11:45 p.m. from Indore and
landed at 1:10 a.m. in Mumbai. He would have to check into a hotel to get some sleep that night. He
had to ensure that fatigue didn’t make him inefficient at the meeting the next day. This client was
important for him and his company.
He had to find a hotel close to the client’s office so that he didn’t waste valuable time in the crazy
Mumbai traffic. The travel website offered hotel bookings too. He looked for a hotel somewhere in
Sakinaka. He would have to bear the cost in lieu of the convenience of being near the client’s office
which was in same area. He explored some of the options and zeroed in on a property decent enough
for the price it quoted. He knew that he didn’t have a lot of options at that hour which suited his
pocket. He browsed through the photos and read a few reviews. It seemed to be popular amongst the
customers and the average rating was 4.2. Anuj decided to go with a hotel named Comfort Inn but
sniggered at the unintelligent tagline—“Your comfort is paramount.”
Then he saw another line:
This hotel has a 100% advance payment policy.
Anuj hadn’t seen the payment policy earlier and immediately regretted it. He preferred the ‘pay at
hotel’ policy. But then, it was already 11:00 a.m. He couldn’t waste time any further browsing for
more hotels. So, he decided to go ahead and make the full payment.
He received an email instantly, confirming his booking and with some additional details about the
hotel and the list of customer care numbers in case anything went wrong or if he needed any support.
“Yeah, right!” he thought to himself mockingly and buried himself in preparations of the ensuing
meeting.
***
You have arrived!
The flight was uneventful. Anuj was tired by the time he had checked in, and slept as soon as he took
his window seat. He woke up only when the flight landed at the Mumbai Airport. He looked at the
watch and realized the flight had landed exactly on time. He didn’t have any checked-in baggage, and
so he booked a cab on his phone and walked straight toward the exit to the taxi pickup point outside
the terminal.
His cab arrived in a few minutes. He got into the back. The driver asked for the location which
irritated him slightly. “Didn’t you get it when I made the booking?” he snapped at the driver.
The driver was in his mid-twenties and he might have been used to all kinds of weird passengers. He
didn’t mind Anuj’s curt response. He exited the airport and started navigating through the sparse
traffic on the Mumbai roads at that hour. Anuj dozed off again.
A loud thump woke Anuj up. The cab had bounced on a pothole. He looked at the watch. He had been
in the cab for twenty minutes. He checked his app for location and ETA.
With great alarm, he noted that the location of the cab was off-track from the route his map showed.
“Where are you going? This is not the route,” he told the driver, now both confused and angry.
“I am going as per the directions of the map, sir. See!” the driver said and pointed at the map on the
phone attached to the mobile holder on the dashboard.
He was right. His device showed that the cab was on the correct route. Anuj checked his app again,
but it still clearly showed that they were off-track by a couple of kilometres at least. The driver must
have manipulated the location when I was sleeping, Anuj told himself. It’s his way to get back at me
for shouting at him at the airport . Sternly, he instructed the driver, “Listen, we will go as per my
route. Take a right at the next turning and go as I tell you.”
The driver gave him a nasty look in the rear-view mirror and took the next right. He navigated as
Anuj instructed. Seven minutes later, Anuj’s app announced that they had arrived at the destination.
The driver’s map still showed a different route.
Anuj smiled at his smartness and commended himself for not going by the driver’s map. “Only
because I am not from Mumbai, you thought you could take me for a ride,” Anuj said under his breath
as his paid the driver.
The driver was too pissed off by now to respond. He sped off as soon as Anuj stepped out of the cab.
***
The property matched the pictures shown on the website—a navy-blue four-story building with an
unpretentious front elevation, looking like a typical economy hotel in Mumbai. Lights were out in all
the rooms and curtains were drawn. Anuj stepped inside and found it odd that there was no doorman.
He blamed the late hour rather than the hotel for this oversight. The reception area was standard and
modest—a cheap vase with artificial flowers, some torn newspapers, and magazines on the table
between a couple of battered three-seater sofas. The light blue paint on the walls was chipped off in
places and cobwebs had claimed the corners authoritatively. A dustbin in the corner was almost full
and had spit stains all over it.
Anuj cursed himself for having made the full advance payment. He saw a stairway in the corner. The
light there flickered, making it look like a creepy den ready to gobble up anything that enters it. Next
to the stairway was the elevator. The wall beyond the reception desk adorned the mandatory notices
about check-in/check-out timings, no refund policy, CCTV cameras, and such.
Anuj leaned on the reception desk which reached up to his chest and looked around to see if anyone
was around. There was a feedback book on the desk, which had a thin layer of dust and a cheap ball
pen dangling from a thread. A tiny cockroach had found its way into the feedback book. Anuj raised a
hand to swat the pest when a man suddenly appeared from behind the desk and made him jump.
