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| Photo by M. S. Khan |
Where is the Jinn?
By Mohammed Sadullah Khan
One cloudy, misty, dusty and winter morning I woke up and found that the weather was bit chill in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia. Whilst going to office I could find that my visibility was restricted as the weather was similar to Transylvania, the birth place of dracula. I could feel the bony dracula's moving about on the footpaths. I tried to re-collect the count dracula's movies where in a cold blooded vampire used to roam in the streets looking for its prey.
I reached my office on time and found that it was colder than outside. When I touched my seat I felt like standing for few more minutes before I took my seat. There was a bit of commotion and whispers around. Finally one of my colleagues, a typical Malayalee, who was over conscious of the situation, went on asking, who turned the temperature control knob. Another colleague of our's, from the mountainous region of Indian sub-continent joined us and started complaining that somebody had reduced the temperature to 5 degree centigrade and the office seemed to have frozen. He retorted that, "I had increased the temperature and now it is bit comfortable and this has happened earlier too".
Finally our first colleague got exhausted after checking with everyone and getting a negative response. In his eagerness to find the culprit, he did his best by cross-checking with others and taking a print out of telephone numbers dialed station-wise and re-checking them. When all his exercises became futile, he proposed that it may be the Jinn which had fiddled with the temperature knob.
This proposition me nostalgic. I had heard about Jinee when I was 4 year old. My mother used to tell us not to go near a tree, as she had seen light and commotion during night. Early in the morning she used to find empty boxes of sweets. She also told us that her great grandfather used to control a Jinn. Other stories flickered of Jinn being responsible for changing the place of a sleeping person from one room to another room. Many a times Jinn had thrown persons from cot to a pit. People have become mad by seeing Jinn. They can change their form and can come in any living form. They can come out of thin air and vanish into thin air. They have males, females and children. Their preferred forms are cats and snakes. The unforgettable story of Alladin and his magic lamp, generated a fresh hope.
The very thought of Jinn brought fear and hope in my mind. I tried to explain the characteristics of Jinn to my colleagues, who were a mix of Indians and Saudis. Gradually the office closure time approached, on that particular day our entire office became empty due to the fear of Jinn. I was the only one to be left in the office. Inspite of lingering fear, I had to stay beyond the office hours that evening due to my commitment to work. Whilst sitting on my computer in eerie silence, I suddenly heard a violent noise in the reception area of my office. My breathing reduced and my eyes focused at the reception door. I felt that this may be the Jinn, who had fiddled with the temperature knob. I could hear small commotion outside. Suddenly the security door opened and I found a six footer entering our office in white robe. He was my Saudi colleague and buddy. But he did not speak to me, I thought that Jinn might have come in his form and kept quite staring pensively at my computer. He straight away went to the bathroom. I hurriedly tried to finish my job and was able to complete it, before the Jinn could come out. Immediately I rushed towards the security door, I heard some sound in the reception area and once again fear gripped me. Finally I decided to take the Jinn head on, I opened the door and was bit amazed to see one of my ex-colleague, another Saudi gentleman. Saying a hello in low tone I rushed out of my office. Reading verses and thanking God for not bringing me into confrontation with those Jinns in my colleague and ex-colleague form.
The next day, I found similar commotion in my office, as was there a day earlier. On enquiring I came to know that the entire lights of the office were on for the whole night, this made me further nervous.
Gathering courage I confessed to my colleagues that I was not the last person to leave the office. But there was one person after me whose job was to shut the lights off. Hence I am blameless. Then my six-footer colleague in robe, indeed confessed that he had come to office the day before and forgot to switch off the lights. This brought a big relief to me. Ultimately I realized that the persons whom I had seen earlier were not Jinns but human beings like us.
Tags- Jinn, Jinn in my office, robe, dracula, nervous, cats and snakes, malayalee, Saudi Arabia, cold blooded vampire, Dracula,Saudi, Transylvania, virtual Jinn.
