Jokher Dhan

The Skull in the Trunk

After grandfather died, we found a small box among the other things in his old trunk. Mother assumed something valuable must be inside and opened it eagerly — but all it contained was a worn pocket diary, and something wrapped in a dirty piece of cloth. The moment she unwrapped it and saw what it was, she let out a shriek and dropped it.

I rushed over. "What is it, what happened?"

Mother, still trembling, pointed toward the floor. "Pick that up and throw it away."

I looked — a human skull was lying on the floor. Puzzled, I said, "A skull in grandfather's trunk? Had the old man gone mad in his last years?"

"Just get rid of it," she said. "Don't touch it with bare hands."

I wrapped the skull in a rag and threw it into a ditch near the house. The pocket diary I placed on a shelf in the room. Mother locked the box back in the trunk.

A few days later, a neighbour named Mukherjee — whom grandfather had apparently despised in life, never once allowing him through the door — suddenly appeared at our house.

Mukherjee sat down and made small talk. Eventually I mentioned it — that we had found something strange in grandfather's old trunk.

"What kind of strange?" he asked.

"A sandalwood box," I said, "with a human skull inside, and—"

His eyes lit up. He leaned forward. "A skull?"

"Yes. And a pocket diary."

"Where is the box now?"

"Back in the trunk."

He changed the subject quickly after that. But I could see it — he was excited. Almost too excited for a man who'd just stopped by to say hello.

That night, I was woken by my dog Bagha howling like something had broken into the world. I stumbled to the door — nothing. No one. Just Bagha straining at his chain.

In the morning, mother found the trunk had been opened in the night. Nothing was missing. Nothing, except the sandalwood box.

That was when I started to wonder — what, exactly, had grandfather locked away? And why had Mukherjee's eyes burned the way they did when I said the word skull?

I climbed on a chair and took the pocket diary down from the shelf. Most of it was nothing — old notes, accounts, scraps. But then, near the middle, a single entry stopped me cold.

1920. October. Coming back from Assam through the forest, we climbed down a rocky hillside at dusk. Suddenly — a massive tiger, not twenty feet away...

The entry broke off there.

But on the page opposite, in grandfather's cramped hand, was a series of numbers and marks I didn't recognise. I copied them down carefully.

I was still staring at them when Kumar arrived.

More coming. Jokher Dhan is being translated in full.