Penguin Book Of Indian Ghost Stories (20 page)

Ravi Shankar

The moon tugged at his blood making Kuttan fret for Grandfather. He awoke smelling the moonlight in the wind, an abstract liquid smell, full of distant incense and frangipani. In the family temple behind the house, Grandfather was praying late into the night, and he could hear the sacred bells rise and fall in rapid rhythm. And, as always happened on moonlit nights, when he looked out of the window, he saw the woman sitting under the frangipani tree, combing her hair.

She sat looking towards the temple inside which Grandfather prayed, as if she was waiting for him to finish. The temple glowed with a golden smoke, and the living darkness around it seemed to ripple with Grandfather’s chants. Outside his window, the countryside was silvery with the moon, but in the corner of the coconut grove where the temple stood, it was always dark.

The woman had hair which reached her feet, and she ran her comb through it in long, slow sweeps. Her ivory comb looked like polished bone in the moonlight. She had her ankles crossed, and her anklets glistened like mating golden snakes. Though he could not see her face, he knew she looked at him from time to time from the corners of her kohl dark eyes, through the fragrant cascade of her hair, and he knew that her smile would be moist and white against her betel red lips. Grandfather had finished his prayer. His body glistened with sacred oil, and his loincloth was red like blood. The woman shifted imperceptibly, it seemed to Kuttan that she was uncoiling herself. Kuttan saw that Grandfather was smiling, and as he passed her, he paused to pick something up from the ground. It was an ivory flower, which he placed among the black curls of her hair. She rested her cheek against Grandfather’s palm, and her
hair spilled over Grandfather’s forearm on to the ground, swirling among the fallen frangipani flowers. He felt they were looking at him, Grandfather with his small and secret smile, she covertly from beneath the curtain of her hair. And that look reached out to him with a satin darkness, involving him in a complicity he felt but could not fully comprehend.

When Grandfather came to bed, he asked him about her. As he had asked him many times before.

‘Is she a yakshi, Grandfather?’

‘What do you know about yakshis, little one?’

‘The servants talk about the yakshi under the frangipani tree, Grandfather. They say she’ll get them if they go out in the dark. Does the yakshi live under the frangipani tree.’

Grandfather stroked his hair gently, making him feel sleepy. His fingers smelt of frangipani flower, and fragrant hair. Kuttan’s blood stirred. Outside, the nightwind raised the ravens from their nests, sending them flying in disturbed, noisy circles, showering the waters of the village ponds with dead leaves, surging across the black palms which grew on the hillsides and among the paddy fields.

‘The yakshis sleep on the black palm tops, Kuttan,’ Grandfather’s voice was a slow, fond whisper, ‘and when the moon is full, they wait at the crossroads for travellers.

‘They have eyes like the night, skin like moonlight, lips wet and red like clean blood. Their hair is like a waterfall at night.

‘Watch their feet, Kuttan,’ Grandfather said, ‘they never touch the ground. And when the yakshi meets a traveller, she will ask him for betelnut and vettila. And he who gives is lost.’

‘What happens to them, Grandfather?’

‘They are borne aloft to her nest on the black palm. In the morning all that will be left will be hair and bones.’

‘Will they feast on me too, Grandfather?’

Grandfather smiled his secret smile, the one that was always on his lips when he came away from the temple at night.

‘You are my blood, Kuttan,’ Grandfather said, ‘you are family.’

Kuttan felt safe, snuggling up to Grandfather’s chest, which smelt of sandalwood and holy ash mingling with Grandfather’s
odour which was musky and strong. The cicadas and nightbirds came to him in the nightwind, which had the crispness of the distant rain. He knew he would dream of her that night, as he did on most, under the frangipani tree, combing her hair, teasing him with the hidden look. He never mentioned his dream to Grandfather, but he could tell by Grandfather’s secret smile that he knew about it.

Grandfather was very tall, and the hair on his chest was still black. Every evening, Grandfather would take him for a bath in the temple pond. They would walk through the road which lay across the lands they owned, and people they met on their way would step aside, avert their eyes, and cover their faces with their shouldercloth. It was forbidden to look on Grandfather’s face, and Kuttan suspected it was more than the rules of caste which forced them to look on the ground. It was fear.

They would walk along the cinnabar road which ran like winding serpent through the emerald paddy and black palms. In the near distance bullock carts swam through the sunset, the lanterns in their underbellies swaying in the dusk. Night would gather slowly, darkening the stone steps which led from the temples into the water; in the gloaming the waters of the pond were black and cold, and the reflection of the banyan tree which grew above on the bank was like a Shaivite silhouette, the long roots swaying and curling in the wind. It was the cursed hour, the villagers said, and no one bathed when the three hours met upon the water.

