It is 2.00 a.m, an unearthly hour when regular folk are cozily tucked in bed getting their zzz's. But Nina being on a mission, waddled dazedly to her bathroom. A minute later she walked out, shaking her head in disbelief. Simply incredible!
The building she lived in was inhabited by some rather uncivil, vile beings. The most irritating, abominable to outright scary noises traveled all through the common duct area into which all the washroom windows of the ten-storied building looked into. The sounds emanating from outside her loo window were on in a non-stop loop, 24x7. She'd actually taken the day off to test her theory.
The area of dispute, the duct, was a hollow shaft area that hid from public view the unsightly plumbing pipes. All you could see from outside was a decorative facade of intricate cement jali. This facade was a veritable perching treat for the vast number of pooping pigeons. If you thought performing your morning ablutions was a matter you took care of in the privacy and sanctity of your own bathroom, you were mistaken. It was like you were putting on a show for these feathered follies, who had premium balcony seats to the show.
The architect had to be complimented for yet another value addition to this duct design. The stereophonic sound effects, surround system like audio in the duct area were a breakthrough in design! Sounds were amplified to multiple levels in this zone, whether or not they were desirable!
Well, the pigeons were the lesser of worries now, Nina conceded. She'd learned to ignore their plaintive cries of encore and mute out their exuberant exclamations of violence (or copulation), while she carried out her jobs in the loo.
What worried her now was the other different noises that made an appearance whenever she visited the loo. Before you go dismissing them as the humdrum gut-related unmentionable noises, no, these were different.
She'd even questioned Nik, Neel and Varun on this. Somehow none of them had noticed such weirdness, as they called it.
The noises in question were definitely man-made, just not the regular kind. They were acts of passion, the passion of a performer on stage. At any given point of the day, one of these "performers" took to live stage performances in a seemingly random order. But Nina had observed some patterns. The incredible acoustics of the hollow duct area made the sounds boom, a definite morale booster for the performers.
She'd coined names for each of them to distinguish them from one another. She had in fact devoted entire lunch-breaks at work to draw up character analyses for each of these noise-pollutants.
So you had the,
Bashing Batoness: The one who believed in the punishing act of bludgeoning dirty laundry into submitting the dirt they'd accumulated with a mighty washing paddle or dhoka. Had to be a she, 'cos one could hear her sighs of contentment in between the heaves during the episodes of brutal bashing and sloshing and even occasional humming of Bollywood numbers. A lady with pent up emotions that were vented out through this somewhat unconventional method. On weekends, she favored the afternoon siesta hours.
Whiny Imp: There had to be more than one of these, Nina decided. After all, sustaining an hour long performance on all weekday mornings was no single child's play! This character went on a relentless wailing, moaning spree with occasional high pitched shrieks. Nina was sympathetic to the distress of young mortals being subjected to the rigors of early morning rituals to get them ready for the day long torture at school, but there was only so much patience that one could have.
Gargling Gargoyle: This was one character that could possibly have non-human origins, Nina thought miserably. This species had haunted her from as long back as she could remember. As a child traveling in the second-class Indian railway coach, she could remember being rudely awakened in the early morning by the crude, retching noises made by them. Like one was trying to bring up a hairball caught in the throat and gagging repeatedly. Most likely, the perpetrator favored the idea of disembowelment through the oral route. The gargling gargoyle had to be someone who OCD'd over his oral hygiene. Why else would he while away the hours of the day cleansing his oral cavity, gullet over everything else? Of the lot, he got Nina's goat the most! She'd even heard noises of a baby gargoyle in training, learning the ropes...and he seemed like a rather promising student!😢
Trumpeting Typhoon: Nina strongly suspected that the Gargling Gargoyle and the Trumpeting Typhoon could be split personalities of the same person. This one had to be OCD'ing over a clear nasal cavity or it could be someone with a perennially choked nose. His vociferous nose-clearing attempts resulted in a trumpeting so long and prolonged that it could put a pachyderm to shame.
On weekdays and holidays, the Bashing Batoness, Whiny Imp, Gargling Gargoyle and Trumpeting Typhoon preferred the early morning and late evening peak hours and interestingly, they were the most annoying. Smaller irritants like Tuneless Wonder, Radio-active Rebel and Work-from-Loo Loser took the in between shifts when the lead performers were busy elsewhere, she presumed.
Nina had assimilated all her observations and now her motto in life was to translate the findings to conclusive deductions on the perpetrators. She believed they were targeting her. What exactly they stood to gain by limiting her time in the loo, she hadn't still figured out but something sinister was definitely afoot. Was it just one resident or many who were a part of this plot, was yet another aspect she needed to crack. If only she could get hold of a Sherlock-like detective to assist her in sleuthing...
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Read other stories from Nina's World:
14. Home Shanti Home
Disclaimer: All the characters in the Nina's World series are fictional, any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental and unintentional.
Copyright © 2018 KALA RAVI