Ghost stories!Bhooooot!Eeeeeesh!
By: Rajbir Deswal

AS a child, I was quite enamoured of my uncle who used to narrate episodes full of not only suspense but also romance and light-spiritedness. The combination of these two attributes always left a haunting stimulation in me coupled with the inspiration of sorts. Yes, inspiration to be more inquisitive about weird and supernatural things.

The dramatis personae (?) in my uncle’s stories were none other than ghosts and witches, and he claimed their appearance to him a number of times. He was busy the whole day, and although with awe and apprehension we used to look forward to his company only in the evenings or with the nightfall, with a lurking sensation in our impressionable minds.

I always wondered if uncle was endowed with the art of story telling, or else from where he picked up daily those dreadful anecdotes to relate to his anxious audience, the children in our household. “Does he really encounter spirits and reach home safe? Do the ghosts spare him daily for he had a freshness of its own kind not only in his narration but in his disposition as well? These queries sprang up in our minds at that time.

And most of the times when uncle shared with us his stories, I in particular had a queer sensation in me at the thought whether uncle himself wasn’t a ghost! I would try and look deep in his eyes but only for a few seconds and thereafter, compulsively, I had to turn my gaze to be fixed down below the charpoy. Then, suddenly, I would pull up my legs and cover myself with something to have some sense of security.

It is not that uncle’s stories always frightened us. Many times he would reveal the suspense also. Yet the entire ordeal of being through the narration of the episodes was no less frightful in itself. Never did we go to sleep until the story was complete. We had no questions to raise more out of the fear that uncle might come out with something more dreadful.

Uncle never talked of blood, daggers, swords, spears, etc, or the tearing of the skin and gaping wounds. Never had uncle depended on tools like the noose tightening around someone’s neck or long teeth being nailed in flesh or jaws chewing up and gulping the mortal stuff of human beings. His stories, though earthy in relevance and ephemeral in nature, still had an ambience of an eerie atmosphere embalmed with enigmatic enamel. Rather, uncle’s style was not the least violent but very simple.

Owing to pressure on space, I will relate only one instance to give a taste of uncle’s “treat” to us.

Once while returning from his place of work uncle was waiting for some conveyance to be transported home. It was a dark winter evening. He looked around and spotted a groundnut seller. When uncle approached him to purchase some groundnuts, he saw that the “man” lifted the scales, and with what he caught the scales were not human hands but animal hoofs!

Eeesshh...! As if this was not sufficient for us to have a hair-raising sensation, what uncle told us further was even more blood-chilling and bone-melting.

Having had an encounter with the hoofed groundnut seller, he ran only to climb a passing tonga. Frightened as uncle was, he told the tongawala, who too had a spooky countenance, about the “man” he had just seen, with no hands but hoofs. And the tongawala spurred on the horse, pulled and loosened the reins, only to show to my uncle his “hands”, saying “Did the groundnut seller have hoofs like these!”

Uncle says he didn’t know what happened thereafter, and how he reached home. Well, as I said, uncle never talked about blood, daggers, torn skin and gaping wounds.