Amballore House (25 page)

The scientists traveled far and wide in search of the legendary ax, including the Museum of Natural History in New York City, but their efforts were to no avail. Sadly, the only notable aftermath of the search turned out to be that one of the investigators got mugged in a New York City subway. The mugger did not steal any inflated rupees from the said scientist’s wallet; he was only interested in research material, which he promptly stole. Putting one and one together to make two, the press reporters claimed that the mugger was none other than an educated Malayalee. Who else would be interested in Ancient Kerala?

These hardworking scientists ultimately managed to fulfill their dream. Finding the ax at a distal location, in fact at a considerably farther location from the shore than anticipated, was what these scientists did. The weapon of land acquisition was buried just under the seabed, and its discovery marked an important milestone in Kerala history.

The Amballore
Times
reported the following:

Scientists from Amballore University unraveled the mystery surrounding the missing ax. The ax, purportedly lying in the seabed off Kerala’s coast, was nowhere to be found near the shore during the “search and retrieve” operation. This discouraging development was followed by a long period of research and conjecture. The persistence of these scientists finally paid off when they discovered the ax in the ocean
bed.

They did not discover the legendary ax at the shore. Instead, they found that Parasuraman’s weapon was buried in the seabed far outside the anticipated range, giving credence to the belief that the ax ricocheted to a location farther downstream. The weapon did something similar to skipping a rock on water. The god Parasuraman accomplished the superhuman task, no surprise there, of skipping an ax on the water’s surface and consequently retrieved a wider swath of land than originally estimated. He is hereby confirmed as a skilled cricket player who could control his throw expertly to optimize ball range.

As ill luck would have it, most of the land acquired during ax’s second lap flyover was engulfed by sea subsequently. This was caused by a gigantic tsunami that rocked Kerala’s coast during ancient times, and therefore records are unavailable to substantiate this historic event. There is, however, evidence of lost civilization in the seabed off Kerala’s coast, thereby providing corroboration to the ax’s ricochet to a downstream location.

The department did a computer simulation of where Parasuraman stood on the Western Ghats on that historic day when he created Kerala, the superhuman force that he used to throw the ax, and the unique angle he made the ax to describe in order for it to reach the ocean and then ricochet downstream. The computer spit out the range by doing kinematics calculations. A forty-five-degree throw angle for the first lap parabola and the second lap parabola ensured the maximum possible travel range.

They sent a submarine to the calculated location, and voila, there it was—the long-missing ax, just under the seabed, rusted and resting in peace!

3
HELL’S HIGHWAY AND AMBALLORE HOUSE

There was a secluded compound in a settlement in the eastern outskirts of Amballore, a few miles east of the main thoroughfare, which was named National Highway 47, with an abbreviation NH-47. The gravel road to this property from NH-47 was known as Hell’s Highway, for reasons both mysterious and scary. It did not resemble a highway in the loosest sense of the term. It was anything but a highway. It was a wide mud track littered with rocks, tiles, and any trash that passersby threw out generously.

Hell’s Highway was extremely inhospitable, with potholes that one could spend a lifetime counting. When the monsoon rain came to Kerala like an annual unwelcome guest, the potholes transformed into innumerable puddles resembling tiny ponds that wandering ducks used as swimming pools.

The road was dangerous and out of this world, so much so that prospective travelers would have wished they had known of the devastating consequences before undertaking a passage through it. As if the noncommutable road did not give free rein to the imagination, the scenes on its sides appeared to have been taken right out of an eerie movie that Lucifer played in hell daily.

Hell’s Highway ended in a cul-de-sac. The one and only building greeting visitors at the road’s end was the imposing Amballore House. The property was estimated to be five acres in total. It was more of a mansion than a simple house.

Amballore House was haunted, so the people believed.

This extraordinary nature of the highway and the scenes along its path merit description that one needs to be aware of as a prelude to opening the gates of the mansion and seeing what lay inside.