“Good evening, sir! Welcome to the Comfort Inn. What can I do for you?” the man said in a flat but
polite tone.
He might have been around 30-35 years of age but his balding head made him look much older. He
was dark-complexioned and wore spectacles with thick glasses. He had a nervous look on his face
but tried to hide it with a fake smile plastered on it. He didn’t appear to be very smart but had a look
that may have attracted sympathy from those who looked at him. He wore a blue suit that needed an
urgent visit to the dry-cleaners and a badge that red ‘Hubert Desena – Reception’.
Anuj composed himself and told the man about his booking.
Hubert took a couple of minutes to check on his computer while Anuj waited impatiently. Then he
confirmed that they had received his booking.
“Sanju Kaka!” he shouted suddenly, startling Anuj out of his wits once again. An old man appeared
from a door behind the Reception counter. He was in a maroon uniform with a badge ‘Sanju’ dangling
sideways on his breast-pocket. He was in his late fifties and looked like he had never been younger.
Unkempt hair, a thin greying moustache, and a mole on his right cheek made him look like a villain
from a Bollywood movie. He yawned unabashedly as he stood there scratching his head.
“Escort sir to 313,” Hubert instructed Sanju Kaka sternly and handed over a key to him.
Sanju Kaka, on the other hand made no attempts to hide his irritation at being woken up at this odd
hour.
“He will take you to your room, sir. I hope you have a pleasant stay!” Hubert gave Anuj the same
plastic smile that might have extracted a sarcastic remark from him on any other day, but he was too
tired to respond today. He followed Sanju Kaka silently into the elevator that would take him to the
third floor and to the room number 313.
***
Room 313.
The key had to be wriggled a couple of times before it gave way and the door opened.
Sanju Kaka inserted the magnetic tag into its holder near the door and the lights came on. “Your room,
sir. Dial 9 for reception, 6 for housekeeping, and 3 for room service,” he said pointing to the room
and then to the black phone instrument.
“What should I dial for comfort?” Anuj said with a sarcastic smirk.
But the humour was lost on Sanju Kaka as his kept looking at Anuj with the same blank expression.
He wished Anuj a good night and closed the door with a bang on his way out. Anuj thought it was
intentional.
The room was small but functional. The furniture was minimal. A single bed lay in the corner of the
room facing a small flat screen TV. A small window on the wall behind the bed had faded light-blue
curtains to match the color on the walls. A small single-door cupboard stood in the other corner. The
bathroom was near the door. Anuj took a look at the room and sighed thankfully. It was comfortable
enough to spend a couple of nights. He freshened up and changed into his shorts and T-shirt. He
gulped from the complimentary water bottle and slid the curtain slightly to look out. The street was
deserted with only stray dogs lurking around. Anuj put a 6 a.m. alarm and slid into the bed. He started
thinking about the next day’s meeting and fell asleep in just a few moments.
***
A loud banging on the door startled Anuj.
He took a moment to grasp his surroundings and the fact that somebody was pounding on his door.
The watch showed 3:30 a.m. He sat up in his bed and shouted, “Who is it?”
The banging stopped but nobody responded. The lights were out in the room, but Anuj could see
somebody moving across the well-lit corridor from the slit beneath the door.
More banging. Louder this time.
Anuj walked towards the door angrily but hesitated to open the door. He stuck his ear to the door to
listen closely. He called out again, “Who is it?”
No response.
But he heard someone walking up and down the corridor, panting loudly. He checked the latch on the
door and came back to his bed. He picked up the phone and dialled 9 for reception. A man,
presumably Hubert, picked up the call and Anuj shot at him immediately, “What the hell is going on
here? Somebody is banging on my door.”
There was a long pause at the other end.
Anuj thought he heard someone breathing heavily. He was about to shout again when Hubert said,
“That bastard is doing it again. Sorry, sir. There is a crazy man in the area who gets into our hotel
once in a while and bangs on the doors. He has not harmed anyone so far, sir, but please do not open
the door. I will send somebody to check right now. Very sorry, sir!”
Anuj was too stunned to respond. As he placed the receiver back, he heard Hubert calling out to
Sanju Kaka to go upstairs and check.
There was no way he could sleep anymore. He perched up on the bed and pulled up the sheets. He
stretched his hand to switch the lights on but changed his mind. He switched the TV on instead but put
in on mute. A random Hindi movie was playing, but Anuj hardly noticed anything on the screen. His
eyes were glued to the door and the lights sweeping in from the corridor.
