Shadow of a Ghost

She is such an entertainer and is a drama queen also at the same time. But the truth is she is not from the entertainment industry, just my friend.  It is really fun to have her company. She has so many stories to tell; of course most of them are imaginary and if not, exaggerated to beyond recognitions.  Its true that, she is observant than others but her blown out of proportion is enough to confused me for its authenticity.

Today, literally out of no where she started telling me, the story of her mother; to my surprise its new to me also. My mind started racing and I am guessing in she is not feeding me any imaginary story here. After all its her mothers’ memories stamped in her seven year old mind.

It all started, her remembering  the conversation with her teacher; When she was in about fourth standard one of her teacher told her during the break time, “do you know your sister had ran away with a guy when she was much younger but her master brought her back and then again married her off with another man and with whom she has two children ?”

She was very surprised and intimidated that her school teacher knew something about her; so she asked, “how come you know about her ( sister ) ?”

“Oh ! I know all your family” she replied. “Are you from Dang?” still surprised but trying to hide it from her teacher,  she again asked.

“Of course !” the teacher replied.

Because she is telling me this story today. Now she has two grown up college going children; so she did have to play the role of her teacher as well as of her own when she was young. Mainly mimicking her teachers voice as well as hers voice then, in different voice and her body language. Her body language is  intimidated talking to her teacher; when she was in forth standard. As she was very average student and not a kind of student who tom-toms with her teachers. The teachers voice which she tried to mimic was very sharp tone and eerie making it very funny to any ones eardrum. When she mimicked her, it is sure to send any one in the roar of laughter and upon request  she loved doing it again with much pleasure. The fact is she enjoyed mimicking  her  teacher’s voice more than we enjoyed hearing it.

But now it was the teachers turn to ask the young school girl; “how come you are here ?” she meant ‘how you landed here in this orphanage home at Naxal ?

“our mother died when our father had  abandoned her, just before the birth of her youngest sister, 5th and last child.  She died when our sister was only six months old.” the school girl replied in bit sad tone. She said her mother was Tamang but was married to Chettri, she cited the reason of the abandon.

“She died ! how sad” she said to herself; but to this young girl it came like a question so she went on “Yes ! she died because shadow of a ghost touched her.”

Suddenly, the primary school teachers’ eyes lit and she asked, “is that your mother? because I have heard of a woman who had died by the ghost haunt but I did not knew; that, she was your mother ?”

By now the girls mind was filled with so many questions, how come her teacher know so much about her mother ? she still had some doubt of her knowledge ( of herself and about her family members ) so she was determined that one day when she grows up she will visit her birth place and will find out about her parents.

“How old were you when your mother died?” I asked her. “I was seven when she died.” She said.

She also told me that she has four siblings and she is the middle one in a row which mean she has older sister and younger sister as well as older brother and younger brother too. she cited the name of her sisters and brothers as well as their age when her mother died.  Because I thought I knew her for quite some time but I never knew; about her mothers story as well as her siblings.

My mind was racing, very fast by now; how come a seven year old child can remember so much about the death of her mother; as well as the people around her. That kind of memory power is unbelievable for the person who could hardly manage to remember things which she read.

“Did you went to Dang?” I asked her again ? “Of course I went.” she promptly replied. “I went there when I was  three months pregnant with my son.”

“What ! you went there when you were pregnant ?” I asked her in horrified tone. she said, “I had a big argument and fight with my husband, so I went to Dang hoping I would never come back.”

She had returned her home town, after almost 15 years later; yet she told me that she had very vivid memories of her house and its whereabouts so it did not take much time for her to find the house and her siblings.

Shadow of a Ghost, is enough to get me confused. There are stories going around in our society that the ghost do not have shadow, any things that is non-living, do not have shadow. As I was listening her story, My mind drifted back in my own memory lane. Our elders talking and sharing ghost stories.

In one of those childhood memory, There were ladies about six and two men. They were working on the round shape and in the centre, there was a big bowel where they were filling all cut pieces of the cauliflowers and potatoes in different bowel.They were cutting vegetables for the big meal.  One of the man was telling his encounter with the ghost. The man  was on  his mid or late thirties now, got the company of ghost during his youth, in his village. When he was in his early  twenties; under the full moon   only to be surprised that ladies who were with him half the way to his home, clad in the white sari was nowhere to be seen, after few kilometers of good chat, near the graveyard area of his village. He said all this in one breath.

Normally, this kind of  group work give the opportunity to share their good time and some times bad times also. Its good when they talk and bond while working.

One lady said her knowledge, “if you want to know that, the ladies who were with you; that night you should have checked her shadow. If she would have been a ghost you could not have seen her shadow.”

The other lady spoke, her own believe and faith about the ghost, “they say the ghost, specially if it is a woman, you should have checked her feet; because it faces backside front and front side back.”

But the young man who enjoyed the talk, that night with the women seemed less affected by those suggestions or may be not sure about it when he was accompanied by those two most beautiful woman he ever had seen. He was in hurry and the night was getting darker by the minutes. So all those myth of checking ghost of our society  just  did not work for him.

“I only realised that, they were ghost when they vanished without a trace in that road which lead to my home on that night”  the Tamang guy concluded.

“What, where are you ?” the quizzical look of my friend, pulled me back in her room on current time, when  I see her face, I said, to my story teller; “but ghost do not have shadow, how come it killed your mother?” “You do know this don’t you ?” They don’t have shadows.”

So, she immediately corrected, her story; with the following line “may be she was touched by the ghost and then died.”

Her story forced me thinking, did she died because she was haunted by the ghost ? Her mother was abandoned by her husband to marry another woman. At the time when she was pregnant with her 5th child and there were four more children age ranging from 10 - 3.  The demand of the current job, which she is required to feed with her meager earnings as a farm helper to one rich man of that small town. Not sufficient enough to feed her young children. Does she even needed a ghost to kill her ? Was not the situation surrounding her enough to kill her mentally and physically; inside out ?

~ End ~