Raindrops descending in a never-ending stream flickered as glowworms in the narrow corridor of light carved by the jeep’s headlights. Thunder rent the air as intermittent streaks of lightening, jutting across the sky like silver spider legs, illuminated the gloomy landscape in brief flashes before pitch darkness cast its thick veil once again. It was a nasty time to be out of one’s house and definitely not the time to be driving on a road meandering through a dense jungle, but here I was doing just that.

   It hadn’t been raining in the evening, when I started from Bombay for the Khandala tea estate, where I work as manager. It had been cloudy though. In fact, I had been advised by acquaintances to postpone the journey till morning. I had ignored their advice thinking that with some deft driving I could make it to the tea estate, around 200 kms away, before it started raining. Now that it was pouring cats and dogs and I had covered less than half the distance, I cursed myself for not choosing to spend the night at Bombay. 

   Drops pitter-pattering on the jeep’s roof and hood contrived sounds eerily reminiscent of beating drums, played by the local tribals. Having lived in this area for so long I was conversant with the tribal belief that beating drums in a particular melody kept evil spirits at bay. The thought of evil spirits led me led me to reminisce the terrible incident that had transpired about a year back - an officer of the tea estate had departed for Bombay at night in his jeep. He never made it to his destination. Next day some truckers found his jeep parked in the middle of the road and his body lying beside it. There were strange bite wounds on his body. Police detectives attributed his death to wild animals. They conjectured that for some reason the officer had stopped his vehicle and stepped out, giving wild animals lurking nearby a chance to attack and kill him. The tribals had a different theory. They believed that the officer had been done to death by a vampire.

   In the atmosphere of darkness and gloom it was easy for the tribal notion to catch hold of my imagination. My mind got fixated on the subject of vampires, and momentarily I was disconcerted with fear, though I recovered quickly to remind myself that vampires are a dim-witted superstition. One problem of driving in pouring rain was that humidity tended to fog the inner surface of the windshield turning its glass almost opaque. Every now and then I had to wipe the windshield. God knows, I was in a desperate hurry to reach my destination but in this weather driving fast wasn’t an option, if the jeep went off road and struck some boulder or tree or fell into a ditch, I could risk being stuck in the forest for many hours. I might become a sitting target for wild animals or even of the vampires. Who knows vampires may exist after all!

A heavy streak of lightening rippling through the sky spread its white glow and in a flash I saw something, or was it someone, perched on a roadside rock few meters away. The flash was too brief for me to make out what exactly it was that lay perched on the rock. Maybe it was a roadside sculpture or a piece of wood or rock that had taken contours of a human body. By now the jeep had crawled closer to that rock, under its headlights I confirmed the first impression of my eyes. It was indeed a human being sitting on the rock and that human being was a lady.

It struck me that she might be a brigand. Her associates could be hiding behind the trees waiting for me to stop so that they may pull me out of the jeep and deprive me of my possessions and in all probability of my life as well. I thought that I should make a bolt for it, but the idea that the lady was a real beauty overwhelmed me and throwing caution to winds, I lingered. She had the most bewitching features that I have ever come across in my real life or in dreams. Wet locks of thick black hair flowed down her shoulders, and onto the dress that clung to her body extenuating every curve in its elegant shape. Her patrician nose and her mouth, small and delicate, glowing as if embossed in light red lipstick, went in one harmonious whole with the rest of her and made me think that while sculpting her nature had not erred over a smallest line.

Most captivating was the aura of mystery around her; the dark glasses on her eyes strangely exemplified the mystery in her demeanor. On a rainy night anyone donning dark glasses would be considered outlandish. But I was too enamored of her beauty to dwell on one trivial idiosyncrasy in her attire. There was no way a woman as beautiful as she could be brigand, I told myself hastily. Moreover, my mind brimmed with curiosity. I had to know who she was. And how she got stuck in middle of nowhere? All sorts of possibilities flashed through my mind. Maybe her vehicle had got stuck on the road or met with an accident and she was waiting for any passing vehicle to get a lift. But if that was the case then where was her vehicle, it wasn’t parked anywhere nearby.

I stopped the jeep next to her and rolled down the window. A sudden wind caught me full in the face, my hair stood up and my eyes were forced closed. An instant only it took before my eyes flickered open and I was gazing at her beautiful form. Light diffusing from the vehicle’s headlight planted a surreal silver glow to her face and body and to me she looked like an angel from heaven. I said, “You need help lady.” She raised her head, and gazing at me through her thick eyeglasses, she said, “Can I come with you?” Her voice little above a whisper sounded well modulated to me.

“Of course,” I said quickly and opened the jeep door on her side. Without another word, she rose in a leisurely sort of way and stepping into the jeep, she sat down beside me on the front seat. From head to toe she was dripping with water. On the backseat I had a towel, which I gave to her, saying, “You can use this to dry yourself.”

“I don’t mind being wet,” she answered looking ahead through the windshield.

“You may catch cold,” I said, proffering the towel.

“I don’t mind being wet,” she intoned.

Returning the towel to the backseat, I quietly started the jeep. Her presence weighed heavy on my mind and from time to time, through the corner of my eye, I would cast furtive glances at her. So beautiful and yet so mysterious, my co-passenger was turning out to be a proverbial riddle wrapped in an enigma. I could only wonder what mindset inspired her outlandish demeanor.

Around her neck she wore a necklace from which dropped a brilliant gold pendant, fashioned in the queer shape of two snakes coiling around each other. I hadn’t seen such a pendant before. I wondered what could be the significance of the two snakes in dense embrace. My mind was agog with myriad curiosities, which only she could quench. I began by asking, “Was your vehicle involved in an accident?”

