THE BHOOT IN THE RIVER


PART-I


Its so difficult to sleep these days…
The head ache has been very bad today. She hates such nights. Because, on such nights, the bhoot comes in her dreams.She clings on to her mother who is sleeping peacefully beside her.The vey thought of the bhoot is so frightening. Now, the headache seems so light, for all she can feel is the beat of her own heart. It feels like her heart would come out of her chest. Now, there is a pain in her chest.
She closes eyes tight, trying to keep the bhoot away. But, she knows, the bhoot is still there, in the shadows of the room, in shadows of her mind .

The night crawls on ...
And she waits for the bhoot to come.

She had just come back from school. It was her first day. She was so scared to go, but the school turned out to be a very nice place. She had fun playing with so many kids.
Amma had asked her to remove her uniform. But she wanted to go to Keerthi’s house and show them her new uniform. Keerthi is one year younger than her and was not old enough to go to school. She was running to Keerthi’s house when she heard the sream. She stood still for a moment. Then she ran faster.
Something had happened to Keerthi’s appa.His hands and legs looked scary and he was crying in pain. She was standing beside Keerthi.They did not know what had happened. Keerthi’s amma was crying very loudly. Many people had come rushing in to the house. A man came running in and knocked Keerthi to the floor. She started crying. Everyone was shouting. And she stood there, thinking what had happened to Keerthi’s appa.
It was amma who told her that a bhoot had caught Keerthi’s appa when he was fishing. The bhoot made Keerthi’s appa cry in pain. The bhoot in the river.

Amma had taken Keerthi also to her house that day.She had to share her food with Keerthi for a whole week after that day. There was no food in Keerthi’s house and her ama was always crying. All of them had to remain hungry because there was very little food. Her own Appa was sick and had not gone to work for two days.
Two days later, she saw the bhoot. It had come in her dream. She had screamed and woken up amma that night. She had cried the whole night and did not let amma sleep.

That happened two years ago. Her eyes still closed, she lets go of her amma’s hand. Now, she knows, Keerthi’s appa got hurt because the factories threw acid in the river. There is no bhoot, her teachers tell her everyday.

There is no bhoot. She opens her eyes. And there, in the darkness, she sees it. As clear as ever. The bhoot! It is real and it is waiting for her.
She screams.

PART-II


Its so difficult to sit in class when one is sleepy. She is trying hard to keep her eyes open. The teacher is reciting a poem. All her classmates are repeating the lines after the teacher. She is sitting there, staring at the black board.

STD-III
15/03/05
TRY, TRY! NEVER CRY!!

she had tried her best, but the bhoot just would not go away. It is coming every night now. And it has started talking to her.
When everyone goes to sleep, she does not know whether she is sleeping or not .All she knows is the fear.
The first time the bhoot came near her, the stench was unbearable. It felt like she was near the factories. The same stench.
Then it whispered in her ear, ”I’ll make u cry like I made keerthi’s appa cry. I’ll make your appa cry too. I live in the factory he works in. Cant u smell me when u pass by the factory?” And it started laughing. She was so scared to move, even to close her eyes. Her heart was beating hard against her chest and she realized that she was shaking very badly. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. She tried to scream, but could not.
The next day morning, she begged her appa not to go to the factory. She cried and she pleaded, but he did not listen to her. Amma tried explaining to her that if appa does not go to the Factory, they would not have any food to eat.
She is so scared for appa these days. She gets so tensed when appa doesn’t come home on time. She tried telling him, she tried telling everyone. But they don’t listen to her. They tell her there is no bhoot. No bhoot in the river and no bhoot in the factory. Nothing will happen to appa. He is safe.

But she knows, the bhoot is real and it is in the river. When people go fishing, it eats their flesh. And when they cry, it laughs at them.
She knows, the bhoot is real and it is in the factories. In the air. When people breathe, it eats up their throat and chest, like it eats up hers, every night.
One day, it’ll eat us all up.

