The Impossible club. - An Illusion


                                    The impossible club- An Illusion.
If you had not heard about the “Impossible” club then  it is not surprising. Only a handful know  about its existence and very few are its members. The members are by invitation only and that too after lot of scrutiny.
 of course ... I am a member.
This club meets once in a month in a farm house at the outskirts of Pune and Drinks and food are  unlimited and staying arrangement is equal to any five star hotel.
After the usual rounds of drinks the meeting starts at 7.30 in the evening and may continue till late at night and the whole day next morning with breaks for food and further drinks.
  The purpose of the club is to identify the stories which seem impossible on the face of it and try to find logical explanation for the event.  It is not necessary that the event should have taken place in the member’s own life but he should know it from his own reliable source and should not be an imaginary event. These are the basic rules of the club.
We keep a detailed note of the events narrated by members and depending on the degree of impossibility of the logical explanation a grading is given to it. The five star events are almost impossible to explain and one star event may have some logical explanation.
The event that I narrated and was given a five star rating happened in my life some 5 years back and I was reluctant to narrate it for I feared the members may think  that it is imaginary. However on one evening when there was no other event to be narrated by any member and as everybody felt that we may have to wind up our meeting early, I decided to venture narrating this “impossible” event.
Fortunately all the evidence in the form of a video was on my blackberry and the photo I always carry with me.
But let me commence at the beginning.
I had recently retired from army as a colonel and was enjoying my retired life. I had made a list of things which I wanted to do but could not do so for whatever reasons and was doing those things one by one. When I was in primary school, my father was posted as an assistant station master in a small village on the railway line from Pune to Miraj. The railway station was called Bhavaninagar and it  was very close to a city called Karad. One day our school picnic was taken to a small Shiva temple. It was a very beautiful spot and with lot of banniyan trees around and with a small beautiful well nearby ..The temple was itched in my mind. I remembered going into the temple and finding its cool and silent interior inviting at the same time the darkness slightly alarming to a small 10 year boy.
Soon after our family moved to Miraj and then to Pune.  I however never forgot that temple and whenever  I passed through that small Bhavaninagar station I would wow to myself that one day I will visit the temple again. That day came after my retirement from army and one fine morning I found myself getting down at the familiar railway station from a passenger train from Pune.
The station looked almost the same as I remembered it from my childhood days, as if the time has stopped for that station.  The platform had the same deserted look and all the trees  at the side of the platform looked the same. I wondered why they did not age like me. But they must have. I looked at the trees, who were my friends from childhood and especially that big banyan tree in front of the Railway Quarters in which we used to stay. I walked towards it. It had definitely grown more branches and its roots had spread far more that I remembered. But then I had also grown old, I thought. I wanted to sit under the tree for some time and feel the presence of my childhood friend. So I went and sat under the tree. Its shade was as comforting as I remembered. I remembered my few friends who used to play with me on that tree. I wondered where they are and what they are doing. I had no means of knowing.
After some time I reluctantly got up and went looking for the road which I knew takes you the village from station. There were two three rickshaws standing waiting for customers. Looking at me one rickshawalla came forward and asked me,
“Come with me, sir where do you want to go?”
“There used to be a Shiva temple near the road which takes you to a town called Takari. That used to be on left side of the road, some four five kilometers from here. Is it still there? I want to go there.”I asked him. His name turned out to be Bhagwan. He said,
“ Yes ,an old temple is still there. I can take you there for Rs. 50/- “he said.




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Comments

  1. Very nicely written. I also remembered the good old days when we had come to Bhavani nagar. We were kids then. Later on, when I was in Zonal Office, SBI, Pune, Bhavaninagar branch was under control. And I visited the branch for some premises problems.
    Nice to remember the good old days.

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  2. Nice story well told. Jayant Naik has been able to build the story gradually, brick by brick, to telling effect. He has brought to life the atmosphere in the western Maharashtra town/village town very well. From beginning you know something strange is going to happen and you go with the flow of the story.

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