I’ve not seen any ghosts in my life so far and don’t want to see them either 🙂 As the well-known logic says that if God exists then Devil should also exist, I subconsciously believed so. Interestingly one incident proved it to me that the ghosts do prevail and are around us 😀 This was an indirect experience that I had of a Ghost before I experienced the divine power. The latter I’ve explained here. Now over to the Ghost !
I was a kid that time, in 3rd-4th class, should be around 1990. All of a sudden, one of my female cousins, who was in 6-7th standard and staying with us then, fell ill and started behaving strangely. In addition to regular scientific signs like having fever, head ache etc, she was doing weird things like cursing elders, speaking abrupt language, biting teeth etc. These antics are very similar to what we observe in horror genre movies now a days.
After a while I came to know that on a Saturday, happened to be amavasya (no moon day) and was a holiday (due to some reason), after having head bath and with loose hair, she went out to learn bicycle. In those days the cycle shop wala used to give tiny bicycles for rent for Rs 1 per day. She took one, was alone and chose our school ground for the practice. Our School campus was behind the General Hospital, the mortuary was close by and there were rumors that it used to be an unofficial graveyard, years ago and was a deserted area. Some locals were sharing incidents that when ever some one digs over there, they often end up getting bones..etc. The elders suspected that something could have happened on that Saturday itself, when she went out for cycling.
As the situation of her was getting worse day by day, the elders were scouting for the different means of resolution because the regular allopathy was not serving the purpose. Finally they came to know about the father of our neighbor aunty, who was well-known in their area, in treating such victims. He was brought in and he started the treatment immediately. My parents were not revealing much to us, thinking that the kids might get scared. But the tidbits that I could grasp from various sources were that my cousin was possessed by a devil who was not willing to leave her.
They could extract information from her that while she was cycling alone in that ground, she had fallen down near the jammi chettu (Sami tree in English) and heard a lady laughing vehemently from the tree. When she looked at the tree, she saw a ghost like structure sitting on the small tree, laughing at her. From then onwards, the ghost seems to have possessed her.
One day my grand mother had my cousin rest on her and asked her to chant ‘Jai Hanuman’. We were all looking at the victim in excitement. While she was trying to say, ‘Jai Hanu…’ she was suddenly biting her teeth aggressively and stopping it. This added to the belief about the possession. Grandmom, gently asked her, who has possessed her. I still remember, the ghost started speaking and gave her whereabouts that she was a young lady and had to face abrupt death by committing suicide by burning herself with kerosene over family issues and want to take revenge on the people responsible…etc. Her words were not clear but it was evident that some other person was speaking through my cousin.
The sadhu uncle performed several different types of rituals some involved taking the victim to a graveyard too. Finally she was taken to ‘Kasapuram Sri Nettikanti Anjaneya Swamy Temple’ near Guntakal in Anantapur District, Andhra Pradesh area. It’s a famous place known for relieving ghost victims. After a consistent treatment process for few weeks my cousin was completely free from the ghost and after that she had a very normal life. My family thanked the Sadhu uncle a lot for his help. Till now such issues didn’t recur to her. Anjaneya Swamy became one of my favorite gods. I always wanted to be in his good books so that no devil would dare to poke me.
However, like many, I too had some logical doubts for which I couldn’t find full justification. For example, the jammi chettu is usually considered to be auspicious and is quite famous during the Dussera/Dasara festival. I was wondering how come a ghost sat on top of that tree and was scouting for victims. In fact, we were using the branch of the same tree as wickets while playing cricket in the school ground. Post incident, I was scared to death to bat beneath the tree. While batting, I used to watch at least 2-3 times towards the top of the tree, if I can find the ghost and fortunately it never showed up to me.
Now when I watch the movies like Chandramukhi, Arundhati, Kanchana and other horror genre films, it seems unbelievable in real life. But as I’ve personally seen this incident and it is still fresh in my memory, even though 25 years passed, I strongly believe that it’s not to do with the mental status of the victim as portrayed in the popular movies. The signs that my cousin showed up and her response to the treatments, were definitely beyond what science can prove. This made me believe that she was then surely possessed by a ghost.
After the incident, I was very scared for years to stay alone and avoided deserted places, especially during nights. This made me to rely on God more for the safety. I learnt few chants then which I’ve been using regularly in my daily pooja !
Nice narration !!