There was no movement for the next fifteen minutes. Then, he heard the elevator stop at his floor. He
waited.
Travel and tiredness made Anuj doze off once again. The banging startled him again. This time, he
was more frightened than irritated. He looked at the door but didn’t move. Then just as suddenly as it
had started, the banging stopped.
But he could see a shadow…
Somebody had begun to scratch on the door. Slow, deliberate scratching. He got off the bed and
moved toward the door very slowly. The scratching was now accompanied by moaning. He moved
closer to the door.
“Help me!” came a voice from the other side of the door.
Anuj almost toppled over backward in shock. Then, gathering himself once again, he came closer and
softly put his ear to the door.
“Please help me!”
A man’s voice. There was definitely somebody outside. And he was in pain.
“Who is it?” Anuj asked with his hand on the doorknob. He was contemplating opening the door but
he thought of Hubert’s advice.
“Open the door. He will kill me. Help me!” The voice was getting thinner. The man was definitely in
pain and needed help.
‘Is it Sanju Kaka? He had come up here to check. Did that crazy man attack him?’ A barrage of
thoughts came to Anuj’s mind. He made up his mind to open the door. But then he suddenly turned and
ran to the phone. He dialled 9 for reception and waited. No answer. He dialled 6 for housekeeping.
No answer. 3 for room service. No answer. “What’s going on here?” he said out loud.
The man outside continued the knocking on the door, but the knocks were getting weaker. He kept on
mumbling, “Help me!”
** *
4:00 a.m.
“Please… hellppp…”
The voice faded away as the knocks died down. But Anuj couldn’t let the man die out there. Also, he
hadn’t heard anybody else out there. ‘That crazy man must have ran away after attacking Sanju
Kaka!’ Anuj went up to open the door. He looked around for something he could use as a weapon but
all he could find was a hanger in the cupboard. He held the hanger like a hammer and opened the door
mustering all the courage he had.
The corridor was empty. He looked left and right. Nobody. And then he noticed. Blood splattered
across his door and on the carpet in the hallway. There were marks of something that had been
dragged away from his door to the last room across the corridor. Anuj moved ahead slowly and
cautiously with his hanger held up for defense. All other rooms looked unoccupied. He reached the
last room and touched the door gently. The door wasn’t locked. The drag marks could be seen going
inside the room.
‘Did Sanju Kaka drag himself here to call for help from the phone? I should have opened the door
earlier .’ Anuj admonished himself for being such as coward.
He pushed open the door slowly and peeked inside. The room wasn’t lit but he could see some light
from the street lamps peeking in through the half open window. Anuj realized that he would have to
step inside to get a better look.
He called out, “Sanju kaka… are you here?” and took a step inside.
What he saw inside blew his mind.
A man, badly injured, lay on the floor. Hubert and two other men were standing over him. Anuj
couldn’t see the injured man’s face initially. But he then turned over. He wasn’t Sanju Kaka.
It was him!
Anuj lost his abilities of comprehension. He felt his brains would explode. The sights of himself lying
there on the floor, bloodied, with three men standing over him hit him with the impact of a battering
ram.
He collapsed. He kept staring at his own face streaked in blood and he felt his insides churning. No,
this wasn’t a dream. It had outlived that possibility a while ago.
One of the men was Sanju Kaka. Their eyes were bloodshot and they were laced with the most
sinister look on their faces he had ever seen. Then, registering his presence, all three men turned at
once and looked at him standing at the door. But they didn’t seem to mind him. They just smiled at him
and Anuj could see that their teeth were mottled black.
They turned again to the Anuj lying on the floor. Their motions were slow and oddly in sync with each
other. Like this was some well-choreographed dance. Like a well-rehearsed mime. Like they had
done this so many times that it had attained a degree of sick perfection.
All three of them bent together and Anuj noticed te blood on their hands. Lots of it. Their uniforms
were torn and filthy. They picked up the Anuj lying on the floor and slowly carried him to a half open
window.
Anuj saw that his alter-ego’s left leg was bent at an unnatural angle from the knee. As it dangled, a
steady trickle of blood flowed from where the bones protruded. The Anuj they were carrying looked
at the Anuj standing in the room with an unsaid plea in his eyes. He was writhing in pain. But Anuj
was glued to his place.
The men carried the injured Anuj to the window. The third unnamed man pushed the half-open
window. All of them turned again to look at standing Anuj, their faces turning with the same sickly
expression on them like three turning doll-heads. The smiles stayed as sinisterly expressionless as
they had been throughout, and then without the slightest flicker in their eyes, they threw the injured
Anuj out of the window.
