Mixed bag - An ounce of horror

When people talk to me about ghosts, I rubbish them. You see, I do not believe that such things exist. Oh, I love horror and supernatural movies and stories! There is absolutely, no doubt about that. They make great thrillers and captivating reads, not to mention, edge of the seat kind of movies. The other day, I started watching a so called horror movie on Tata Sky – 1920. A very pathetic take-off on exorcist! It was around midnight when I started watching it and Gautam, my husband, was trying to discourage me saying that I may not be able to sleep afterwards. So, I made a confession to him – told him that I would watch a horror movie, only if he is next to me, even though he is blissfully asleep.

Oh yes, though I do not believe in ghosts and do love watching horror movies, I lack the courage to watch them, when I do not have company. Reading is another matter, I would still read horror stories, whether or not I have company. But, do I really believe in the existence of supernatural? No, I do not and I am not very convinced about the arguments that others have for me on this topic, for the simple reason, I have never experienced any paranormal experiences in my life. I believe, there is a perfectly normal and rational explanation to all that people say is “supernatural”, like the way I do about the story I am about to recount. However, if I give that explanation here on this blog, I do believe that I would be disowned by almost all my relatives, hence I will leave up to my readers, as to how they would like to interpret. For the believers, it is a ghost story and to the non-believers, brush up on Freud!

Ammamma was a beautiful lady, fair, but a bit plump. She wore a red vermilion (sindhuram) bindi on her forehead that used to enhance her round face further more. Her kohl laden eyes cannot be classified as doe-shaped, but they were intelligent and sharp. Nothing escaped those eyes! She got married very young and I was told that by the time she was 14, she had her first child and by the time she was 29, her first grandchild. My guess was when we were at Cuttack, she would be in her late forties or early fifties.

From what I can make from the stories in circulation among the family, her life was not exactly a bed of roses, with tatagaru. He was a health inspector and was always away from home, touring the villages and back waters of Andhra Pradesh. He was very fond of hunting game and extremely partial to the zamindaari ways. The rajahs and zamindaars of East, West Godavari , Visakhapatnam and Vijayanagraram districts were always inviting him to go along with them on hunting expeditions. He was a handsome man, with light eyes and I guess women found him irresistible. There was even a story that he had a mistress tucked away in Vijayanagaram, and ignored ammamma during her last years.

When they were young, it was left for ammamma to look out after the children, educate them and ensure that they got married. It was no easy task, getting eight daughters married off, especially, when there was taboo around the community to which they belong to – Kalavanthulu. I do not know a nicer way of explaining this, but my mother’s family belongs to, in what was known in the olden days as descendants of prostitutes. No, they are distinctly different from Devadasis. This is a community of artisans who are groomed to entertain men, much like the courtesans of the Victorian era and the geishas of Japan.

There was an interesting story around how the family became Kalavanthulu, but will talk about it some other time. However, what is relevant at this point of time was that, the family decided to move away from tradition and was focused on getting the daughters married off to give them a respectable standing in the society. My grandparents were first cousins and in those days, consanguineous marriages seem to be the way out of the situation that the family was in. But to get respectable alliances for eight daughters was like climbing the Mount Everest, given the social standing that their community had. Yet, ammamma did it single-handedly, while tatagaru was busy enjoying the patronage of zamindaars, hunting tigers and cavorting women.

Coming back to Cuttack, ammamma came back to be with us and help mummy while Susi is recuperating. I was glad that I get to hear a new bed time story every night and by now, Bobby also started competing with me for her stories. Susi replaced Bobby in my parents’ bedroom.

Things started happening then. It was Susi, who started it all! (So says Bobby! Honestly, I do not remember this part...) Apparently, she was playing on the bed and fell off it, and cut her lip real bad. Since then, she started complaining that she could see an old woman, whom no one else could see. She started saying that the old woman is staring at her, making faces, etc.

And then Ammamma started complaining about a woman she started seeing and hearing in the night. A woman she said stood outside the bedroom window beckoning her. She asked daddy to spray vibhuti on the windows, so that the woman would not haunt her during the nights. He complied and it became a ritual in the night for daddy to carry the vibhuti in his hand and move from room to room, sprinkling the white powder on the windows and doors. Ammamma told us that this white powder is so powerful that it would keep away all the ghosts and banshees away from the home. Daddy would also smear our foreheads with vibhuti to take care of any nightmares that we were likely to have. Years later, when I realized that daddy was an atheist, I asked him about this ritual. Why would he do something that he never believed? He told me that he did because the rest of us believed in it and gave us a feeling of safety and security.