She knows, because it told her. It tells her, every night.
But no one would listen to her.
Can’t they smell it’s stench when they go to the factories? Can’t they hear its deafening laughter when they fall sick and cry in pain?

She is crying now. The teacher is beside her. Headache, she tells the teacher. She takes her to a doctor who had come to the balvadi for a medical check up. He gives her two tablets. One for headache and the other for cold. ”you will be alright if u take these tablets every day morning. Now, don’t cry. Go to your class.” She is not moving. She is standing there, looking at the doctor. She starts crying again. The doctor puts his arm around her, ”what is it, child?”
She looks down. “Can you make the bhoot go away?”

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For those of you who are curious, the "she " in The Bhoot In The River lives in sipcot, cuddalore.If u really wanna know what she and the other kids are goin through in there, please visit the place urself.For no literature, no poetry, no reports and no photographs can recreate the trauma of being in sipcot, cuddalore.
U and me, alike are responsible for this deplorable state of affairs.
This story is the out come of the emotional turmoil i went through after visiting the palce and interacting with the kids.It was primarily written for me, myself to deal with my own emotions. As for 'her', she is with me always, like the bhoot is with her. And she keeps reminding me that, this life i lead is , but a meaningless act.

Thursday, March 29, 2007

The wild


The cute creature in the snap is a slender loris. i have spent six months chasing it, tormenting it, filling its life with constant fear.They are very very sweet beings.


we had named each of them (the ones we were chasing) and knew each one's character.it was like a reality show.. and we enjoyed it tremendously...
Add to it..the darkness of the night, the sense of adventure.... scary jamun trees in the darkness...snakes for company..other creatures of the night...
Its amazing how the night comes alive with bats and snakes and beetles and night jars and wild guars...
The orchestra ,differ from season to season.. yet...the music is a constant reminder of the life around... whats most scary is the silence.. some nights..its awfully silent.. and its in those nights.. that the minutes become longer than hours... and your deepest fear comes alive in your mind.. soon... you dont know what is real and what is not..
Being in the wild..thats like coming home, to me.. i enjoy it and i crave for opportunities to go back to the forest... and deciding to be a wild lifer seemed only a natural decision. Boy! was it a difficult road ! some how i managed to find a job as a project assistant in a project involving the "behavior and communication" of slender lorises. It required that i work 12hours in the night.I was delighted. The wilderness in the night! that oughta be very exciting! i had gone for night treks and really enjoyed that! so..i took up the job with enthusiasm and vigour !

The first few days , i was trying to get used to the conditions and to stay awake.. i remember i fell asleep right on the ground without a care in the world.. but after a few encounters with very beautiful snakes.. i learnt to be more alert... to listen to the sounds of the night.. and suddenly... there was too much activity around me, i dint feel like sleeping anymore!
The first time my guide showed me a loris, i couldn't see it ! just could not see it ! Then, i saw its big fiery eyes! since its a nocturnal animal, its eye reflect light if u a show torch at its face... like dogs..but the light reflected, is the colour of reddish orange..
After that every time i saw one, i was too excited! it was amazing!
I learnt their names, their children's names, their characters.. their territories, their mates... their homing trees...
But as days went by, when the excitement started to whither away, i began to notice, how scared these little ones are... the fear in their eyes..the helplessness...started haunting me..
those big eyes... i couldn't escape them...
they run when they see us..we chase them... to see where they r going, what they r doing.. i was told that they will get used to human being around them... but i dint see that happening...
I thought of Goodall and her chimps... Fossey and her gorillas... and consoled myself that these lorises would get used to me too..but i knew that was not to be..for chimps and gorillas... resemble us.. its easy for us to imitate them.. our social structures are almost similar....
but these creatures are from a different dimension... they are nocturnal and insect eating.we live in different worlds.we do not understand each other. humans are 100 times bigger and i cant even think how they perceive us!
and add to it, the fact that we catch them, and tag them.. this process had been the most painful and difficult for me. Each time i did it, i was filled with guilt so intense that i thought my heart would stop.
It was constant fear of humans.. nothing else.
Wild lifers may tell me that i am not fit to be one of them.That that i am anthropomorphising the animal and making up feelings that it dint have.So be it. They may tell me that i don't have what it takes to be a wild lifer.So be it.
Theres nothing more that i would like , than to spent the rest of my life in a jungle.But not at the cost of the peace of a few remaining animals .... I for one, will not be an additional devil for them to fear.

