Ghosts with a human touch

My friend, Preetam Giani, of Abbotabad (Pakistan) has a habit of tossing stray thoughts at me which provoke me to think. In his last letter (post-earthquake, which he survived without a scratch) he wrote; ?There seems to be a qualitative difference between living bravely and dying bravely. While the latter is admirable enough and certainly not easy, the former appears to me not only much more admirable but also more difficult!?

I think too much is made of facing death bravely. Allama Iqbal lauded it in a Persian couplet:

Nishaan-e-mard-e-momin ba too goyam?/ Choon marg aayad,/ Tabassum bar lab-e-ost.

(You ask about a man of faith?/ When death comes to him, he has a smile on his lips.)

Unfortunately, death often overtakes one without giving him a chance of displaying his courage, for instance in an earthquake or a tsunami; in a plane, train or car crash. One may be struck by lighting, crushed under a tree. Or go into a coma, as my mother, a cheerful soul, did, many days before she went into the deep slumber from which there is no awakening. Even more difficult is to keep a brave face when you are in acute pain. Not even the bravest of the brave can smile, if he has a throbbing toothache. Perhaps the show of bravery is most evident in the field of battle, where men show valour in a spirit of revenge or fanaticism. Muslim Ghazis (present day jihadis) who form suicide squads rarely think of consequences of their acts. Maharajah Ranjit Singh?s Nihang troops were equally religiously motivated and fortified with bhang-hashish. As far as I am concerned, I would like to go the way my 90-year old father went. He was enjoying his evening drink. He felt a little uneasy and lay down in his bed to let the uneasiness pass. It was one for the long road to the unknown. He rose no more.

Being brave in life is an altogether different matter. It can be a life-long battle. Your parents, teachers and childhood friends mould your way of thinking. They fill you with racial, religious and patriotic prejudices before you begin to think for yourself. You are told to strive for success, make lots of money, win popular acclaim. Most of this requires scoring over others by means foul or fair, compromising with principles, double-crossing friends and indulging in all kinds of skullduggery. You have to decide whether you want to be regarded as a success in life or a man with a clear conscience. It is tough to opt for the latter.

Spooky tales from here and there

As a schoolboy, I spent many summers in Shimla. I heard ghost stories associated with bungalows and parts of roads running through thickly forested hillsides. Most of them were about Englishmen and women who had lived there during the raj days and are buried in a dozen cemeteries. The most spine-chilling were about mummaaee wallas. They were said to be evil spirits in the employ of the British army. They accosted people at paanwalla shops late at night, blew some sort of magic powder on their victims? faces who then followed them like lambs. The victim was taken to a solitary place, hung upside down over a simmering fire and the oil that dropped from his skull collected in a basin. It was known as Ram tel which could glue together limbs cut off from the body. The only way to identify a mummaaee walla was to look at his feet; they had heels in front and the toes at the back. It was a silly spook story but every now and then, rumours that the spooky oil collectors were in town spread, Shimla?s bazaars were deserted after sunset.

Mummaaee wallas? stories have not died out; they have reappeared in more mutilated forms in as much as besides having their feet turned the wrong way, their arms and hands also face the wrong way. I found this reading Minakshi Chaudhary?s Ghost Stories of Shimla Hills. She knows Himachal well, having written a couple of books about it, and covered it for The Indian Express.

Minakshi Chaudhary?s collection has many stories I had not heard of before. Being familiar with Shimla?s environs and graveyards, reading about them gave me another sort of icy thrill. As a rationalist in daytime, I discard spooky stories as a load of rubbish. With me, reason disappears with sunset. At night I do not dare to go alone in a cemetery or a cremation ground. I have my own private unpublished collection of ghost stories connected with Delhi and Kasauli. Delhi has become very crowded, brightly lit with human traffic round the clock. It has driven its ghosts out. Kasauli remains comparatively isolated with several old British cemeteries: ghost stories continue to thrive: phantom horse-riders, rickshaws, sisters who fell to their death trying to scale Monkey Point on horseback. They were buried at the base of the hill named Lady?s Grave. The Indian Air Force destroyed their tomb to build flats for its personnel. I hope the two sisters? spirits disturb their night?s sleep.

A different peeping Tom

Padma Shri Muhazzab Lakhnawi, credited with an in-depth study of Lakhnawi tehzeeb, once narrated an anecdote to his close friends about the delicacy, modesty and chastity of the begums of old Lucknow.

One fine morning, a begum sahiba noticed a lota of her toilet missing. The loss sent her into inconsolable sobs. Her maids reported the incident to nawab sahib. Moved by the plight of his beloved begum, he assured her that he would replace the cheaper aluminium lota with an engraved silver lota of finer quality. But the begum had her own apprehensions. Sharing her worry with the nawab sahib she disclosed, ?I am not perturbed over this petty loss but the lurking fear in my mind is that the old lota had been watching me nude since my childhood and now another one will peep through.

(Contributed by T.N. Raz, Panchkula)