One night ammamma woke me up and gesticulated wildly towards the window. She demanded if I can see a woman in a white sari standing under the seethphal tree, beckoning her. With my eyes full of sleep and head all groggy, I tried peering into the dark of the night. I did not see anything except the seethaphal tree, but don’t know why, did not have the heart to tell her the truth. I said I did! She immediately, started chanting some mantras and sprinkling the vibhuti that was kept at the bedside, on the window. After a while, she asked me to go back to sleep, as the “ghost” disappeared unable to withstand the chanting and the vibhuti.

One day when I woke, I found my parents all worried and going about talking in whispers. Ammamma was still in bed, which was highly unusual. Mummy took me away from the room in which ammamma was sleeping, into the corridor that ran alongside the rooms. There at the end of the corridor, close to the bathroom, I saw a pile of wet clothes. They all belong to ammamma and I immediately recalled that she wore them to bed last night.

Mummy recounted to me what happened last night after I went off to sleep. She was also fast asleep, while daddy was reading, as was his habit. While the connecting door between our bedroom and parents’ bedroom was closed, the door leading to the corridor from their bedroom was kept open. Daddy sensed someone walking past the door and assumed that it was ammamma going to the toilet. Confirming his suspicion, he heard the bathroom door closing and water running. There was something amiss, as the water continued to run and it stopped as abruptly as it started. He continued to read his book all through and when he thought that ammamma returned to the room, he got up and went into the bathroom. The bucket was empty and the bathroom was all wet. Surprised, he filled the bucket and came to back to the room, to resume his reading. Another 10 minutes passed and he again thought that someone walked by the door, again he heard the person entering the bathroom and this time he stopped reading.

Daddy heard the person lifting the bucket and pouring the water. He was flabbergasted, as he knew that it could not be ammamma. You see, she was constantly complaining of pain in her right hand and could not lift any heavy objects. So, it cannot be her who is lifting the bucket. Then, who could it possibly be? As daddy was trying to figure out the mysterious person, the person herself came and stood in front of him. It was, in fact, ammamma! And she was dripping wet, her hair all undone and spread across her back. Her vermillion bindi was running down her forehead onto her nose. Her nostrils were all flared and her chest was heaving heavily. She was glaring at daddy, as though she was about to murder him.

Daddy tapped mummy on her shoulder to wake her. And when she did, both of them handled her. What have they done to bring her back to normal, was never made clear to me. I was convinced about their explanation, but as I grew up, it was too fantastic for me to believe. Mummy said, they smeared vibhuti on ammamma’s forehead and she calmed down.

We were warned not to discuss the night’s events with ammamma. And, for once, I managed to keep my curiosity under control and tried to behave as though nothing transpired. As the day came to an end, and night fall dark and thick, the evening vibhuti ritual was underway. Daddy was sprinkling it all over the windows and doors and he started it with their own bedroom. The three of us were busy playing in our parents’ bedroom, while mummy was busy setting the mosquito net on the bed. Ammamma was in our room. Daddy finished sprinkling Vibhuti and was headed towards our room, when ammamma appeared in the doorway. She was not her usual self, angry and totally not in control of her senses. First thing, she did was knock the vibhuti out of daddy’s hand. She then proceeded to grab daddy’s hair in her left hand and slapped him right across his face with her right hand. And she went on slapping him!

Bobby started crying and Susi, though did not understand what was going on, seeing her brother, started wailing. I was too stunned and scared to cry and sat frozen on the bed. Mummy gained her senses and ran towards them, quickly scooped the vibhuti from the floor and smeared on ammamma’s forehead. The minute vibhuti touched her, ammamma’s eyes rolled up and she fainted. Daddy quickly caught her before she hit the floor and between them both my parents lifted her and laced her gently on the bed. While daddy was busy trying to revive ammamma, mummy came to us to pacify us.

