Was it like this, Sir?

Based on an incident that occurred in Bangalore in 1980, this tale is paranormal. 

The city was once a lush garden city. It was still early in the IT revolution. The metropolitan has commenced to come up.

Anil Shanbhag, popularly kenned as "Anni" by his friends, had come to Bangalore for a job hunt. Since he was not financially stable yet, he stayed in his friend's house. His friend was working on a night shift in a private firm. 

It was a minute house located near Shivajinagar. At that point, it was a deserted location.

As customary, his friend left for work at night. Alone at home, Anni was feeling bored. Ergo he decided to go to the theatre and watch a movie. Kannada's legend film star Rajkumar's, the recent film was released. Anni being a great fan of Rajkumar, how could he miss it?

Outside the city, there were no film theatres those days. They would have a tent and a projector to show the movie. Anni went to watch the last movie screening for the day.

To his surprise, there were only three or four people in the tent. 

"Such a super hit movie and no crowd", Anni was surprised.

After relishing the movie, he left the tent. As he checked the time on his old HMT Janata watch, it read 12:35 am. It was a full moon day. The moonlight was effulgent, enough to lit the entire road. He looked outside the long road, which was desolate and engendered a spooky feeling.  It was like the setting of the "Ramsey brothers" horror scene. The cold breeze was blowing around.  Two or three companions in the film tent turned out to be imbibers. They departed from the scene without any trace. There were few streetlights along the long street. Many lamps were blinking, some dimly illuminated.

Anni had remotely ambulated about twenty meters. Under a dimly lit street lamp, Anni spotted a woman selling salted peanuts. The visible smoke from incipiently roasted peanuts was emanating from a distance. At night the smell was too hard to resist.

Anni once thought, "so deserted place and alone women selling peanuts?". He thought it was strange. The smell of roasted peanuts had already stimulated his taste buds.

Gradually he walked towards the peanuts seller. In that cold climate and flickering lights, Anni seems to have lost some of his reasoning ability. It gave him some confidence as he approached.

The vendor was seated near a dim street light. Albeit this lamp was not blinking, but the light was remotely dull to agnize the women.

She was sitting on a torn carpet. 

Her long hair covered most of her face. She was a mid-aged woman who may be in her early forties.

There was a kerosene stove on which she was roasting peanuts. Anni relished the kerosine smell, and the peanuts roasted smell was withal mouth-watering.

Anni was in a very much discombobulated state. This state occurs when you are trepidacious, or suddenly something transpires which you are not accepting. This state occurs when you are dancing in deep music, when you are merely putting steps afore you can cerebrate. The mind reacts too expeditious, and you feel you are not in control of your body. During such stages, the encephalon ceases reasoning for a moment.

 In that state, Anni inquired the women, " What is the cost of salted peanuts?"

After a pause of about ten seconds, "one rupee sir", came the reply. The voice was a bit cryptic. But Anni neglected it.

Anni probed for his wallet. He fetched two one rupee coins from it and placed them in the rupee jar near the women. "Give me two paper rolls of salted peanuts and give a good roasted one."

The woman commenced preparing the peanuts. She utilized her left hand to roast the peanuts in the pan. 

"Maybe she must be a sinistral woman, just like the famous cricketer Vinod Kambli." Anni laughed.

She wrapped the peanuts in the paper, and when she elongated her right hand to give peanuts, Anni got the most astronomically immense shock of his life. Woolly hair covered her hand, and she had no nails, only claws. It was just like a beast hand.

The shock left Anni motionless, his legs trembling. With the next breath, Anni commenced shouting and running. "Ghost...Ghost run." Anni was running directionlessly without looking back. He ran so expeditiously as if he would break Milka Singh's record.

The place he reached was near Shivaji Nagar Cantonment station now. He saw an auto-rickshaw parked. Anni felt some relief. Despite his huffing, he made his way to the auto. 

Optically canvassing him, the auto driver gave him some water to imbibe. Anni was still in shock. The first thing Anni did was to examine the right hand of the auto driver. When he found it was nothing unusual, Anni sat on the auto and told him the address.

After a few minutes, the driver asked, "Sir, what transpired? why are you soo trepidacious?"

Anni explained all that happened, "Maybe that place is cursed.".

 After patiently hearing Anni, the driver verbalized," Most people believe it's a myth. Now no one believes in ghost stories. But I  can recall the story."

"What story?"

"There was a famous hunter by the designation Mallappa. His abode was near the Nataraj theatre, where you told me you observed the women. Once in 1932, Malappa set out for a hunt near Mysore. It was a full moon day, and he went to the verboten territory. The tribal people had forewarned him. 

The area was Baitaal's (the demo god's) territory. In that territory, no one went hunting. But Malappa overlooked it. After not getting any animals for the hunt, Malappa found two outlandish animals in the bushes. He aimed it with his bolt action .22 rifle and shot down both of them. Albeit he was a hunter for many years, Malappa had never encountered such a creature. One of them was male and another female. They were bipedal like a human but covered with bushy hair like monkeys. Their face was like the monkeys. But unlike monkeys, they did not possess a tail. So they were half-human and half-ape. Since he had ventured deep inside the forest, he could not carry back the creatures with him. Their skin also wasn't of much use to him. Ergo he cut one of the hands of each animal  and brought it back as a hunting trophy."

"What transpired next?"Anni asked curiously. Anni was sweating, and unexpected sensations occurred inside his body.

"People verbalize that 'the curse of Baital' had stuck on his family. The hunting expedition ended in the death of Malapa. They lost their house to an explosion caused by their kerosene stove. The hunting trophies, including those of the cryptic animals, were all burned. 

When someone in that family suffers a brutal death, they return to this world. And the month in which Malappa did the animal hunt, they will perform the same job, which they were doing even postmortem. That month where they come into the human form."

Anni could not believe his ears, but he had just witnessed the phenomenon with his own eyes.

The driver further went to explain, "Sir, I mentioned about two hands right, which Malappa got as a trophy. So after death, when coming in human form, their hand will be replaced by the creature's hand. Right for the female and left for the male."

Anni was sweating hard, and due to his numb hands and legs, he could barely move. "Don't remind me of that strange hand. It's the scariest thing I have ever seen in my life. Had you seen it, you would have got a heart attack."

"Was it soo scary, sir?"

"Yes, I still cannot believe what I have seen."

Listening to this driver laugh strangely, he turned to Anni and held out his left hand as he said,

 " Was it like this, sir?".