A BROWN door invited me as I, Salim Qureshi, entered Room 41. This was the first time I had left Karachi for India to study. However, ever since entering the portals of this university, I had a feeling that I had been here before.
The caretaker of Valmiki Hostel had initially refused to allot me Room 41, ostensibly because it served as a store room. But I knew the real reason for such a refusal. A student had committed suicide by hanging himself from the ceiling fan. Since then, residents had believed that
the room was haunted.
What could I have done? Every other room was full. For a first-timer, finding accommodation in an alien country is expensive and difficult. Warnings notwithstanding, I persuaded the Foreign Student’s Association to get our caretaker allot me the dreaded Room 41.
For a moment I was overjoyed. Finally I got a room all to myself and no roommate. Obviously, no one would dare to stay here. What if the rumours were true? I suddenly had a creepy feeling but it passed.
Late at night, I stretched myself, Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata playing on the laptop. I was almost dozing off, when strange noises filtered in. The colour of the room had changed to a hazy violet-pink. The music was a requiem. Strange voices trying to say something. I pinched myself. I was awake all right.
He crossed me from behind, stark naked, and climbed a chair. One end of a rope was coiled around his neck and the other was tied to a ceiling fan. I knew him. I sure knew his face. He was someone close, someone I knew best. I wasn’t scared. How could I be? That was Salim.
He looked at me with tear-filled eyes. He wore a straight face. His lips trembled, but no sound came off it. The music… The voices… The smell… I couldn’t take it anymore.
The next morning the newspapers read, “An MA student committed suicide by hanging himself from a ceiling fan. Sources say that there had been a similar case of suicide 24 years back, on the same day, and in the same room. The police saw a striking similarity in both the cases. The student hails from Karachi, and is survived by his parents. His name is Salim Qureshi.”