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Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Kodungallur Bharani (Kali cont.)




The kodungallur Bharani in the state of kerala

is the annual festival of the kali temple at kodungallur. To an outsider, this festival may seem weird or even freaky.. for the celebration here, represents chaos unleashed...In a state of lawlessness, the free spirit dances in to trance... armed with swords and chilambu, the free spirits let out all that they have suppressed within themselves for the past one year...With Kali, they sing obscene sex songs.. they talk dirty, they drink liquor..Anger finds ways to express itself...In trance,they wound themselves...their heads bleed..and with the blood, they cleanse themselves and the world of its superficial civilised mask. It is a celebration of death,decay and regeneration of life...Within Kali's protective presence, they unleash themselves.
This festival is one of the biggest in Kerala, people from all parts of the state come to be a part of this unique festival.As the town grew, so did the temple and the festival, in sheer number of devotees coming there.
This is the festival of the lower caste.In light of the earlier post, I think its only natural that the true inhabitants of the land remembers and still pray to the same god who protected them eons before the lords of the land established power and supremacy.
For the society that tamed Kali , who was too wild for the civilised man, the festivals that celebrated her and all that she stands for, came to be an embarrassment.
It had to be dealt with.Such festivals, especially ones that were too popular, had to be censored.Yes! Censored- a word of the civilised man. and Thats what happened to the Kodugallur Bharani too..
The celebration is censored today. No more obscenity..no more dirty talk..no more trance.All that is hidden is hidden for a cause. Their secrets die with the devotees.
Lives of suppressed emotions, anger,desires, fears and a new sense of alienation. A sense of being uprooted...for this soil hold the remains of their ancestors..who danced with the kali for years...their blood has replenished this temple ground for years...and here, now, their right is taken away from them.
They are seen as filth, untouchables, to be beaten if they do not abide by the law and order of the state.Recent years, Police men outnumber the number of devotees who come for the festival.New bhagavati devotional songs are played.There is a ban against singing 'foul sex songs' and the devotees are beaten if they dare to sing a sex song or go in to a trance.

for a detailed report,

http://www.hrsolidarity.net/mainfile.php/2002vol12no06/2251/


This temple was half an hour from my house in kerala.I grew up listening to horror stories about the festival.I dont remember going to the Kali temple even once. Not surprising , for i belonged to the higher caste and i am a girl.These two factors makes it impossible for the likes of me to be even seen within the limits of kodungallur during the festival.It was a mystery nobody talked about in the house hold... no one would tell me why it is dangerous to go to the temple during the festival..bad things happen there..bad people come there...No ! U cannot go see it !! Good Girls never go there during the festival !
I have not yet gone to a bharani at kodungallur, but now i know... I know, its a celebration..a true celebration where one is filled with so much happiness, so much energy that one can break away from the chains that bind and suffocate... It is a celebration of memories, passed from generation to generation..through songs and stories.... through faith and passion...
It is the true celebration of being the memory, of being life and death ,of being one with the power that runs the cosmos, of being one with Kali....


PS- I am sure sexual harassment is a common thing during the festival.Even a crowded bus is an apt playground for twisted souls who torture unsuspecting travellers.So one can only imagine the degree of sexual harassment happening in a festival like this ! but what i am wondering now, is -who would be doing it more, the police or the devotees ?
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