Ghosts

Ghosts occupy every possible nook and corner of the village. Trees and groves are their favorites, but they are in ponds, in fields, on railway tracks, in ruins, in abandoned houses, and in rare cases, even in houses where people are living. They all have backstories – some tragic, some ordinary, some mysterious, some even ridiculous.

In ponds and wells live ghosts of the drowned. Some drowned while bathing, some committed suicide, some were murdered (though in some cases, very few people know about their murders).

Trees and groves have mysterious ghosts with less known history, as they are the oldest. Houses have ghosts of long dead family members, who for some reason, keep visiting, but only a few members of the family.

Every now and then someone encounters a ghost and stories of the encounter is told for days, more embellished and more detailed with each rendering, until it becomes part of local oral supernatural history.

Nothing serious happens during these encounters, these are stories of narrow escapes where wit and valor of the person is at center stage. So, once, when Amit had to stay late in fields while irrigating his fields, it had become dark, a ghost from nearby bamboo grove visited him. Amit was holding shovel, made of iron, so ghost did not dare come near him, but it tried all tricks to make him leave the shovel like asking him to light bidi and prepare tobacco. It tried to make him stay by talking incessantly, mostly about long dead people. Amit kept his calm, did not leave the shovel, and later made the ghost run away by chasing it with the shovel.

Many years back, when Ratan used to stay late near his farms during winter, a ghost started visiting him daily, sitting with him on bricks put around small bonfire, he tried to extract information from him about various families. One day, Ratan heated the brick on which the ghost used to sit, just before its usual arrival time. Ghost ran away screaming, after burning itself, that day and never bothered Ratan again.

Some encounters though leave their mark, literally. While sleeping on the roof alone, Jokhu found someone scratching his back with big nailed fingers. It was a neighborhood sister-in-law who had committed suicide few years back, fed up with beatings of her husband and harassment from mother-in-law. Her husband got married again, she never bothers him or her in-laws. Jokhu got rid of her by chanting verses from Hanuman Chalisa. He showed his scratch marks to everyone willing to see it, for days.

Sometimes, someone gets possessed by a ghost. Vimla was possessed for two days by the ghost living on the tamarind tree near her house, no one knew backstory of this ghost, it was just an old woman. Vimla lashed at her in-laws during these days, abusing them profusely. She never dared to even speak in loud voice before this. She became normal after getting prasad from multiple temples.

But, ghosts are not harmless everywhere. There are horrible stories from other distant villages. Stories of demon babies, serious injuries and even killings are heard. If one tries to chase these stories by going to a particular village, he comes to know that these happened in some other distant village, not in this village. If he tries to track even further, it gets repeated – never in this village, always in some distant village.

Sunita’s 12th board exams were just a few days away. Belying all expectations, she was the school topper in 10th exams. There were very few teachers in the school, and very few classes happened properly. Self-study or relying on tuition was only way to study, but there were very few tuition teachers either. All the boys used to get tuition, but very few girls. With great difficulty, she had managed to convince her family to let her go for math tuition to other end of the village, just for a few days, as exams were around the corner. There were many doubts, and she was not able to clarify them on her own despite trying hard.

It had become dark while returning from tuition. Around 200 meters away from her house, there was a banyan tree, just besides the village road. It was huge and it casted a big dark shadow, houses were at some distance from it. Of course, there were stories of a ghost living there. Ghost stories started coming to her mind, trying to push math questions out of there. She started murmuring name of gods to keep fear out of her mind.

When she reached just besides the tree, suddenly, a hand clasped her mouth, and she was dragged behind the tree. Hand kept her mouth shut, and three hands started groping her entire body. She was completely paralyzed with fear. It went on for a few minutes, hands left her and ran away when there was a sound of a bike passing by on the road.

It took few minutes, to regain her wits, then she started walking towards her home at fast pace, almost running. She did not tell anyone anything. She was awake almost entire night. Humiliation, fear, anger, hate, even self-loathing, all jostled to occupy her mind. Math concepts and exam were miles away from her thoughts. She was trying to guess who it could have been, there were very few possibilities and she thought she knew the answer. But what options she has ? Who can she tell ? What will be the benefit of telling it to someone ?

Next day, her family found her to be under high fever and unable to get up from bed, even unable to speak much. Medicines were given – home made and also allopathic. Some said, she was putting herself under too much pressure for exams and it happened because of that. Others said that it might have been the ghost on the banyan tree, it was night and she was alone, she should not have passed through that way. Neighborhood priest also concluded it to be the ghost. Small pooja was conducted and prasad was given to her. Incense stick ashes were applied to her forehead, and she was made to eat some of it.

It took her three days to get well, a couple more days to regain her composure and to be able to focus on studies. In this exam, her performance was below expectations, her marks were good but she was not school topper this time. She had to fight hard to convince her family to let her take admission in college, which was 10 km away.

This ghost encounter was also talked about for days, as usual, and became part of oral ghost history in embellished form. Pestered by questions, she also contributed to the story, about hearing strange sounds, feeling weird and seeing a shadow when she was near the tree. Gradually, she even tried to partially believe in it, this recollection was more palatable. But, she was not afraid of ghosts anymore.