Ammamma decided she would not stay for a minute in the house, after this incident. She was convinced that there was a ghost in the house, who possessed her. So was mummy! While ammamma took the train back to Vijayanagaram, where tatagaru lived, mummy gave daddy ultimatum to look out for another house. And daddy was left with no choice but to search for another house. While the rest of the family is convinced that ammamma was truly possessed by a ghost, I am not convinced that there must be a perfectly rational explanation for this phenomenon. The reason why I believe that it was not the work of supernatural, lies in the fact that when ammamma saw a woman at the window, I did not!

But before we move to the last and final abode for us in Cuttack, there is still so much I have to share with you that happened in this house. However, those incidents precede this little ghost story!

Mixed bag - A scoop of action!

In this house, I have experienced my first war and cyclone! Like I said, this was the early 70s and India went to war with Pakistan to liberate Bangladesh. Cuttack was close to the warring neighbourhood and there was night curfew and blackout declared in the city. I would not understand why was it that my parents closed all the doors and windows, and also covered them with thick black curtains, by nightfall. It was not just my parents who did it, but the entire neighbourhood, too. Equally puzzling was the fact that by 6 PM, no one was allowed into the street, not even were we allowed to play on the verandah.

I have also noticed that the streets of Cuttack were flooded with people with lots of luggage and everyone was talking about refugee camps. Mummy got involved fund-raising drives, while ammamma looked after us at home. Atta could not handle all this and Daddy put her on the train back to Kakinada. One such family from Bangladesh moved into our complex, into a tiled roof house across the passage. I cannot remember exactly how many were there, but I do remember that the eldest member of the family was close to 70, while the youngest was an infant. It was a huge family that lived in a two-room house, which appeared to be bursting at the seams. When they moved in to the neighbourhood, they hardly had any furniture and baggage with them, just enough clothing for the family. I remember Mummy befriending them while the rest of the neighbours were eyeing them warily. Once the neighbours so an “officer” and his wife becoming friends with this “foreign” family, the acceptance levels grew. So, within no time, this Bangladeshi family became part of the Indian diaspora!

This also happened to be my first lesson in welcoming strangers to our fold and accepting them as family. It was also representative of how truly secular was Indian psyche – the operative word here is “was”! It saddens my heart to see that we do not even say “hi” to an Indian family moving into our neighbourhood, any more. It takes at least half year before we throw a smile in their direction. God forbid, if it is someone belonging to a different religion, Muslim, to be specific, there are suspicions galore! Our imaginations run wild and the family is convicted even without a trial! More on this, later, let us return to the action!

At nights, Daddy used to turn on the radio and listened to the news avidly, with ammamma and Mummy. There used to be a lot of animated discussion between them, mostly between Daddy and ammamma. Some nights we could hear the drone of air planes moving across the skies and tried to imagine them as belonging to the enemies. But, in reality, I doubt if they ever were. We were trained at school to recognize the air raid signal and how do we run to a bunker and what needed to be done until the clear signal was heard.

At nights, while we had our dinner and we were in bed, Daddy used to recount his childhood adventures during the WW II. He was 9 years old, studying in the 5th standard, when the Japanese bombed Kakinada. Daddy’s elder brother, Padmanabha Rao peddananagaru was 11years old and was in the 7th standard. They were trained as we were about air raids and the difference between us and them was that there were real bunkers dug up in the town, where they were expected to hide. Daddy told us that they were even told how to hide under the school benches, in case, there was not enough time to make it to the bunkers.

It was a bright spring morning, sometime in March or April, just before the final exams, when the children were all at school. Around 11 AM, the air raid siren went off and they were told that it was not a mock drill, but a real air raid was underway. The kids all ran into the bunker under the supervision of the teachers and hid there. We laughed so hard, when Dad told us how one of his classmates, dirtied his pants, when the bombs started falling. The Japanese bombed the petrol tankers lined up on the beach road and a non-functional goods shed, which they mistook for army installation. The raid went on for 30 mins and it was another 15 mins, before the all clear siren was given.

The teachers at the school instructed the children to run home immediately and not to hang around on the roads. Also, the teachers divided the children among themselves, based on the route they would take, and took personal charge on delivering them home. Daddy was always fascinated by the army and recalls that the beaches of Kakinada were lined up with the Allied Forces for about 20 kms stretch. They were about 100, 000 French and British soldiers, protecting the Bay of Bengal waters from Hitler’s armies. The tents were camouflaged by wild creepers and an aerial view of the beach would show the blue oceans, lined with pristine beaches that had wild creepers growing all over them.

