So this was the big old house that Sandhya had heard of so often from her childhood. Her father and her widowed aunt had already given her a good idea of how big the house was but even then she could not contain her awe. It extended across three streets. The front entrance, low and ornate and made of Burma teak stood next door to the roofless Shiva temple. The backdoor opened to the highway the third road from the front door. She had been too young to remember this house when her dad had to sell this house to get the last of his six sisters married off. It had fairly broken his heart. Sandhya had bought back this house now with his insurance money, a month after his death, as per his dying wishes. She had bought it and had done her duty and she was going to sell it off again. After ten and half years of relentless study she had just got an offer to work in one of the most prestigious hospitals in Chennai and an old rambling house in the boondocks never figured in her future plans.

The temple priest who had the keys to the house and who had cleaned and whitewashed the house for her arrival and who now silently accompanied her as she went around the house said, “Doctor amma, this house has seen many generations of generous, big hearted people, your father included. The kitchen was always busy and your forebears fed anyone who was in need. It was the centre of the whole village and now it is lying silent and useless. The previous owners neglected this house badly. I hope you will it bring back to life”. The famed generosity of her forebears has been the reason she had to resort to scholarships and part time jobs to get through college and she wanted no part of that ever again.

She walked across the last of three open skylit courtyards of the house and saw the Tulsi Temple, the biggest she had ever seen. It was here, according to her aunt, that her grandmother had seen a headless girl’s ghost silently holding out her hands for food and the poor old woman had swallowed her tongue in terror. “There is a treasure hidden in the house somewhere” her aunt had told her a zillion times. Her great great grand mother who inherited the whole village after the untimely death of her husband had lorded over it with a firm hand but even then she had been prey to unscruplous relatives who had literally siphoned off jewellery and silver. The legend had it that she had hid her remaining jewellery, which was considerable, somewhere in the house before her death but nobody had ever found it. Personally Sandhya thought it was a big hoax.

“Doctor Amma”, said an urgent voice, “Can you please hurry. My wife is in pain. She is only eight months along and panicking because of the pain.” Sandhya switched to professional mode immediately and kept firing questions at the anxious would be father, a local farmer, till they reached the poor woman. One look and she knew she was going to deliver and now.

“Take her to the hospital. Call her doctor. She is going into labour now” she said.

“The nearest hospital is 3 hours away and she does not have a regular doctor. I was planning to take her to the hospital a few days before her due date but the baby is arriving early. You are a doctor are’nt you? Please help my wife” he begged.

Sandhya had done her superspeciality in neonatology but birthing a baby under these conditions was a challenge. The farmer ran to the priest’s house and got her medical bag, the priest’s wife boiled water and the farmer’s neighbour provided her with old, clean cotton saries which she spread in one of the rooms of the big house. The couple had been married for 12 years and they despaired of ever having a child. When they had learnt of the pregnancy they had been overjoyed. But now the baby was breach and Sandhya was sweating by the time she brought the baby to the world. She offered a silent prayer when the baby boy gave a lusty wail when she patted his back.

No doctor in this village of 360 inhabitants. So was the case in the neighbouring 3 villages. She sighed. Looks like she had to be that doctor. She had wanted to put money ahead of service but the silent appeal of these villagers was something she could not ignore. So she was going to set up a clinic in the first courtyard, put in some beds in the second and have her living quarters in the third.

A month after her decision she settled her personal effects in the house. She had scrounged some money by selling off her mother’s jewellery but that was far from enough. She needed some more money and soon, she thought as she dug the mud in the Tulsi Temple to plant tulsi when she heard a decided clunk. She dug deeper her excitement mounting.

Her great great grandmother had finally decided who her jewels were to go to.

We are thankful to Ms. Kala from Chennai, India for contributing this story.

Click here to read the homecoming a fiction story.