The Exorcism of the Ghost-Part I

          Padma was introduced to the ghost when she was, may be, three years of age – that’s what she remembers.  She was not sure of her accuracy on this count.  That was when her relative mentioned the word ‘Deyyam barukulu’ (Ghost scratches) for chapped skin in winter.

          Padma had got curious.  She wanted to know what the ‘Deyyam’ (Ghost) was and how it managed to scratch her.  When she asked her cousin as to how those scratches appeared, the latter bit her tongue and promptly told her, ‘Actually they are called ‘Gaali Geetalu’ (lines caused by the air).  They occur during the winter.  Some people also call them ghost-scratches’.  Those were the days when cosmetics had not invaded our dressing tables in the way they have now.  Awareness of moisturising the skin was quite low – it either took the form of application of coconut oil (which, some people worried, would cause thick body hair) or, for those who could afford, petroleum jelly, on the body.  Needless to say, with no fragrance to enjoy, and an oily skin to handle, children naturally made a lot of fuss to let their mothers lubricate their body, and therefore, usually ended up with chapped and scraped skin during winters.  With low levels of awareness about the skin, people attributed the scratches on their skin to the invisible air or to the equally invisible ghost.

          Being a sharp girl as she was, Padma did not take long to put two and two together.  She correlated the ghost with air.  If the air blew hard, making a whistling sound, she would be frightened that some scary invisible creature was out to harm her and her family.  This fear was reinforced whenever she heard haunted songs on the transistor or when any sad song in the rain had a spooky interlude.

          Now that Padma was ‘sure’ of the existence of the devil, she was naturally scared of moving from one room to another in the dark.  Electrical energy itself was a rarity in the society of her childhood.  Though her parents stayed in a fully electrified home, power cuts were fairly common, and without a timing or a warning.  Thoughtful as she was, she wondered what would happen if the power went off when she was all by herself in one of the rooms.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

          Even as this thought struck, the power went off.  ‘Amma, Amma, I’m all alone in the study room.  Please come here, Amma!  I am scared’, she shouted.  Suddenly in the dark something white appeared.  It took a while for Padma to figure out what it was…..  Yes, you are right, it was the ghost – in the form of a skeleton!  Padma wanted to make sure whether it was a skeleton – she recollected the diagram of a skeleton she had seen in the Biology text book of a senior at School (that was when a book which dropped out of the senior’s school bag opened on its own to show at the page of the skeleton.  Padma picked the book up and returned it to the senior and thereby learnt about the skeleton.  Of course, she was familiar with the skull, a group of which adorned Goddess Kali’s neck as a garland).  Yes, she was right.  She had to think quick – she had to escape from the clutch of the ghost.  She charged towards the door of the study room, which led to the drawing room, where her mother was (or so, she thought).  The skeleton seemed to be a mind reader and blocked the entrance and opened its ugly jaws to devour her.

          ‘Amma!’ screamed Padma.  For the last time in her life, she thought.  Amma’s hand touched her shoulder gently, Padma came back to her senses and cried in her mother’s reassuring arms.

* * * * * * * * *

          As if the ghosts created by her own imagination were not enough, Padma had relatives and friends who were determined to convince her that there existed such creatures in this world.  One day, an aunt told her that one girl who washed her hair on a Sunday and let it loose, wore a white dress and swung in the shade of the tamarind tree was possessed by a ghost.  Now, Padma was better informed, and therefore, wiser-one should not wear white after washing ones’ hair on a Sunday nor should swing under a tamarind tree, which seemed to be the home for the dreaded creature.  The aunt who gave her this information specialised in gossip, but the seven-year-old Padma could not have understood that.

* * * * * * * * *

          The ghost’s relationship with the white colour was ‘established’ by a story told by Padma’s friend, Harini.  There lived a young boy, sixteen years of age, by name Vijay.  He was a spendthrift, and was given into bad habits.  He had lost his parents when he was seven, so his widowed grand-mother brought him up as a spoilt child.  He frequently pestered her for money to waste on his vices, but, since she doted on him, she had spared the rod on Vijay.  In due course, she sold all her jewellery to fund the spendthrift’s wasteful expenditure – except for a golden ring, with Goddess Lakshmi’s image on it, which was first slipped on to the ring finger of her left hand by her late husband at their betrothal decades ago.  It was not long before Vijay resorted to different tactics to either possess the ring or get his grandma to sell it – all in vain.  With passage of time, the grandmother realised the folly of her upbringing and died of the worry over the prodigal grandchild.  Vijay utilised it as an opportunity to steal the ring.  He tried to pull it out in vain.  But greed got the better of him – he chopped her ring finger off and finally took possession of the ring which the ‘old lady’ had refused to part with when she was alive.  That night, a woman wearing white appeared in front of him, and asked about his well-being.  Vijay noticed that she has one nine fingers on her hands, with the left ring finger conspicuous by its absence.  Vijay got curious and asked her about her missing finger.  The woman then leapt on to Vijay and screamed, ‘ IT IS WITH YOU!’

          To get the dramatic effect, Harini moved her face closer to Padma’s and screamed.  A terrified Padma screamed as well.  Other class-mates gathered around and reported the matter to the class teacher who found out what happened and counselled Harini against such story-telling.