A traveler with smart eyes to spot things vividly would register a number of interesting sights on his way along Hell’s Highway. One could not help noticing an old tile factory built during the British
rule. This building was taken over later on by a drug dealer of the name Samuel Soman, nicknamed Sam-Som. He named it Sam-Som’s Entertainment Center.

This was followed by a mental asylum and Amballore Prison. Judas Toddy Club was next in line. The famous Amballore Court was housed there. Also, the Amballore Investigation Bureau had its distinguished multistory headquarters there. In addition, there were countless residential and commercial properties on either side of the highway. One remarkable building located close to Amballore House was an orphanage called Home for Homeless.

These highlights were interspersed with paddy fields, mango groves, and untamed forest. The wilderness was the abandoned child of the Kerala Forestry Department. It was usual to see wild animals loose in the outgrowth of wilderness. The forest hosted jackals, coyotes, gray wolves, tigers, monkeys, wild geese, and elephants.

The pauper’s graveyard by the side of Hell’s Highway was once a paddy field. A whole new burial ground evolved from the paddy field, and it was used to bury people caught in the crossfire between the warring drug lords of Sam-Som’s Entertainment Center. Also buried were the customers butchered by pimps of the prostitution ring for not paying up their dues. It included bodies from the black magic altar of the demigod temple. Last but not least, it hosted those who could not afford a plot in the cemetery of Saint Joseph’s Church.

Across from the mental asylum was an abandoned temple, with a sizable pond in its compound. The temple had stopped its regular worship and other festivities a long time ago. It was now used as a sanctuary of star-crossed lovers and a worship center of the demigods. Once upon a time, it was a famous temple, and it was now abused to host black magic and animal/human sacrifices.

Once upon a time, the now-abandoned temple had been well known, attracting devotees from across Kerala. The main deity of the temple was the Kodungallore goddess. She was somewhat related to the goddess Kali through their common passion for
animal sacrifice. Even now, in spite of the fact that the temple was abandoned, some hard-core devotees assembled there to conduct worship, invoking the demons of the underworld. The goddess Kali was hailed, and animals like chickens and goats were sacrificed to please her.

The worship performed for the demigods sacrificed people abducted by the prostitution and drug ring of Sam-Som’s entertainment center. It was rumored that the temple was just a cover for killing Sam-Som’s rival gangs.

The temple was reputed to be inhabited by apsara virgins at night. They descended upon the temple at midnight. These legendary creatures were like mermaids, and they came right out of the pages of Indian mythology. Even though they assumed fishlike properties out in the ocean, swimming easily miles on end, they transformed into beautiful teenage virgins while on land, with mystical powers to boot. Needless to say, they drew innumerable men to them, men desperate for romance with a heavenly virgin, whatever that meant. They were also considered skillful enough to entice unsuspecting men to them, cleverly leading them to their dooms. However, wise men and women kept away from this area for their own good.

The temple was set amid a thick growth of ezhilam paala trees, alternately known as Indian devil trees. These trees hosted yakshis, also known as nymphs who are female spirits, symbols of fertility. Needless to say, the abandoned temple and its multifarious mystical elements were mired in mysteries.

The apsaras performed their mesmerizing dance past midnight to the tunes of celestial music played by Gandharvans hailing from Indra’s Court. Lord Indra was the god of rain and thunderstorms. He wielded a lightning thunderbolt and rode on a white elephant.

When the apsaras arrived at night to perform their dance, paarijatham flowers bloomed and spread their irresistible fragrance into the night air. As legend goes, paarijatham flowers hail from Indra’s world and are named after Princess Paarijathaka. She fell in love with the sun god, but her romance was rebuffed, and she committed suicide. From her ashes were born the paarijatham trees
that refused to bloom in the daylight to avoid seeing the sun. Instead, they bloomed at night, symbolizing the sadness of a failed romance.

