GHOST - IS IT !!!

 

He was a supreme spirit of evil. Larger than any average human being with excessive strength. Long unkempt hairs, ragged fingernails, long sharp filthy teeth, ferocious demeanour and an untamed bloodthirsty murderer. It took a brigade of specially trained soldiers of the kingdom to capture him. The King immediately pronounced death sentence to the sinner. The beast was beheaded, the severed head and body were sealed in separate wooden boxes and kept under the old temple building. The gods in the temple would not allow the evil to reincarnate.

Ages later, the world had become modern but the structures of the palace and the temple still stood. A group of enthusiastic college students visit the palace for a vacation. Their modern thoughts made them curious enough to explore the remnants and their idiosyncrasies led them to open the sealed wooden boxes. The moment the wooden boxes opened, the headless devil lying there sucked the blood of one of the boys, flesh and life were restored, and the severed body then united itself with the separated head and then began all the trouble.

This is how the horror movie “Purana Mandir” unfolded but no one knew that this movie had a far reaching impact on few young boys in the nondescript suburban town ‘Khalari’. I was one of those affected by the horror that emanated from the screen of ‘Pushpanjali’ cinema hall.

It was a winter afternoon when father took me and my brother to watch this movie. My brother was quite spirited but I was in doubts and jittery. Anyways, while the movie progressed my father was alert enough to cover my face with the shawl he was carrying whenever the ghost appeared. But, for maximum impact the ghost appeared abruptly not giving enough time for creating a shield between me and the ghost with the shawl. The movie finally ended and I emerged out shaken.

During the night I dreamt and imagined the ghost around me, the ghost screams rang in my ears and my eyes saw the ghost appearing from all sides. I shrieked and fought the imaginary ghosts much to the worry of everyone at home. By the time it was morning I was running high fever and possessed- or this is what my parents thought.

The morning brought similar news of casualty, a dear friend Firoz had stopped sleeping near the wall as the ghost in the movie emerged tearing through the wall. Another friend came face-to-face with the ghost in his garden. But my brother rubbished all these- it is just a drama that they showed. But, I being a fearful chap, I was muddled.

The elderly barber who ran his shop under a banyan tree in KD Chowk was summoned, he was also an exorcist, not known to many.

The session for expulsion of the evil spirit began the same evening. An aluminium bowl was magically stuck on my bare back while I was made to sit cross-legged facing the wall of the courtyard. Another aluminium bowl was kept beside with water filled till the brim. I sat through the session listening to the gossip of the barber cum exorcist and my father. It took three tiresome and uneventful sessions to drive away the spirit that had possessed me. I had hoped that some mysterious smoke like figure would spring up from inside me and the same would get trapped in some bottle by the exorcist. No action-packed movement happened, rather the barber claimed that some whitish substance appeared in the water which was evidence that the evil spirit has been driven out, though my ordinary eyes couldn’t see any such substance. However, the barber must have done an extraordinary work as the spirit never bothered me ever, again.

Since then many more horror movies were exhibited in “Pushpanjali’ but many young viewers gave a miss to it and not to mention I was one of them. Even though a movie buff in my growing up and independent years, I always distanced myself from any horror movie.

Again, many years later my daughter puts on horror movies every time they show one in the TV and I do watch them intermittently but looks like I have finally grown up. No more getting possessed, after all.