‘This is supposed to be the hour of the
brahmarakshas,’
Grandfather said to Kuttan one evening as they walked to the temple tarn for their bath. Kuttan shivered, for an angry wind had suddenly sprung up. It seemed to flow down from the banyan tree, which Grandfather said was the haunt of the
brahmarakshas,
the soul of the brahmin virgin who had died, unfulfilled. The wind licked at his bones and left him deathly cold. But now Grandfather frowned, and raised his hand, commanding the wind to be still. And Kuttan felt the wind leave him, and spread howling with helpless malice across the paddy and the bamboo groves like a cold scythe, bending the black palms, putting out the light in the
villagers’ huts, fanning the fires in the forests of the hills. Later that night, in his dreams, he saw the wind again, like a pale woman with streaming, translucent hair and eyes without pupils.

Dreaming on in restless sleep, other familiars from other nights came to visit: the dark stranger who always stood in the shadows among the lanes which were full of foliage and shade; the presence who stood on the veranda of a distant, dead house, looking out into the night, waiting for he did not know whom. And the most disquieting dream of all, in which his sleep was cradled in hair perfumed with ivory flowers, while he sucked on a cold, blue-veined teat which was full of warm rich blood. He came awake, as he always did when this dream enveloped him, but Grandfather was instantly by his side, patting him back to sleep: ‘Rest, little one, it is not yet time to wake up.’

He knew it wasn’t time. Meanwhile he would spend the days of his happy, though somewhat lonely, childhood with his grandfather, walking through coconut graves and paddy fields, running ahead of Grandfather, along the village roads edged with spell-bound people averting their faces, and holding their children closer. He wasn’t unhappy, but sometimes Kuttan wished he could play with other children.

He wondered why they wouldn’t let him. He wasn’t all that different from them. So what if his feet did not touch the ground.

O.V. Vijayan

The compound bounding our farmhouse was extensive. It sloped down to the south towards the paddy fields, and where it met cultivated land was a hedge full of fruit trees—citrus, pomegranate and guava. Near the hedge was the little hut where old Nagandi-appan, our farm manager, lived. We spoke of him as the manager merely from the persistence of memory, for he had long since ceased to manage the farm. Nagandi-appan’s wife and son were dead, and the old man lived on in the farm as a part of its environment. We, the children, who had always seen him on the farm believed that he would be there for all time.

Every evening Nagandi-appan walked along the paddy ridges, as he had in the days when he tended the crops. But he no longer looked after stile or waterway, he carried neither spade nor lantern, he merely walked the ridges. During these journeys, he carried with him a small earthen pot full of palm brew left over from his sundown drinking. He paused every now and then to sprinkle this over the ridges. Neither my father nor mother took notice of this ritual of many years. As a matter of fact, no one in the farm took notice of anything, nor did anyone do anything to manage it, and this included my father; in this state of happy indifference the paddy and the orchard and the cattle grew in fullness and health.

Nagandi-appan was fond of us children. He procured for us forbidden sweets, crude sugar shaped into pencils and onions, peasant delicacies. We went to his hut when the lamps were lit, and sat before him to hear his stories. These, he reminded us, were true; poltergeists encountered in the fields, winged tortoises which dived in and out of streams and tiny serpents who mocked his
faltering steps. My sister Ramani and I found these stories more real than our lessons in history.

‘Nagandi-appan,’ Ramani asked him once, ‘what colour are these serpents?’

‘Aw,’ Nagandi-appan said, ‘some are gold, some are silver, and others, turquoise.’

We sat lost in a festival of little snakes, magical and capricious. ‘Nagandi-appan,’ Ramani asked, ‘will these serpents come out to play?’

‘Of course, they will.’

‘Then shall we call them?’

Nagandi-appan smiled sadly. He said, ‘The time is not yet.’

There was no place in Nagandi-appan’s story for why it was not yet time. There were no questions in our contented lives, nor in the story of how our farm prospered unmanaged and untended. We spent the greater part of the evening listening to Nagandi-appan and went back home reluctantly for supper. After this we were too tired to open our books. Thus was our education unmanaged and untended like the farm, with neither recitation nor revision.

‘My children,’ Nagandi-appan once said, ‘you will become big and important people. I have done something to ensure that.’

‘What, Nagandi-appan?’

‘You don’t have to pore over your books. They will come and teach you while you sleep.’

‘Who?’

Again the quizzical smile, Nagandi-appan said, ‘It is not yet time to tell you.’

We grew up. When Ramani came of age she no longer attended the charmed evenings and I went alone to Nagandi-appan’s hut. Every night Ramani would have me repeat the stories to her. It was still the poltergeists and tortoises and snakes, but a more mysterious presence now lurked on the fringes of the narration as the days went by. But the time had not yet come for him to tell us what this was. All he did say was that he sprinkled the palm brew to propitiate this presence. Back home we discussed the presence and wondered.

‘It must be some creature smaller than a snake,’ Ramani said.

‘A kind of pest perhaps,’ mother said irreverently.