* * * * * * * * *

          There was a family get together and all the women gathered to chit-chat after lunch.  Padma was a ten-year-old, but she stuck to Sakti like glue, so she happened to be a party to this conversation.  One woman recollected a spooky story of her childhood.  The story of a haunted mansion – ‘Deyyala Meda’.  This happened during her grandmother’s time and this was what she learnt about the ‘Deyyala Meda’.  Those were the days when there was no electricity.  There lived a rich man who built a two storeyed building in the village.  Since he was rich, he could afford quite a few servants to look after the various chores of the house.  One day, when the rich man was out on a business trip, his wife suddenly took ill.  She therefore requested one of the maids, Pullamma, to stay back at home to give her company as well as confidence.  In the night, the businessman’s wife wanted some water, so she woke Pullamma up.  While Pullamma had stepped out of the bedroom into another room, the lady wanted her maid to raise the brightness of the hurricane lantern, so that she could look around better.  And in came a pink coloured object from the other room which turned the key to increase the brightness.  The pink coloured object almost shocked her to death.  She saw Pullamma’s tongue brightening the lantern.  The lady’s fever vanished and acute fear took its place.  She somehow bid her time till the next morning when her husband returned.  Before night fell, they moved out of house stealthily.  The word of Pullamma the ghost spread quickly, and nobody came forward to buy the building; and in due course, it was christened as ‘Deyyala Meda’.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

          ‘The Exorcist’, a famous Adults only spooky film, was finally released in Visakhapatnam and became the talk of the town.  When Padma’s parents told her that only those individuals aged eighteen years and above could watch it, she left it at that.  She did not date to even give a ‘thought’ about ghosts.  Such a timid girl she was!

* * * * * * * * * *

          The campus of the autonomous body where Padma was growing up, was abuzz on one Saturday afternoon.  The famous ghost film in years, ‘Devude Gelichadu’ (‘God has eventually won’) was being screened at the local staff club that evening.  The protective elders in Padma’s family dissuaded her from visiting the club.  She showed tremendous courage and resolve in wanting to watch the film.  Instead of becoming wiser that God won over the Devil, she became even more timid.  What she saw of the ghost was a shapeless white smoke, in the corner of the haunted room and what she heard of it was the humming of a chorus.  So, she reminded herself that ghosts had something to do with white, shapelessness and humming, haunting chorus music.

* * * * * * * * * * *

          Padma was now in her early teens.  She was still afraid of moving around in the dark, but taking a leaf out of Lalita’s book, she became courageous enough to move around within the home during the very frequent power-cuts at night.

          One day in school, Anita, her class-mate announced that everybody could see the ghost, if only they had wanted it.  Padma should have kept out of such discussions, given her timid nature, but she let curiosity get the better of her.  She did not move towards Anita’s seat, but her ears had already tuned into the frequency of the audio waves of Anita’s voice: ‘You just have to do one simple thing.  During the night power-cut, cover your head with a dark coloured blanket, light a candle, go towards the mirror and LOOK AT YOURSELF!’

          Padma brooded over Anita’s statement – the dark coloured blanket was contradicting her perception of the ghost – she had thought devils wore white in the dark!  Anyway, she did not want to tax her mind with that subject.

          That evening, it was time for the power cut.  The chairs had already been laid in the open driveway of her home.  Since the timing was already known, Padma and her family would lay the chairs in the open air in the front portion of their house, and absorb whatever air was in circulation.  Moon and stargazing was another pastime of such nights.  A lowly lit lantern would be left on a corner of the dining table, to show some way to anybody entering the house.

          It was summer, but the night was dark and cloudy, one of those close to the new moon.  Neither the moon nor the stars could be gazed at.  Sita Ram, Padma’s grandfather, recollected a short anecdote of his student days.  Mid-way through, Sakti noticed a crawling creature across the portico.  All were worried.  The torch in their hand did not glow well enough, so she called out to Padma who had just gone into gulp some water on a low-breeze night.  ‘Padma, go to the master bedroom.  You’ll find a candle and match box in the right corner of the left window.  Light your way, and bring it out here!’  ‘What about the possibility of the candle being blown out?  Shall, I look for the spare batteries?’ Padma retorted.  ‘No, there’s some creature crawling out here.  Light the candle, and get it fast, and carefully!’ Sakti ordered.  Padma dashed into the master bedroom, took hold of the candle and matchbox on the right corner of the left window, lit it, and began her return stride.  Something bright cast its ray on the corner of her right eye, so she briefly stopped to examine it.  She saw a scary creature with a bright light beneath its face looking menacingly at her.  Padma screamed for help.  Her startled elders rushed inside, temporarily forgetting the creepy creature across the portico.  By the time they reached the master bedroom, in the flow of electric lights, they saw Padma with a fan-blown-out candle in hand, standing in front of the mirror of the dressing table!  It did not take long for Padma and others to understand what happened – Padma had actually looked into the mirror, which reflected the candle light into the corner of her right eye – she saw herself in new ‘light’, promptly recollected Anita’s ‘ghost speak’ in the morning and, was apparently petrified by this correlation.  She was too young to understand the need to exorcise the ghost within. 

* * * * * * * * * *(to be concluded)