Who said that supernatural beings frighten women, but not men? Conceded, even innocent ghosts can scare women while making men laugh. Like the familiar story of the helpless ghost on probation, who was cringing in the dark in the wee hours of the morning as he forgot the key yogic posture for returning to the world of ghosts before sunrise, and who was successfully helped by trial and error by a drunken, boisterous youngster returning from a bachelors’ party. The young fellow’s hilarious narration of his morning adventure at the local club next evening startled the women there, while men roared with laughter. However, while demonstrating the yogic posture at the urging of the applauding crowd, he himself vanished from sight, and it was men who fainted first!
And what happened on the night the murder took place at the bachelors’ hostel in T’puram? That evening, after being stabbed by a derelict, the victim collapsed in the courtyard and gave up his ghost.
Unaware of the tragedy, I returned from the theatre in high spirits after watching the movie Dracula, followed by supper at my favourite restaurant. On the way to my room, I had fleetingly noticed that the other rooms and their windows were all shut and no one was around. Clearly, the buggers had all gone for the ‘night show’ of Dracula, which they had all been looking forward to with great excitement. I took to my reading, keeping the door and window wide open as usual. I would read well past midnight, as was my custom in those carefree bachelor days.
In the midst of the reading, did I hear some soft, rustling sound outside the room, perhaps that of some tiny bird delicately flapping its wings? I got up to check. It was a small black bird flying back and forth in the long, vestibule-like veranda. Obviously, the confused creature could not see its way out. Gently I tried to help it towards the open end of the veranda, but the foolish bird continued its to-and-fro flight. So, when it was flying past me, I extended my hand and lightly touched it to guide its way out. And the bird instantly disappeared into the dark night. Resuming my reading, I casually glanced up at the clock. It was midnight, when “time was out of joint” as the Bard would say. Funny!
I went to bed with high satisfaction of having seen the much-awaited horror film and having covered several short stories of D. H. Lawrence.
In the morning, I was awakened by the tea-boy, who abruptly asked me about my neighbours whose shut doors and windows had astonished him. Not knowing previous day’s incident, I flippantly quipped that perhaps Dracula had taken them all. Yet, somehow sensing life’s vibrations in my neighbour’s room, I called out his name. There was response. Surprise of surprises, they – five or six of them – were huddled together in that closed room, being scared of the dead man’s roaming ghost! It was then that I heard of the murder story. They said they were all concerned about my safety last night, and asked me if I had noticed anything unusual at night! I refrained from scaring them further by disclosing the blackbird interlude. That would have given them ‘instant evidence’ for the existence of ghosts and vampire-bats. Certainly, no coincidence supposition would make sense to them. Later, when sanity returned, I teased my neighbour, a Marxist, for his huddling together with the superstitious gang. He had his justification: “Ghosts have no respect for ideologies”!
So much for male immunity to superstitions in modern times.
K X M John
02/02/2010
(First published in New Indian Express in February 2010)
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