I am not a morning person.

No, that doesn’t define me strongly enough. To be truthful, I intrinsically hate anything that functions as an alarm clock. With the increasing penetration of WhatsApp across masses, there came a trend of Good Morning wishes. It was followed by Good Sunday and Good Saturday wishes. Some in my close circle even went to the extent of sending Good Weekend messages.

They quickly learned the extent of my wrath.

And it wasn’t just any normal run of the mill wrath. I was pretty efficient in shattering the confidence of the person. I made sure that whatever inner strength it took the person to wake me up, or whatever chirpy happiness that they were feeling was dissolved away. There were exceptions, of course. Maybe that was the reason why my parents developed a way to hide behind my niece’s cute face. Their go-to plan was to just turn up the volume of some ongoing programme on TV and blame it on her. It wasn’t that she was immune to my wrath. But for her, the wrath was limited to me finishing up her candies.

My entire circle had more or less learnt to stay away from me. Especially on weekends. It was some type of my own kind of pseudo terror bubble which was the foundation of my beauty sleep.

Bam bam bhole… bachha… baba himself has come to your door… Bhikshyam deyu.

It was the second Saturday of the sweet spring month of Falgun. Shivaratri was all set for Monday.

Bam bam bhole… bachha… baba himself has come to your door… Bhikshyam deyu.

Who’s that? The voice sounded a bit familiar. Who is this? I couldn’t remember who the voice belonged to. More than the noise, the thought of my terror bubble fading away woke me up. I couldn’t let my exclusive terror bubble be destroyed. It was vital to my sanity and existence.

This voice needed to be silenced. Immediately. And if possible, permanently.

I dragged myself out of bed while racking my memory. For the love of all that is pure and beautiful, like my Saturday morning sleep, I couldn’t place the voice. I was unable to connect it with any human.

I crossed my niece watching cartoons on mute. As soon as she saw me, she ran to hide her candies to someplace safe. I wasn’t bothered about that today. I was trying to figure out whether it was a deja-vu or actually this had happened with me before.

Curiosity might have killed the cat, but I was determined to figure out this mystery.

As soon as I crossed the window to the courtyard, I saw a glimpse of their face.

Oh…. A light flashed through my memory lanes. I remembered the details. Almost too vividly. It wasn’t a single person. It was a duo. The same duo which had sent tremors through the peaceful life of my simple, orthodox middle-class family.

It was a similar weekend. Peaceful. Calm and serene. Almost half a decade ago.

I was a young innocent high school girl, who had just discovered the beauty of love. Obviously, being from an orthodox family, I had to hide it from my parents, just like every other girl used to.

This duo had swarmed my parents and somehow exposed my nascent relationship. For my sweet simple parents, it was as good as labelling me a harlot.

Well, it was time for revenge. My brain was fueled by rage. Hell hath no fury as a woman scorned. And this duo had scorned me big time. They had predicted some correct things about my career, my studies. But their prediction was dead wrong about my love life.

The duo consisted of a self-proclaimed legendary baba and his disciple. As per their story, the baba had sacrificed his voice or hearing or both, I wasn’t paying much attention when they explained, for divine enlightenment. I couldn’t remember the story completely, but the venue of this sacrifice was either Amarnath or Banaras. They had developed a sign language assisted telepathy amongst themselves via which the baba used to communicate with the external world. The young speckled disciple was the pivot through which all communication exchanges happened.

I managed to wash my face and remove the signs of sleep deprivation before the duo vanished. Didn’t take much trouble, they were loitering outside my house, trying to score down the gullible families.

Greeting them and bending half-way to almost touch their feet was all I could do. I was never good at pretending. Or even lying. Not even to scumbags. And this duo was a respectable baba-disciple, at their peak. The baba apparently had a direct line to the heavenly powers. I had to show some respect.

“Pranam baba,” I said

He obliged by tapping my head with his palm.

“Baba, do you remember, I’m the one about whom you predicted lots of things. Regarding my studies, my career. And even about my misguided adventures through my love life. You really saved my entire life. I owe it to you.” I had to lay down some groundwork.

The baba signed something with his right hand and I looked at the disciple. He said, “Baba is saying that you’re the incarnation of all three Goddesses, Lakshmi, Saraswati and Parvati.”

Baba showed some gestures and his disciple explained to me what baba was trying to say.

He said “Baba is saying you are the sakchhat roop (real form) of all three goddess: Laxmi, Saraswati and Parvati. That’s why you're brave, talented and earning money as well. you are just unbeatable. You have a very bright future. You will get whatever you like and whomever you love.”

‘Whomever you love’ ‘whomever you love’ these words, yes these particular words reminded me of everything that went wrong between me and him.

And as I was already in the mood to take revenge with them, I said, “Baba, forget about my past. Let’s not talk about my future too. Can you really tell me how many guys I am dating at the moment?”

“What sort of question is this? Don’t you have manners,” his disciple shouted.

He shouted in such a loud voice that not only my parents but a few neighbours also approached us.

“What’s wrong with this, baba? We can discuss and find out which one will best suits me. Let’s see how good your prediction is. Please baba, please,” I said, fueling their anger.

Are you questioning baba’s astrological knowledge? Are you testing baba’s future prediction capability?

“Not at all,” I am not asking anything related to the future. I am just asking about the present. “Predicting the future can be a bit tough and past is easy. And as I was having some difficulties in coming out to my parents about my love life, maybe you can help me convince them.”

“Then wait, I will tell everything. Let your parents and your neighbours, as well know about your deeds,” his disciple said.

“Go ahead,” I replied.

After having a short discussion with baba in sign language, his disciple said, “As per baba’s calculation, you must be dating some three guys at the moment and their name must start with A, R and S.”

“Oh wow! At least one alphabets matched. But baba, don’t you think the numbers are much less than the numbers of boys I am actually dating at the moment.”

Baba again said something to his disciple using sign language following which his disciple said, “How about the guys whose names start with B, P, M and K?

“Some more guys are there. Well, let it be,” I said.

“G and L,” the disciple said.

“Come on baba, English alphabets are not enough…… You should try it in Nepali alphabets…”

“Wait. Do you know about the Japanese fellow? And how about that yummy Jamaican pack of muscles?” I tapered off my sentence biting my lower lip.

“Stop your nonsense, or else I will curse you,” baba said.

This time it was not his disciple but the baba who spoke. The self-claimed legendary baba.

“Get lost from here or else ...” I said

“Oh God! Such a fake baba. Give my money back, you rascal,” one of the neighbours said. My parents were perplexed. They were still looking at me as if I were some scrawny four feet tall teenager who grew into an adult by magic.

Witnessing such an unwanted situation and presuming how horrible it can go, they began to wrap up their bags.

“Oh wait! Before leaving please ask my neighbourhood aunties how many guys I am dating because they have a bigger database than even myself,” I said in my last attempt to poke them further, as they ran out of the street.

Well, I let them go as I had already done what I was wanting to do. Moreover, deep down in my heart, I knew, the baba has nothing to do with my relationships. It was us who failed to carry on.