The Romeos and Juliets of the lovers’ cult flocked to the abandoned temple at midnight to witness the blooming of the paarijatham flower. The cult had a huge number of followers. The temple was where they worshipped the god of everlasting love. The blooming paarijatham was the sanctum sanctorum where their pilgrimage led to; it was the shrine they came to worship at with undying adulation. The divine dance of the apsaras and the magical music of the Gandharvans welcomed the lovers to a world of unforgettable bliss.

The cult members, at end of their pilgrimage, were led to the temple pond by yakshis. They fell into the pond to meet their untimely ends. It was also said that the lovers willingly walked to the pond and drowned, having fulfilled their lifelong dream of witnessing the blooming paarijatham.

Even after the apsara nymphs finished their dance, the sad story of the paarijatham flowers continued to be narrated by silence of the night, a silence only mildly marred by the occasional hooting of owls, the hissing of winds, and the singing of nocturnal birds.

***

These sights of Amballore, some of them nothing but eyesores, made the town famous and notorious at the same time. These negative elements stood out and greeted an accidental tourist like a sore thumb. People avoided Hell’s Highway and its surroundings at any cost. The rumor had it that those who adventured to explore this road ended up disappearing, falling into the pond, hanging from the steel beams of the tile factory, or being sacrificed at the altar of black magic.

It took a superhuman traveler to be able to traverse the entire length of Hell’s Highway with impenetrable equanimity. Even that superhuman would falter at the steps of Amballore House, because the mysteries it held were far more chilling. There were things present in the mansion that even the most imaginative minds could
not fathom.

Even Orpheus, who traveled to Hades’ underworld in search of his dead wife, charming the damned entities on the way, could not have traveled Hell’s Highway and survived to be able to see Amballore House, which was shrouded in even deeper mysteries.

***

Amballore House resisted attempts from real estate brokers to sell it, partly because only a few knew of its existence and mostly because some horrendous events surrounded the aftermath of the rare sales it eked out. Even though it was a beautiful piece of land blessed with blinding greenery and a plentiful growth of jackfruit trees and a separate mango grove, it remained unsold. The abundant crop of plantain bananas resembled a feast that gods would love to come and eat to celebrate Onam.

A few years ago, the property finally got sold just like that, like in a magic trick. The new owners of the property were a young couple on their honeymoon. They loved the beautiful estate and fell in love with it so much that they did not think twice before submitting an offer of purchase. Their decision was an easy one also because the price was very reasonable—in fact, below the market price.

The bridegroom belonged to a prominent family who owned tile factories in and around Amballore. The bride belonged to a rich family in Amballore. Her dowry money and the groom’s inheritance loot put together tallied the realtor’s asking price of one crore rupees (ten million rupees), half of the appraised value!

Overtaken by desire to own the beautiful estate, the young couple did not inquire why the asking price was so low. Moreover, they did not have their own real estate agent to give badly needed advice; they made an offer of purchase directly to the seller’s agent. They made the offer on the spur of the moment. They did not want to wait, because they simply fell in love with the mansion!

They were totally unaware of the infamous stories told about Amballore House.

The seller’s agent handed them the key to the mansion and bid them
good-bye by evening of the sale transaction day. The couple moved into the property with budding dreams of starting their married life.

The night they moved in had a full moon. Looking at the mango grove awash in pristine moonlight witnessed by a thousand stars, they built a castle of dreams of starting a family filled with the echoing sounds of baby steps. That dream they built that night looking at the milky moonlight was the last dream they had in that house.

They disappeared that night. Some speculated that they died by jumping into the well in the property—on their honeymoon night, of all nights! Rumor spread that something about the estate triggered their panic-ridden race to death: something scary, something supernatural, and something so extraordinarily compelling that they were prepared to do away with their tantalizing dreams in favor of running into death’s arms.

This conjecture, however, could not be substantiated, since their bodies could not be found. Some theorized that the couple ran away from the mansion that night for some odd reason.

The real estate broker was the last person who saw them alive. The succeeding investigation threw no light on how the young couple ended up disappearing. The tragedy was named the “Honeymooners’ Disappearance.”