That unshook Anuj from his trance. Screaming in agony as if he himself had been thrown, he ran to the
window immediately.
But he could do nothing as he saw himself falling down from the third floor onto the concrete
pavement .
And then hitting it with a sick splat.
***
8:30 a.m.
A persistent ring on the mobile woke Anuj up. He picked up the phone groggily and saw Rashmi’s
number flashing on the screen. Still struggling to open his sleepy eyes, he took the call.
“Where are you, Anuj? Haven’t you reached the client’s office? You are not even answering their
calls?” Rashmi threw in one question after the other.
He was now wide awake and utterly confused. Rashmi went on asking him questions. He told Rashmi
that he would call the client back right then and reach his office in 10 minutes. He lied about being
stuck in the traffic, an excuse that sounds most plausible in Mumbai.
“Don’t mess this up, Anuj. Boss is closely monitoring this deal,” Rashmi shot at him before ending
the call.
Anuj sat up straight in his bed and tried to think about the last night. ‘That was one hell of a
dream!’— he thought to himself. He looked at the watch and realized that he was really very late. He
would have to skip breakfast and still wouldn’t be able to reach on time. He went into the bathroom
for a quick shower.
He also decided that he would check out from the hotel right then and wait at the airport for his latenight
flight back to Indore. The dream was too creepy. He didn’t want to spend another night there.
Anuj got ready in the next 10 minutes and went to the reception. But there was another man instead of
Hubert at the reception, who looked strikingly similar to the third man from his dream. Anuj brushed
that thought aside quickly. All he had to do was check out from this goddamned place.
In as few words as he could, Anuj informed the receptionist that he would be checking out. No, it did
not matter that he had a booking for two nights. Yes, their hospitality was great, thank you.
The man at the reception tried to convince him to stay back but Anuj refused every insistent argument
and stepped out. He had already booked a cab on his app. He decided to wait for it outside, not
wanting to stay in the hotel a moment longer.
The place had livened up with the usual morning activities of an urban city. Rickshaws, buses, and
cabs were ferrying passengers to their offices and other destinations. People were briskly walking up
and down the streets, their minds full of purpose. Roadside hawkers and shops were gearing up for
another day of business.
Anuj waited patiently. He let the thoughts of last night be taken over by the thoughts of the impending
meeting.
Then, his trance was broken by a call.
Anuj fished out the phone to see who was calling but glare of the morning sun made it difficult for him
to read the screen. He turned around and tried to use his palm to block the sun. It was an unknown
number. He took it, expecting it to be from the client’s office.
“Good morning, sir. I am calling from traveldost.com. You had made a hotel booking with us
yesterday,” a girl on the other end said.
Anuj answered in affirmation.
“Sir, we see that you have travelled to Mumbai on the booked ticket but you did not check into the
hotel. We wanted to understand if there is something wrong at our end.”
Anuj did a doubletake right there on the street. “What do you mean? I checked into the hotel and
stayed there last night. I just checked out. Check your records, madam.”
There was an uneasy pause. Then, the girl said, “Sir, I checked again. The hotel has confirmed a ‘no
show’. You didn’t check into this hotel.”
Now, Anuj lost his cool. “Madam, I am still standing right in front of your hotel. It is near Safed Pool
in Sakinaka.”
There was a long pause at the other end this time.
“Sir, the property at Safed Pool was closed down two years ago. We had sent you the address of the
new property,” the girl said, her voice sounding strangely mechanical.
“What nonsense! Let me send you a picture of it right away!” He turned around to face the hotel.
That was when the ground beneath his feet slid away.
There was no Hotel Comfort Inn. All he could see were the ruins of a building on a deserted plot.
Anuj’s mouth fell open. He looked around and ran to a hawker who was arranging his items on his
cart. “What happened to the hotel that was here? Where did it go? It was right here just now, wasn’t
it?” he asked the visibly irritated hawker.
“Are you drunk at this hour? The hotel closed down two years ago after that man jumped from the
third floor. Dreaming with your eyes open or what?” With that, the man sniggered at Anuj and got
back to this work.
Anuj looked back at the ruins of the hotel. He needed to sit to avoid fainting from the shock and also
to comfort the sharp pain rising in his left knee. A beep on the mobile brought him back to his senses.
It was a message from Hotel Comfort Inn.
“We hope you had a comfortable stay. Your comfort is paramount.”
The meeting with the client in Mumbai has been arranged on 28 Feb 2019. Please make your
travel and stay arrangements and claim for reimbursements. The brief about the meeting is
expected by the end of same day.
