When I was as young as 10, I was witness to a ‘ghost’ incident. It was 1972 and we were living in a hamlet called Gudivada Agaraharam in Srikakulam district in the then undivided Andhra Pradesh state. Surrounded by lush green mangroves and two rivers and a rivulet flowing over on all sides, the hamlet looked like a perfect picnic spot during summer and winter and during the rainy season it looked like an island.
The village had only three streets. We lived in the middle street in which sat a haunted house belonging to the village munsiff. The street wore a deserted look when dusk fell as people kept indoors wary of the ghost. We, three boys aged 10, were so curious to unravel the mystery of the house. Most of the villagers including us used to sleep in the space in front of our houses during summer. One night, after our parents were in deep slumber, we left our places and reached the haunted house where we climbed the boundary wall of the house to watch the ghost. After few hours, we saw an apparition, purportedly a woman wearing a white sari with her anklets giving sonorous sounds, coming out of the house with a whorl of pungent smoke from tobacco trailing her. We gasped for breath. Summoning courage, one of us threw a stone at the shadow. Soon the shadow disappeared into the darkness groaning in low voice.
The next day too we went to the bungalow but no apparition was sighted. Our curiosity increased by the day. We were wondering if the ghost was injured by the stone. We procured a torch light from one of our homes, hoping to identify the face of the ghost. For 10 days there was no ghost. This continued for another five days when suddenly we found the apparition going into the bungalow in the dead of night. The same figure with white sari and a pungent smell of cigar smoke trailing her. We focused our torch light on her face. With one jump she disappeared into the bungalow.
We waited and waited and waited until dawn broke. A dark woman wearing a white sari with pepper grey hair was coming out of the bungalow. She had a close resemblance to the apparition. She was none other than the servant of the munsiff, who having had an affair with her, was clandestinely meeting her in the night.
In order to avoid being caught, he created this ghost drama. We came to know later that the woman was injured by he stone hurled at her during that night. It was a sigh of relief for the village that there was no “ghost” incident after that.
DhavalA Subrahmanyam
Email: subrahmanyam.d@newindianexpress.com