Do you believe in ghosts?
Not quite sure how many of us believe in so called ghosts. We see in horror movies, suspense thrillers they show ghosts, spirit and so on. Though I do not believe in these when I was very young and was in village I heard of some stories in the villages. In the earlier days say 30,40 years ago we were not that advanced and particularly in villages hardly any communication facilities, mud roads and forest and greenery around the villages. Now I realise how beautiful those days were. While studying History we hear about what happened in 14th century or 17th century. I can see myself in the 19th century what happened how the atmosphere in the villages, bonded labour, barter system was there and we used to go to the agriculture fields to buy fresh vegetables, fruits.
In villages most of the people work in agricultural fields, they come up with some stories or other while they go to paddy fields or coming back home from paddy fields or sitting below a thatched house, or a palm or banyan tree. That time the villages were so green one will find trees and bushes everywhere. If you cross a bushes, and in the evening or night you may hear some noises or other, some get frightened as in villages lot of stories they tell about ghosts. Since I was very small kid listening to the stories of elders when they gossip about the incidents around the villages at times they also talk about the ghosts.
In our village Panchali that time only upto 7th standard was there to study. For 8th onwards we have to go to Salur which is the nearest town about 4kms distance. Since there was no communication, we had to walk while going or coming back from school. It takes about an hour or so to cover the four kilometers. I alongwith other children in the village and neighbouring villages used to go to High School. While coming in the evening sometimes it becomes very dark and we had to wait on the way to see if some elder people are going to our village and we used to accompany them and we had cross some huge plantation, river, since no electricity we used to walk in the darkness.
This incident happened with my elder brother who was also going to College which is also in Salur. After college he was coming back home from Salur and about one km away from my village people used to say that there are some ghosts on the palm trees which are plenty. When he was coming back he tried to accompany some villagers who were going back home from agricultural fields. He was acoompanying one person in the evening and it was dark and one women covering head approached my brother who was going in front of the farmer. That lady came to my brother and asked for match stick to lit a chutta (a type of cigarette rolled out of tobacco leaves in the village they use). My brother told her that he does not smoke hence I do not have match box.. That women crossed him and within few minutes my brother looked back to find that women was no where to see. Frightened with this my brother asked the farmer, anna where is that women who just came to us asking for match box. that farmer told my brother that that was not a real woman and that was a ghost and everyday they come across her. When I hear it was startling and from day onwards I had to look for people to accompany as we have to cross that road to reach our village. This was an incident but we do not know whether it was a real ghost or imaginary, but ghosts are said to be there. Will write about sprit in the next article.