Regards,
Rashmi Mehta
Sales & Mktg,
Pride Software Solutions
The email from Anuj’s colleague was crisp and clear. He was expected to travel on a short notice of
24 hours from Indore to Mumbai. He worked for the marketing department of a midsized software
company and travelled often. The travel was usually planned in advance. This, however, was an
exception. He logged on to a travel website and checked for ticket prices. Late-night flights were
slightly cheaper. He decided to get a late-night flight that departed at 11:45 p.m. from Indore and
landed at 1:10 a.m. in Mumbai. He would have to check into a hotel to get some sleep that night. He
had to ensure that fatigue didn’t make him inefficient at the meeting the next day. This client was
important for him and his company.
He had to find a hotel close to the client’s office so that he didn’t waste valuable time in the crazy
Mumbai traffic. The travel website offered hotel bookings too. He looked for a hotel somewhere in
Sakinaka. He would have to bear the cost in lieu of the convenience of being near the client’s office
which was in same area. He explored some of the options and zeroed in on a property decent enough
for the price it quoted. He knew that he didn’t have a lot of options at that hour which suited his
pocket. He browsed through the photos and read a few reviews. It seemed to be popular amongst the
customers and the average rating was 4.2. Anuj decided to go with a hotel named Comfort Inn but
sniggered at the unintelligent tagline—“Your comfort is paramount.”
Then he saw another line:
This hotel has a 100% advance payment policy.
Anuj hadn’t seen the payment policy earlier and immediately regretted it. He preferred the ‘pay at
hotel’ policy. But then, it was already 11:00 a.m. He couldn’t waste time any further browsing for
more hotels. So, he decided to go ahead and make the full payment.
He received an email instantly, confirming his booking and with some additional details about the
hotel and the list of customer care numbers in case anything went wrong or if he needed any support.
“Yeah, right!” he thought to himself mockingly and buried himself in preparations of the ensuing
meeting.
***
You have arrived!
The flight was uneventful. Anuj was tired by the time he had checked in, and slept as soon as he took
his window seat. He woke up only when the flight landed at the Mumbai Airport. He looked at the
watch and realized the flight had landed exactly on time. He didn’t have any checked-in baggage, and
so he booked a cab on his phone and walked straight toward the exit to the taxi pickup point outside
the terminal.
His cab arrived in a few minutes. He got into the back. The driver asked for the location which
irritated him slightly. “Didn’t you get it when I made the booking?” he snapped at the driver.
The driver was in his mid-twenties and he might have been used to all kinds of weird passengers. He
didn’t mind Anuj’s curt response. He exited the airport and started navigating through the sparse
traffic on the Mumbai roads at that hour. Anuj dozed off again.
A loud thump woke Anuj up. The cab had bounced on a pothole. He looked at the watch. He had been
in the cab for twenty minutes. He checked his app for location and ETA.
With great alarm, he noted that the location of the cab was off-track from the route his map showed.
“Where are you going? This is not the route,” he told the driver, now both confused and angry.
“I am going as per the directions of the map, sir. See!” the driver said and pointed at the map on the
phone attached to the mobile holder on the dashboard.
He was right. His device showed that the cab was on the correct route. Anuj checked his app again,
but it still clearly showed that they were off-track by a couple of kilometres at least. The driver must
have manipulated the location when I was sleeping, Anuj told himself. It’s his way to get back at me
for shouting at him at the airport . Sternly, he instructed the driver, “Listen, we will go as per my
route. Take a right at the next turning and go as I tell you.”
The driver gave him a nasty look in the rear-view mirror and took the next right. He navigated as
Anuj instructed. Seven minutes later, Anuj’s app announced that they had arrived at the destination.
The driver’s map still showed a different route.
Anuj smiled at his smartness and commended himself for not going by the driver’s map. “Only
because I am not from Mumbai, you thought you could take me for a ride,” Anuj said under his breath
as his paid the driver.
The driver was too pissed off by now to respond. He sped off as soon as Anuj stepped out of the cab.
***
The property matched the pictures shown on the website—a navy-blue four-story building with an
unpretentious front elevation, looking like a typical economy hotel in Mumbai. Lights were out in all
the rooms and curtains were drawn. Anuj stepped inside and found it odd that there was no doorman.
He blamed the late hour rather than the hotel for this oversight. The reception area was standard and
modest—a cheap vase with artificial flowers, some torn newspapers, and magazines on the table
between a couple of battered three-seater sofas. The light blue paint on the walls was chipped off in
places and cobwebs had claimed the corners authoritatively. A dustbin in the corner was almost full
and had spit stains all over it.
Anuj cursed himself for having made the full advance payment. He saw a stairway in the corner. The
light there flickered, making it look like a creepy den ready to gobble up anything that enters it. Next
to the stairway was the elevator. The wall beyond the reception desk adorned the mandatory notices
about check-in/check-out timings, no refund policy, CCTV cameras, and such.
