Chapter 5 - Encounter with a Ghost
I have shared in other forums some specific incidents in
my life a little more in detail. Therefore I shall thus reproduce them at
appropriate places rather than labour on them all over again. Here is one that
I wrote for the Hindustan Times on 24 February 1983 (My Encounter with a Ghost)
on my scary experience when at the mid of night my grandma’s asthmatic problem
aggravated and I ventured to bring in medical assistance:
I lived in a haunted village. The late 20th century
scientific brain may revolt at any suggestion of the existence of ghosts but I
encountered one at the age of fourteen.
A landlord of our village once discovered his spouse in a
compromising position with one of his friends. He strangled her the same night
and threw the body in a nearby well. Her spirit started haunting the house to
take revenge on the killer. People heard muffled sobs proceeding from the house
to the well where the corpse lay rotting. In the dead of night, a sound of
descending steps was heard in the house. In the hushed silence, when people
stretched their ears to discern more of the mysterious noise, they would hear a
pathetic wailing sound as though bemoaning the loss of some beloved. The
landlord fled in terror and the haunt became notorious in the vicinity.
A few years after this gruesome incident, two beggars
decided to live in the haunted house. Of course they were cautioned about the
ominous symptoms, but they ignored the warnings. The second night neighbours
heard loud agonized, piercing shrieks coming from the house, but none dared to
approach the scene. Death had snapped the life-thread of one while the other
fled, leaving his meager belongings, never to come back.
Persons coming late at night to the village sometimes
chanced upon a lady immaculately dressed in white moving sadly along the
farther bank of the canal. Some even were hailed by their names but thought
that to respond was too dangerous.
It was gradually established that moving out of doors at
night was a risk that only the desperate would undertake. I was a young,
dashing lad, cock of the village boys’ flock. The house that was the terror of
others was our rendezvous in the afternoons. We would ape our elders in
narrating the mysterious occurrences.
On a particularly gloomy dusk, when it had been raining
torrents and lightning was flashing with incredible frequency, the condition of
my aged grandmother, who had been ailing for quite some time, worsened rapidly.
We waited for the village apothecary’s routine visit, but the weather probably
deterred him from venturing out. We wanted to call in medical assistance, but
no one voiced his willingness dreading the ghost. It was 11.30 pm. Finally,
seeing how much my grandmother was suffering I volunteered to fetch the
apothecary and despite the dissuasion of all, rushed out of the house. The
young spirit cannot easily be dominated. It was time to act, ghost or no ghost.
The rain had stopped and the clouds had dispersed. In the
chilly December night, I was striding along, surrounded by utter silence and
frightening darkness. Stories about the ghost converged upon my mind. The
hushed silence was suddenly disturbed by something falling with a thud. My
heart palpitated. It was some bird. I mustered courage and kept moving. God
knows what elemental force was hidden in the dense, dark mysterious jungle. My
spirit seemed frozen. Fear for the first time gripped my mind. The hooting of
an owl froze me to the marrow. Some unknown bird abruptly flapped past me
swiftly, leaving me dazed. I found myself trembling with fear, when, with my
own eyes, I saw somebody clad in while slowly moving towards me.
There was no doubt now about the ghost. “Make the most of
your time”, the thought rose up from within. I turned back and started running
home. The ghost recognized me and called me by name. “Oh God, I am done for”, I
said to myself. I was sure to be trapped. Terrified, I dashed home at top
speed, knocked at the door and fell in, unconscious. The ghost pursued me right
up to the doorstep, and actually knocked.
Later, I was told the ghost I had dreaded was my cousin
on his way home for the Christmas vacation.
Continued….
15 May 2012
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