“Nilratanbabu at home?” called someone from the other side of the closed door of our village home. It was around 3 p.m. on a hot, sunny day 57 years ago during our school summer vacation. None of the male members of the household was at home save me who still had a year to attain his teens.

The ladies, including my mother and two aunts were enjoying a siesta before taking up the chores of the evening. There, of course, remained alert and active my two sisters and two female cousins, all older than me but still in school. Also present was my younger male cousin.

“Nilratanbabu at home?” the call was repeated. All six of us were scared and confused. Who could it be? What was his purpose? Was he a crook playing a trick to get entry into the house? Was he a robber? A murderer? A cheat? How could he not know that Nilratanbabu – my grandfather – had died some six years earlier? Should we open the door and accost him or remain mute till he gave up and left? After all, the world – as we had been reminded so often – was full of bad people and one must, therefore, always be cautious.

“Nilratanbabu at home?” the call was repeated. My eldest sister suggested that we wake Mother up. The others, however, preferred to handle the matter themselves and quickly chalked out a plan of action. According to this plan, I would post myself at the head of the group and open the door while the four girls would stand guard behind me, each armed with a stick.

Since four sticks of suitable length and thickness could not be immediately found, two of them opted for umbrellas with long cane handles. The manly responsibility of facing the possible baddy devolved upon me as the oldest male present. The youngest one picked up a paper-weight for want of a suitable weapon.

With my heart aflutter, I lifted the bar of the door, pulled the bolt down and gently opened the door. Three steps down, on the ground stood an old man in an unwashed dhoti hitched high up his ankles, a worn-out banian covering the upper part of his body, his hair sparse and receding , his face lean and unshaved and his feet bare.

“Baba, is Nilratanbabu at home?” asked the man in an entreating voice. I enquired who he was and why he wanted to see Nilratanbabu. I also told him that Nilratanbabu had died six years earlier. By that time, my four bodyguards had realised the uselessness of their defence equipment and discreetly put them away. “Nilratanbabu dead!”, the man exclaimed.

“Oh God! I failed to repay the Brahmin’s debt. What a sinner I am! It’s all my fault. I took so long to come, ” the man wept.

My eldest sister had, meanwhile, come out and moved to the raised verandah in front of the house, followed by the three others. “Jethu, come, sit here on the terrace. Will you drink water? Why are you crying?”

The man declined the offer of water but came up the stairs to face us. Slowly regaining his composure he told us how as a small farmer and a part-time carpenter with a large family to look after, he had no money to pay for the new clothes required to be worn after the cremation of his mother some 20 years ago. He went to my grandfather’s shop, narrated his plight to him and asked for the clothes on credit which he promised to repay at the earliest. My grandfather gave him the clothes required and assured him that he could pay as and when he was able to.

The man’s financial condition, however, only worsened so that the debt had remained unpaid. He never called on my grandfather out of a sense of guilt so that he was unaware of his death. A question was, however, troubling him in recent times as to whether he would find a place in heaven if he died now – old as he had become – given that he had not repaid a debt. Was damnation in hell awaiting him! Alarmed at the thought, he pooled the savings he had, held in one rupee notes and half-rupee coins, and came to our house after failing to find our shop that had, meanwhile, changed hands. “Baba”, he addressed me as he pulled out from the pocket of his banian some forty-three rupees. “Baba, you are his grandson. Take this money and free me from the debt. Otherwise, hell will be my lot!” As I hesitated to take the money, my sisters tried to reason with him that he could very well keep the money without being adjudged a debtor by God. He would, however, have none of it and almost fell at my feet with his appeal. On the advice of my sisters, I took from him those forty-three rupees and discharged him of his debt.

As the man walked away slowly, the six of us were faced with a moral doubt of another kind. Must we always beware? Does the world only have bad people?