“I wasn’t in a vehicle.”

“How did you get here, if not through a vehicle?”

“I like taking long walks.”

It was unbelievable that anyone could like taking long walks in pitch-dark jungle when it was raining so torrentially. But awed by her beauty, I refrained from voicing my real feelings. “Where do you live?” I asked.

“A little distance down this road, I will tell you when the place comes.”

“You live in this forest?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t look like a forest dweller.”

“But that is what I am,” she said pithily.

Did she own a small bungalow or cottage tucked away in some corner of this forest, I asked myself. The idea was plausible. What a queer fish she was turning out to be! Living in an unconventional environment as this forest! “I hope you don’t take my questions as a prying attitude,” I said. “But I was wondering, why you don those dark glasses?”

“I always wear dark glasses.”

“Even when it is night?”

“I seldom take them off.”

I waited for an explanation, but she didn’t care to elaborate. I tentatively prodded, “Any particular reasons?”

“Glasses make me feel comfortable.”

That made no sense to me, but not much about her did. “That is a lovely necklace you are wearing,” I said. “The figure of two snakes coiling around each other in the pendant - does it derive its shape from some special significance?”

“The figure isn’t of two snakes. It is two S’s intertwining in a flowery design.”  

“The two S’s stand for your initials, right,” I said, hoping she would disclose her name.

“They stand for Swati Sinha.”

“That is your name.”

“The necklace belongs to a woman called Swati Sinha,” mysteriously she said.

“Who is she?” I asked on an impulse.

“She was the attractive wife of a wealthy businessman. A true nature lover, she preferred to live in the natural environment of a forest rather than in the hustle and bustle of civilization. Her husband, enamored by her beauty, had a house built for her in a small clearing in this forest. Near the forest house there was a picturesque lake, with water so clear that its shimmering surface reflected as a mirror. Everyday Swati would walk up to the lake and gaze for hours at her own reflection in the lake’s water. She was in love with her own beauty. One day as she peered into the lake’s waters, she noticed that her image showed dark glasses on her eyes. But she wasn’t wearing dark glasses. She brushed her hand against her eyes, and did not feel any glasses. But in the reflection the glasses were there. She blinked and looked again. The dark glasses were still there. She could not understand what was happening and struck by a numbing sense of fear she rushed back to the house and gazed into the mirror. She was relieved that in the mirror image there were no dark glasses enveloping her eyes. But she remained utterly confused as to what mysterious phenomenon had inveigled her at the lake. Maybe she had been hallucinating when she was at the lake. It was tiredness that bade me to notice something that just wasn’t there, she told herself. She went to bed and closed her eyes to all thought. In few minutes she was fast asleep. Next day she went to the lake again and peered into the water. To her horror the image shimmering on the waters surface was of a woman donning dark glasses on her eyes. All of a sudden she felt a presence behind her. She turned back with a start. She couldn’t see anyone, but an uncanny sixth sense told her that someone was there, very close to her, at touching distance. An unseen hand took her neck into a vice like grip. She tried to scream but no sound came from her throat. Slowly life was chocked out of her body and she fell down dead.”

I was horrified by the strange tale. While I was still wondering what my response should be to what I heard, the lady ejaculated, “I will get down here. My destination has come.”

I applied the brake and as I could not see any house in the vicinity - just thick trees and shrubs swaying under the wind and rain, I asked, “Where is your house?”

“Right there, you see that tree over there.”

Under jeep’s headlight was visible, a gnarled banyan tree, so old that many of its branches had formed new roots of their own. Its myriad leaves were painted in a surreal glow, and as they thrashed in the wind, the glow seemed to break and spread into an inky blackness. Was this tree really her home? Turning towards her, I found her gazing fixedly at the tree.

“The lake where Swati used to come is right behind that tree,” she murmured.

“Is her dead body still there beside the lake?” I uttered.

She turned to look at me. Her finger pointing at herself, she said, “This is the body.”

My blood curdled. I gazed in silent horror as she pulled the goggles off from her eyes. Her eyes were not beautiful, as I had imagined; they were missing. Two black holes filled with the impregnable opacity of an eternal darkness lurked where the eyes should have been. As a shattering explosion it came to me that I was in mortal danger. I wanted to get away from her before it was too late.  I tried to get the jeep going, but she lifted her right hand and placed it on the naked skin of my arm. Her palm, cold as death, had me chilled to the bone.

In a dull monotonous voice, she whispered, “Stay, till the sun dawns.” These words, as if imbued with soporific powers, had a bizarre effect on my senses and in no time I was more or less paralyzed. Only then did she remove her hand from my arm. Through the corner of my eye I saw her slither out of the jeep, and walk up to the banyan tree where she vanished into the dense catacombs of branches and roots, jutting skywards and into the ground. The notion was constantly in my mind, that I had to drive away, but I could hardly move a muscle or even think coherently.

Next day some truckers found me comatose behind the steering wheel, in my eyes, there was a dazed faraway look. Under their ministrations I regained control of my senses and stepped out of the jeep. The sun was shining brightly in the sky, but the ground was still wet, and every small depression in the ground was filled with water. Behind my jeep stretched an unending line stranded vehicles. It took my breath away when I found out how the traffic came to be at a standstill. About 100 Mts ahead the night’s rain had caused a massive landslide, washing away under a hammering flow of mud, stones and water about twenty kilometers of the road. Had I not stopped at the banyan tree, it could have been my fate to be buried under the tons of rubble. I looked at the banyan tree towering majestically few feet away, not at all foreboding under the harsh glare of the sun as it had been in the darkness of the night, and wondered who she was, the lady in the dark glasses, who intervened to save my life.