Daddy often used to go down to the beach to say “hello” to the soldiers and collect cigarette tins and chocolates from time to time. He was a naturally curious and adventurous kid and was always up to some mischief or the other. His curiosity was aroused, when he heard that there was real bombing and few things got destroyed. The minute the teachers were out of earshot, he announced his intention of going on a recon mission to check the damage. He also egged some of the kids to come along with him and extended the invitation to peddananagaru, too. Now, Daddy’s elder brother was quite the opposite to him and would do his best to keep Daddy out of trouble. He made a sincere attempt at convincing him not to go out on such a dangerous excursion, but Daddy was not the type to give up, once he had made up his mind. Moreover, he threatened peddananagaru not to reveal his whereabouts at home.

So, Daddy set off with 2, maybe 3, of his friends to check out the damage that happened due to Japanese bombing. He investigated the petrol tankers (fortunately, empty) that got blasted and as he moved along the beach, he also admired the disintegrated goods shed. As he and his friends approached the beach, they found the soldiers shouting at them and frantically gesticulating to go back. And that is when the kids heard the drone of the air planes and when Daddy lifted his head, he found a swarm flying from the sea into the mainland. Daddy also noticed the soldiers diving back into the camouflaged tents and it was time for the children to implement the training that was given to them at school. Daddy and his friends laid themselves flat on the ground, covering their heads. Fortunately, the Japanese were on a recon to check the damage their bombing did on the town and not to do any further bombing. Once the airplanes went back into the sea, the children got up and ran as fast as they could into the town.

Meanwhile, the entire household was in an uproar about the missing child and peddananagaru decided to spill the beans. Naturally, the panic had now transcended into terror and people were dispatched in all directions in search of Daddy. While people were searching for Daddy, his grandfather (Bullepammamama’s husband) made a decision to shift the family from Kakinada to further inland. Tallarevu was 15-18 kms from Kakinada and had an ancestral home. It was decided that the family would shift there until the war clouds disperse from over Kakinada skies.

Bullock carts were commissioned and readied and that was when Daddy turned up at the house, at around 2:30 PM. He was quickly fed and was loaded into the first bullock cart along with his pregnant mother. Nanamma was expecting Nalla babai and it was decided she would be the first person to be ferried to safety and Daddy for the obvious reasons. Daddy always ended this story with a twinkle in his eyes, by saying that sending him to Tallarevu, to keep him out of trouble never really worked.

In the backyard of the ancestral home there were huge banyan trees under which they were snake pits. Daddy and his friends would play “bombing” by swinging from one tree to another, with bricks in hand. They would bomb the snake pits with the bricks and destroy the “enemy” installations!

No, I never got an opportunity to put into practice neither what I heard from the Japanese bombing stories nor what I learnt at school. Even before, we could completely comprehend the repercussions of war, Bangladesh got liberated and we were back to our little games near the pond.

It was not long after the war, we were hit by a cyclone. The family woke up to a grey morning, which was drizzling, but definitely had the promise of turning into a down pour. Daddy informed Mummy about the cyclonic warning that was issued on the radio. Immediately, she decided that I should not be sent to the school, much to my despair. We were given a hot water bath (Mummy would always give us a bath, even if we were freezing!) and were bundled in warm sweaters and monkey caps. I was given a strict warning about not stepping out of the house, the boundaries being the verandah. All the while, I kept wondering what the big deal was about a bit of rain. Mummy also tried convincing Daddy not to go to his office (he used to ride a bicycle), but in vain.

As the day progressed, the weather got progressively worst and we could see from the verandah, the road getting water logged. Despite the terrible consequences I had to face if I breached the boundaries, I decided to do a bit of cheating. I quickly stripped myself of the sweater and monkey cap, bull dozed my protesting brother to keep his blubbering mouth shut and quickly devised a silly game. I would nimbly run down the steps, stand on the last one to dip my bare leg into the raising water, squeal out loudly at the coldness before running out of the rain. Long before, even Bobby joined me and we kept ourselves busy, until the water level reached the last step. We had decided it is time to inform Mummy about the “flood” situation and put on our sweaters and monkey caps, so that she would not know how wet our clothes were. Mission accomplished, we ran inside to give her the bad news!

