It all began a few days back or so I thought. I had just fallen asleep when something or someone had clutched my hand. I woke up with a startle and turned my head, and what I saw was the scared look on my sister’s face. ”What happened?” I asked her. All I got in reply was a,”Shhhhh! Just listen”. I quietly tried to listen. I heard a moaning sound, a hoarse low rumbling voice. A voice which I thought resembled that of my late grandfathers.
I was scared and so was my sister. We clutched each other under the bed sheets while the voice cried out as if in great pain,” Rakshikyanne, rakshikyanne (save me, save me)” repeatedly. We tried to shut off the noise from our ears and finally slipped off into deep slumber.
The next morning we got up late and lazed around the whole morning. We then went to the house next to ours where my cousin brother lives. He was fast asleep. We woke him up and told him the night’s events expecting him to get hyper like the both of us. “Hey, I had a similar experience”, he told us. We started staring at him as we couldn’t believe our ears. “What happened?” we asked him. ”Well it was during the football world cup. Ammumma (grandmother) was alone at home so I went to sleep over there to give her company. It was over 12 o’clock and the match was going on. I had gotten up to get a glass of water. Suddenly I heard moaning and groaning sounds. I also heard a hoarse voice crying out ‘Rakshikyanne’. I got scared and peeped in at the doorway to the bedroom when I saw ammumma writhing as if in agony on the bed. Seeing this I got so scared that I ran witched off the television, ran upstairs and jumped on the bed”. We looked at him expectantly wanting to hear the rest when he finished lamely”I didn’t go and see later like I intended to. What would I do if when I woke ammumma up it was someone else who got up?” Hearing this chechi and I were shocked. Then looking at the comical expression on his face both of us burst into laughter. We then pushed the matter from our minds and got on to the other things that had to be done that day.
The whole of the next week my sister and I stayed on at our grandmother’s place to give her company. My dad had also come from Lucknow to finalize the details of my admissions. My uncle too had come down from madras to attend to a marriage. One whole day there was no current. Many candles were lit towards the night time. We even had our dinner in candle light. Later on when we were going to hit the bed my grand mom told my dad to leave one candle lit……
My dad was sleeping in the room upstairs. Something woke him up in the middle of the night. As he opened his eyes he felt as if he could see alternate light and darkness. He came downstairs only to see the whole table in flames he quickly grabbed a jug of water and put out the flames. He then went back to bed.
The next morning when I got up the first thing I saw was everyone laughing. Then I heard about the fire and saw the scorch marks on the table. My dad and uncle kept joking about ‘someone’ having woken my dad up and that ‘someone’ being my ‘grandfather’. Even I laughed with everyone else when my grand mom said passingly that a servant who used to work there earlier left the house because ‘there was someone walking upstairs at night’ and that the maid servant heard some door open during the night. Hearing this, the others started laughing even more but I just stood there stunned not knowing where to turn. I went and woke my sister up and told her the entire story by which my cousin had joined us too. He then ventured a remark and told my grandmother that she was talking in her sleep and that too in a hoarse voice. She started laughing and told us not to get scared for such a stupid matter. We just laughed nervously protesting that we weren’t scared. We went outside and discussed and re-discussed this issue the whole day until another cousin of mine joined us. We narrated all the happenings to him in great detail obviously trying to add a bit more masala into the whole deal. Much to our expectations even he started getting nervous. We then started discussing this again till we got to such a point that we started jumping up on hearing each squeak. We then moved to other topics talking until late at night until my brother had to go home.
The next evening my brother came back and all of us were sitting and listening to music and then BANG! We were back discussing the forbidden topic. We again started discussing on whether it was our grandfather’s voice that we heard; whether it was just that our grand mom was talking in her sleep or whether it was our imagination running overtime. All of a sudden my brother started grinning and he started of,” I don’t mean to scare you. I talked to my mom about all of this yesterday. And guess what she said?” All of us chorused, “What???????”
It seemed that my aunt told him that a few weeks back my grand mom told her that she felt as if my grandfather was around. Hearing this we were stunned. We didn’t know how to react. Looking at our faces my brother started grinning even more. “You haven’t heard the rest of it”, he continued. The next thing we heard was that ever since Radha ammumma (my grand mom’s elder sister) death no puja has been done for their spirits. Especially since Radha ammumma’s death was in an accident we were stunned. Radha ammumma had passed away in the railway accident which took place on the Perumon Bridge. Thinking about all of this we were shocked. We didn’t know where to turn and how to react. Seeing our horrified faces our brother took pity on us and told us that the puja had been done for our grandfather’s spirit. We were relieved and we decided not to talk on this topic ever again.
Many days have passed since then and all of us have met since then. Contrary to our decision we have talked about this time and time again. We have repeated this story to our other cousins in hope of scaring them. Now all of us cousins know about these happenings and these recollections still send a shiver down our spines. We sometimes still wonder……
Was it fact or fiction???????????????
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