A Midnight Encounter

It had happened a long, long time ago and the fact that it had occurred during my juvenile years, gives me the excuse of an eroded memory.

Like every other child, in the summer of 1998, I was celebrating the beginning of my 6th-grade summer vacations, and my joy was magnanimously doubled when the news of my maternal uncle’s visit with his family came- his wife and two adorable little daughters. It was an annual affair, either we went to Mumbai to them for the summers or they came here to visit us in Delhi alternatively. This holiday, it was unanimously decided that we would go visit the holy shrine of Vaishno Devi located in the hills of Vaishno Devi in Jammu & Kashmir. 

Summer vacations guaranteed the unavailability of railway tickets for last-minute plans, so our next option was to hire a car. We hired a Tata Sumo and hence embarked on our holy trip. 8 o’clock sharp in the morning we set off from home, had a smooth and safe journey all the way, till we found ourselves with a flat tyre on the bypass to Katra, a small town in the foothills of Trikuta Mountains in Jammu and Kashmir. The Octroi Post was there but empty. It was past midnight, no street lights, not a soul in sight, only a faint ray of light coming from the houses far away that seemed to be uninhabited at that time of the night. I felt a slight chill run down my spine. The driver changed the tyre and we continued with our journey. 

All of us kids were fast asleep huddled together at the back of the car when all of a sudden we woke up with a jerk. The driver had braked the car abruptly and it had screeched to a halt. There was a loud and serious talking amongst our parents. The drowsiness had made the conversation incomprehensible and so, out of curiosity at the sudden, middle of the road pit stop, I glanced out of the windshield, right in front of the road. To accompany us was only the pitch-dark emptiness and it appeared that the driver had just turned around the mountain uphill. And what I saw there, made my heart stop. All the sleep was lost to the tense air that filled up the car and the sight that I had beheld. I heard the driver say to my father, anxiety running its course both ways, ‘Bhai Sahib! It is not advisable to stop in this isolated stretch of the mountain. I don’t see any other vehicle coming behind us and I don’t expect to find anyone ahead either. So, looking for help is plainly out of the question. I have heard of jackals in the area and of gangs of thugs that operate here. It would be foolish to get out of the car no matter what the circumstances are. We have a 1000 feet deep ravine on our left and a mountain to our right, where to go? I suggest we speed through as fast as we can and hope and pray for the best.’

He had weighed all the probabilities with extreme thoughtfulness. It was true. The treacherous mountain roads had left us nowhere to go. It was a perfectly slim uphill mountain road that could only accommodate two light motor vehicles adjacently. Going left, right or back was certainly out of the question and steering ahead seemed to be only a matter of time. The driver said, ‘Come what may happen. I am not going to stop the car even if this woman comes underneath it.’ 

About 100 yards ahead, faintly visible in the middle of the road was the silhouette of a lady. She was sitting on the road with her petite figure hunched forwards and I don’t recall her first impression having to do with anything sinister. She seemed to be completely harmless. Maybe she had been abandoned on this trail or had probably lost her way. Even though my heart went out to this lonely, stranded soul and that a part of me wanted to help her, the predominant emotion that overwhelmed me was my fear for our safety rather than my compassion for this desolate woman. Also, after hearing our driver talk about the wild animals that surrounded this land, I no longer had the intention of being a Saviour.

After a slight momentary hesitation and a low murmur of Jai Mata Di, the driver changed gears and pulled the car cautiously ahead which was gaining momentum by the second. As the light from the car’s headlight fell upon the lady and was caught in her red mirror work dupatta, I saw her look up with her head still slightly bent. I froze. I froze not because of her grim expression or her dark piercing eyes. I froze because we were now about 50 yards away and as we were approaching her, it took us a moment to realise that our lady friend was in fact armed, and had no intention whatsoever of going unnoticed. We did not know the source from where she had pulled out her secret weapon - a long thick wooden staff, covering the width of the road that lay nearly empty a few seconds ago; but we definitely were certain that she wanted to make us stop. 

The driver was true to his word and did exactly what he had said. Swerving the car slightly sideways to avoid hitting her, he sped ahead without a second thought over the wooden staff. There was no reaction or sound from the lady even while we were approaching or speeding past her and the staff. The tremor caused by the tyres hitting the staff and the ‘thud thud’ brought me back from my transfixed state. All of us turned our heads backwards in unison. With my mouth open, I gaped in astonishment at the darkness that surrounded us. No trace of anyone back there, where a few moments ago, we were all wrestling with the idea of whether or not we should drive over the mysterious staff!

Some of us saw her in white, some in coloured attire, some said she was dusky in complexion while some could bet that she was fair-skinned. I wonder who was that woman who appeared differently to each one of us.

And I still wonder…