Mummy hit the panic button and was all set to go upstairs to the Anglo-Indian family, to make a phone call to my Daddy’s office. Daddy appeared at the end of the street wading through the water along with the bicycle. Bobby and me were hanging in the window looking at the thick sheets of rain and the raising water in the street, and were thrilled to spot him. We called out to Mummy and ammamma, announcing the arrival of our super hero! He definitely looked like a caped superhero, in his raincoat! Daddy told us that he was forced to close the office, as the cyclone worsened and did not want people to strand in the office for the night. We were thrilled to have him at home in the middle of the day and it began to feel like a Sunday, with everyone at home.

Post lunch, Bobby and me clambered to the windows to watch some more rain, as the verandah became out of bounds to us, once Mummy found how soaking wet we were beneath the sweaters and monkey caps. Fortunately, we did not get spanked or whacked, as she was very happy that Daddy was back home safely. We were all excited watching the torrential rain and all the more fascinated by the trees that swung wildly to the increasing wind speed. After a while, we saw a coconut tree coming crashing down and we gleefully yelled, drawing the rest of the family to the windows. Before long the branches of the seethaphal tree next to our bedroom window started crashing into the passage and that is when Mummy decided to pull us from the harm’s way by firmly bolting all the windows that faced the outside world.

As the wind howled outside and the skies opened up, our only source of entertainment remained the radio and ammamma’s wonderful stories. It was the first time, I realized how yummy it is to have muddapappu with hot rice and ghee, on a chilly rainy day. I was also introduced to the pleasure of having piping hot curd rice with nimmakaya pacchadi. Along with this sumptuous meal, I was treated to one of ammamma’s story and I was in seventh heaven.

There were no signs of respite the next day either and Bobby the ever inquisitive one asked Daddy about why cyclones happen, after breakfast. Thankfully, Mummy decided not to give us a bath, more due to pressure from Daddy and ammamma. So, Daddy decided to give us a practical demonstration (he has to keep himself engaged, too, in the weather, right?). He filled a bucket with water and called us to stand close to it. He dipped his hand into the bucket and started twirling the water rigorously. This created a vortex in the centre of the bucket and Daddy proceeded to explain us how such a vortex while on sea gathers strength. He also told us that this will weaken as soon as it reaches the land and we were likely to see this weakening sometime in the afternoon, according to the weathercast on the radio.

As Mummy and ammamma became busy with lunch preparations, we were left in the custody of Daddy. He kept telling us stories from his childhood about the kind of cyclonic weather he experienced. Particularly, amusing was the story of how he sneaked out of the house on a rainy night to watch a film. After the movie, when he started walking back home, he realized that the roads were all water logged with waist deep water. Furthermore, there was power failure and it was so dark, that he could not see his own hand, when he placed it in front of his eyes. While wading through the water, he spotted a huge boulder in the middle of the water and decided to step on it, to catch his breath. It turned out that the boulder was, in fact, a huge buffalo, which did not take kindly to a human being trying to stand on it. He immediately jumped to his four feet and started galloping down the road, with Daddy clinging to his dear life on its back. You can imagine the peels of laughter one could have heard at this point of time!

It took sometime for the man and beast to come to an understanding that neither meant harm. And when they understood each other, the buffalo stopped galloping to allow Daddy to dismount him. What would have otherwise been a 20 mins walk for Daddy to reach home, he told us it took an hour and half. Finally, when he reached home, he was grateful that his father (tatagaru) was not wide awake to welcome him with a cane.

As the wind intensity slowed down and the torrent became rain again, later in the evening, we were allowed near the windows. Since it was almost dark, we could hardly see what was happening outside. The destructive nature of the cyclone was completely evident the next day, when it was only drizzling. From the windows, we could see a lot of the coconut trees around the pond were missing. We also saw that some of the thatched roof huts did not have any roof at all. We later came to know that the unfortunate families were provided shelter in the tiled roof houses. Our concrete buildings were too far to be traversed through a rough weather.

Come to think of it, the same is true for socioeconomic scenario too! While the poor can move, albeit with great difficulty, into the middle class, it is always too far a distance to close between the poor and the rich!