Anuj leaned on the reception desk which reached up to his chest and looked around to see if anyone
was around. There was a feedback book on the desk, which had a thin layer of dust and a cheap ball
pen dangling from a thread. A tiny cockroach had found its way into the feedback book. Anuj raised a
hand to swat the pest when a man suddenly appeared from behind the desk and made him jump.
“Good evening, sir! Welcome to the Comfort Inn. What can I do for you?” the man said in a flat but
polite tone.
He might have been around 30-35 years of age but his balding head made him look much older. He
was dark-complexioned and wore spectacles with thick glasses. He had a nervous look on his face
but tried to hide it with a fake smile plastered on it. He didn’t appear to be very smart but had a look
that may have attracted sympathy from those who looked at him. He wore a blue suit that needed an
urgent visit to the dry-cleaners and a badge that red ‘Hubert Desena – Reception’.
Anuj composed himself and told the man about his booking.
Hubert took a couple of minutes to check on his computer while Anuj waited impatiently. Then he
confirmed that they had received his booking.
“Sanju Kaka!” he shouted suddenly, startling Anuj out of his wits once again. An old man appeared
from a door behind the Reception counter. He was in a maroon uniform with a badge ‘Sanju’ dangling
sideways on his breast-pocket. He was in his late fifties and looked like he had never been younger.
Unkempt hair, a thin greying moustache, and a mole on his right cheek made him look like a villain
from a Bollywood movie. He yawned unabashedly as he stood there scratching his head.
“Escort sir to 313,” Hubert instructed Sanju Kaka sternly and handed over a key to him.
Sanju Kaka, on the other hand made no attempts to hide his irritation at being woken up at this odd
hour.
“He will take you to your room, sir. I hope you have a pleasant stay!” Hubert gave Anuj the same
plastic smile that might have extracted a sarcastic remark from him on any other day, but he was too
tired to respond today. He followed Sanju Kaka silently into the elevator that would take him to the
third floor and to the room number 313.
***
Room 313.
The key had to be wriggled a couple of times before it gave way and the door opened.
Sanju Kaka inserted the magnetic tag into its holder near the door and the lights came on. “Your room,
sir. Dial 9 for reception, 6 for housekeeping, and 3 for room service,” he said pointing to the room
and then to the black phone instrument.
“What should I dial for comfort?” Anuj said with a sarcastic smirk.
But the humour was lost on Sanju Kaka as his kept looking at Anuj with the same blank expression.
He wished Anuj a good night and closed the door with a bang on his way out. Anuj thought it was
intentional.
The room was small but functional. The furniture was minimal. A single bed lay in the corner of the
room facing a small flat screen TV. A small window on the wall behind the bed had faded light-blue
curtains to match the color on the walls. A small single-door cupboard stood in the other corner. The
bathroom was near the door. Anuj took a look at the room and sighed thankfully. It was comfortable
enough to spend a couple of nights. He freshened up and changed into his shorts and T-shirt. He
gulped from the complimentary water bottle and slid the curtain slightly to look out. The street was
deserted with only stray dogs lurking around. Anuj put a 6 a.m. alarm and slid into the bed. He started
thinking about the next day’s meeting and fell asleep in just a few moments.
***
A loud banging on the door startled Anuj.
He took a moment to grasp his surroundings and the fact that somebody was pounding on his door.
The watch showed 3:30 a.m. He sat up in his bed and shouted, “Who is it?”
The banging stopped but nobody responded. The lights were out in the room, but Anuj could see
somebody moving across the well-lit corridor from the slit beneath the door.
More banging. Louder this time.
Anuj walked towards the door angrily but hesitated to open the door. He stuck his ear to the door to
listen closely. He called out again, “Who is it?”
No response.
But he heard someone walking up and down the corridor, panting loudly. He checked the latch on the
door and came back to his bed. He picked up the phone and dialled 9 for reception. A man,
presumably Hubert, picked up the call and Anuj shot at him immediately, “What the hell is going on
here? Somebody is banging on my door.”
There was a long pause at the other end.
Anuj thought he heard someone breathing heavily. He was about to shout again when Hubert said,
“That bastard is doing it again. Sorry, sir. There is a crazy man in the area who gets into our hotel
once in a while and bangs on the doors. He has not harmed anyone so far, sir, but please do not open
the door. I will send somebody to check right now. Very sorry, sir!”
Anuj was too stunned to respond. As he placed the receiver back, he heard Hubert calling out to
Sanju Kaka to go upstairs and check.