But it was no laughing matter for us children. ‘How can it be a pest?’ Ramani. ‘Our crops are fine. If Nagandi-appan is feeding the palm brew to pests, how can the paddy grow so well?’

Mother put an end to the dispute. ‘Why do you waste your time, my children? Let Nagandi-appan keep whatever little creatures he chooses to.

Now it came about that mother was stricken with a paralytic seizure. One leg grew limp. The
vaidyan
began his ministrations. One evening Nagandi-appan made a sacrificial offering of flower and fruit and palm sugar. I sat watching. After the offering he dipped his finger in the earthen pot and sprinkled the palm brew around the room.

‘They will go now,’ he said. ‘They will go to mother and heal her.’

‘Who, Nagandi-appan?’ I asked, daring to venture into forbidden country. ‘The little ones?’

Reluctantly Nagandi-appan conceded, ‘Yes.’

That night I dreamt of Nagandi-appan’s little ones, minute creatures, luminous and subtle bodies. I saw swarms of them descend on my mother and enwrap her leg like mist. The
vaidyan
had told us that it would take her three months to get well, but her leg was restored in ten days. Neither mother nor we spoke about the little ones. Nagandi-appan made no more offerings but took his earthen pot out to the fields and there propitiated the little ones with the brew.

There was yet another memorable incident. Ramani was seeking admission to the college of medicine. It was when they called her for the entrance examination that she broke down, she was unprepared.

‘I won’t make it,’ she told me, sobbing. ‘They will reject me.’

That evening I went to Nagandi-appan and suggested with a sense of absurdity, ‘Nagandi-appan, can you send your little ones somewhere for me?’

‘Where to?’

‘To the medical college.’

‘Of course, I could.’

He made the ritual offering of flower and fruit and palm sugar, then sprinkled the brew in the room. ‘My little ones,’ he spoke to his invisible host, ‘go.’

Sobbing and unprepared, Ramani sat for the test and passed. She enrolled in the college of medicine and in five years was a doctor.

And I started working as a factory engineer. Both of us left the farm and went to faraway towns. Once she confided to me, ‘When I make an incision, I don’t see anything I learnt in the books of anatomy. Often I marvel how all that gets back into place once again, how it heals.’

‘The work of nature, I suppose.’

‘I don’t know. But it keeps reminding me of Nagandi-appan’s little creatures.’

In time our parents died, and there was no one left on the farm except Nagandi-appan who had become brittle with age. The farm looked after itself. On one of my visits home, I found Nagandi-appan bedridden. I sat by his bed and talked about the poltergeists and tortoises and snakes in nostalgia. ‘But, Nagandi-appan,’ I said, ‘one thing remains.’

‘What is it, my child?’

‘You have not shown me the little ones.’

Nagandi-appan’s eyes grew distracted, scanning the far spaces. He clenched his fist, and opening it again read the lines on his palm.

‘You have come,’ he said, ‘at the right time. I shall now show you the little ones.’

‘Really, Nagandi-appan?’

‘Yes.’

‘When, Nagandi-appan?’

He read his palm again, and concentrated.

‘Tomorrow night,’ he said.

I wondered what the old man had seen in his palm; I felt his forehead. ‘Nagandi-appan,’ I asked, ‘are you very ill?’

Nagandi-appan looked at my face and smiled, contented.

‘The breeze,’ he said.

‘What about the breeze, Nagandi-appan?’

‘It blows over me. And it is full of the scent of the wild
tulasi.’

It was a closed room, yet a subtle and aromatic wind, beyond my senses, blew in for Nagandi-appan. Sleep was coming over him, his eyes began to close.

‘Rest, Nagandi-appan,’ I said.

He looked at me again, intently, and said, ‘Let your mind be pure tonight.’

In my dreams that night, I sat on a paddy ridge and felt the breeze of the sacred
tulasi.

The next day, as the dusk darkened over the farm, I went to the hut. Nagandi-appan had grown even more feeble, he struggled to breathe. ‘It is time, my child.’

I gazed on the old face in the silent enquiry. Speaking each word with visible effort, he said, ‘Go into the compound at the west end and watch the sky.’

I caressed the fevered forehead, and walked out into the compound. I looked to the west. It was a moonless night, and the stars were large and bright. I sent up a childhood prayer,
Little ones, oh my little ones!
Only the stars shone.

Then, slowly, in the far segments of the sky appeared gentle luminescences, soft green and red, glimmering like Stardust. They came from the caverns of space rising in infinite multitudes, flying from
mandala
to
mandala
to fulfil the last wish of their high priest. Now they were a deluge, refulgent, dense, another milky way.

‘
God,’
I said, ‘
Nagandi-appan’s little ones!’
I raced back to the hut.

‘Nagandi-appan,’ I cried out as I ran, ‘I saw them!’

I entered the hut breathlessly.

‘Nagandi-appan, I saw them!’

But the bed was empty.