There was no way he could sleep anymore. He perched up on the bed and pulled up the sheets. He
stretched his hand to switch the lights on but changed his mind. He switched the TV on instead but put
in on mute. A random Hindi movie was playing, but Anuj hardly noticed anything on the screen. His
eyes were glued to the door and the lights sweeping in from the corridor.
There was no movement for the next fifteen minutes. Then, he heard the elevator stop at his floor. He
waited.
Travel and tiredness made Anuj doze off once again. The banging startled him again. This time, he
was more frightened than irritated. He looked at the door but didn’t move. Then just as suddenly as it
had started, the banging stopped.
But he could see a shadow…
Somebody had begun to scratch on the door. Slow, deliberate scratching. He got off the bed and
moved toward the door very slowly. The scratching was now accompanied by moaning. He moved
closer to the door.
“Help me!” came a voice from the other side of the door.
Anuj almost toppled over backward in shock. Then, gathering himself once again, he came closer and
softly put his ear to the door.
“Please help me!”
A man’s voice. There was definitely somebody outside. And he was in pain.
“Who is it?” Anuj asked with his hand on the doorknob. He was contemplating opening the door but
he thought of Hubert’s advice.
“Open the door. He will kill me. Help me!” The voice was getting thinner. The man was definitely in
pain and needed help.
‘Is it Sanju Kaka? He had come up here to check. Did that crazy man attack him?’ A barrage of
thoughts came to Anuj’s mind. He made up his mind to open the door. But then he suddenly turned and
ran to the phone. He dialled 9 for reception and waited. No answer. He dialled 6 for housekeeping.
No answer. 3 for room service. No answer. “What’s going on here?” he said out loud.
The man outside continued the knocking on the door, but the knocks were getting weaker. He kept on
mumbling, “Help me!”
** *
4:00 a.m.
“Please… hellppp…”
The voice faded away as the knocks died down. But Anuj couldn’t let the man die out there. Also, he
hadn’t heard anybody else out there. ‘That crazy man must have ran away after attacking Sanju
Kaka!’ Anuj went up to open the door. He looked around for something he could use as a weapon but
all he could find was a hanger in the cupboard. He held the hanger like a hammer and opened the door
mustering all the courage he had.
The corridor was empty. He looked left and right. Nobody. And then he noticed. Blood splattered
across his door and on the carpet in the hallway. There were marks of something that had been
dragged away from his door to the last room across the corridor. Anuj moved ahead slowly and
cautiously with his hanger held up for defense. All other rooms looked unoccupied. He reached the
last room and touched the door gently. The door wasn’t locked. The drag marks could be seen going
inside the room.
‘Did Sanju Kaka drag himself here to call for help from the phone? I should have opened the door
earlier .’ Anuj admonished himself for being such as coward.
He pushed open the door slowly and peeked inside. The room wasn’t lit but he could see some light
from the street lamps peeking in through the half open window. Anuj realized that he would have to
step inside to get a better look.
He called out, “Sanju kaka… are you here?” and took a step inside.
What he saw inside blew his mind.
A man, badly injured, lay on the floor. Hubert and two other men were standing over him. Anuj
couldn’t see the injured man’s face initially. But he then turned over. He wasn’t Sanju Kaka.
It was him!
Anuj lost his abilities of comprehension. He felt his brains would explode. The sights of himself lying
there on the floor, bloodied, with three men standing over him hit him with the impact of a battering
ram.
He collapsed. He kept staring at his own face streaked in blood and he felt his insides churning. No,
this wasn’t a dream. It had outlived that possibility a while ago.
One of the men was Sanju Kaka. Their eyes were bloodshot and they were laced with the most
sinister look on their faces he had ever seen. Then, registering his presence, all three men turned at
once and looked at him standing at the door. But they didn’t seem to mind him. They just smiled at him
and Anuj could see that their teeth were mottled black.
They turned again to the Anuj lying on the floor. Their motions were slow and oddly in sync with each
other. Like this was some well-choreographed dance. Like a well-rehearsed mime. Like they had
done this so many times that it had attained a degree of sick perfection.
All three of them bent together and Anuj noticed te blood on their hands. Lots of it. Their uniforms
were torn and filthy. They picked up the Anuj lying on the floor and slowly carried him to a half open
window.
Anuj saw that his alter-ego’s left leg was bent at an unnatural angle from the knee. As it dangled, a
steady trickle of blood flowed from where the bones protruded. The Anuj they were carrying looked
at the Anuj standing in the room with an unsaid plea in his eyes. He was writhing in pain. But Anuj
was glued to his place.
The men carried the injured Anuj to the window. The third unnamed man pushed the half-open
window. All of them turned again to look at standing Anuj, their faces turning with the same sickly
expression on them like three turning doll-heads. The smiles stayed as sinisterly expressionless as
they had been throughout, and then without the slightest flicker in their eyes, they threw the injured
Anuj out of the window.
That unshook Anuj from his trance. Screaming in agony as if he himself had been thrown, he ran to the
window immediately.
But he could do nothing as he saw himself falling down from the third floor onto the concrete
pavement .
And then hitting it with a sick splat.
***
8:30 a.m.
A persistent ring on the mobile woke Anuj up. He picked up the phone groggily and saw Rashmi’s
number flashing on the screen. Still struggling to open his sleepy eyes, he took the call.
“Where are you, Anuj? Haven’t you reached the client’s office? You are not even answering their
calls?” Rashmi threw in one question after the other.
He was now wide awake and utterly confused. Rashmi went on asking him questions. He told Rashmi
that he would call the client back right then and reach his office in 10 minutes. He lied about being
stuck in the traffic, an excuse that sounds most plausible in Mumbai.
“Don’t mess this up, Anuj. Boss is closely monitoring this deal,” Rashmi shot at him before ending
the call.
Anuj sat up straight in his bed and tried to think about the last night. ‘That was one hell of a
dream!’— he thought to himself. He looked at the watch and realized that he was really very late. He
would have to skip breakfast and still wouldn’t be able to reach on time. He went into the bathroom
for a quick shower.
He also decided that he would check out from the hotel right then and wait at the airport for his latenight
flight back to Indore. The dream was too creepy. He didn’t want to spend another night there.
Anuj got ready in the next 10 minutes and went to the reception. But there was another man instead of
Hubert at the reception, who looked strikingly similar to the third man from his dream. Anuj brushed
that thought aside quickly. All he had to do was check out from this goddamned place.
In as few words as he could, Anuj informed the receptionist that he would be checking out. No, it did
not matter that he had a booking for two nights. Yes, their hospitality was great, thank you.
The man at the reception tried to convince him to stay back but Anuj refused every insistent argument
and stepped out. He had already booked a cab on his app. He decided to wait for it outside, not
wanting to stay in the hotel a moment longer.
The place had livened up with the usual morning activities of an urban city. Rickshaws, buses, and
cabs were ferrying passengers to their offices and other destinations. People were briskly walking up
and down the streets, their minds full of purpose. Roadside hawkers and shops were gearing up for
another day of business.
Anuj waited patiently. He let the thoughts of last night be taken over by the thoughts of the impending
meeting.
Then, his trance was broken by a call.
Anuj fished out the phone to see who was calling but glare of the morning sun made it difficult for him
to read the screen. He turned around and tried to use his palm to block the sun. It was an unknown
number. He took it, expecting it to be from the client’s office.
“Good morning, sir. I am calling from traveldost.com. You had made a hotel booking with us
yesterday,” a girl on the other end said.
Anuj answered in affirmation.
“Sir, we see that you have travelled to Mumbai on the booked ticket but you did not check into the
hotel. We wanted to understand if there is something wrong at our end.”
Anuj did a doubletake right there on the street. “What do you mean? I checked into the hotel and
stayed there last night. I just checked out. Check your records, madam.”
There was an uneasy pause. Then, the girl said, “Sir, I checked again. The hotel has confirmed a ‘no
show’. You didn’t check into this hotel.”
Now, Anuj lost his cool. “Madam, I am still standing right in front of your hotel. It is near Safed Pool
in Sakinaka.”
There was a long pause at the other end this time.
“Sir, the property at Safed Pool was closed down two years ago. We had sent you the address of the
new property,” the girl said, her voice sounding strangely mechanical.
“What nonsense! Let me send you a picture of it right away!” He turned around to face the hotel.
That was when the ground beneath his feet slid away.
There was no Hotel Comfort Inn. All he could see were the ruins of a building on a deserted plot.
Anuj’s mouth fell open. He looked around and ran to a hawker who was arranging his items on his
cart. “What happened to the hotel that was here? Where did it go? It was right here just now, wasn’t
it?” he asked the visibly irritated hawker.
“Are you drunk at this hour? The hotel closed down two years ago after that man jumped from the
third floor. Dreaming with your eyes open or what?” With that, the man sniggered at Anuj and got
back to this work.
Anuj looked back at the ruins of the hotel. He needed to sit to avoid fainting from the shock and also
to comfort the sharp pain rising in his left knee. A beep on the mobile brought him back to his senses.
It was a message from Hotel Comfort Inn.
“We hope you had a comfortable stay. Your comfort is paramount.”
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