My childhood was riddled with stories! Few run-of-the-mill moments, few funny ones but there is one story that kept haunting me for years! This one was my closest encounter with super natural elements! The ones that typically reside atop Banyan trees!
I guess I was about ten years old (this is early 90s)! It was during a visit to my village called Seegapalli (in rural Andhra Pradesh). We used to live in a nearby town called Hindupur. I would visit my village alone during weekends and holidays to get some monthly essentials like rice, pulses etc. from the village.
Visiting my village was in itself an adventure. There used to be only one bus that would make round trips from the town to the village. If the bus broke down in the middle, the only way out was to either walk or get a lift on a bullock-cart (if one happens to stop for you)! The last bus would reach the village by 9pm (thats considered late night in villages). Though our house was a minute walk from where the bus halted for the night, my maternal uncle would still come and receive me. I would see him no less than a Hero who had come to save me from the villains of the night – the street dogs!
My daily routine there was super simple! Have sumptuous breakfast in the morning; accompany my Grandpa to the paddy fields; have a heavy ragi millet lunch (with groundnut chutney); sleep under the mango trees and come back in the evening for an early dinner and sleep. There used to be no Television. Electricity was a luxury and made its presence felt for about four hours a day. The kerosene lamps and occasional torch lights were the only sources of light in the evenings. Frogs, scorpions and snakes were as common as mosquitos and flies! But these were not scary. I had made peace with them.
What used to be scary though were the stories of people behaving weirdly after walking past a Banyan tree that was quite infamous in the village. Stories of people hurting themselves, hurting others and the dogs continuously barking at them. Thankfully, there was treatment available at hand. The main priest at the Hanuman temple at the entrance of the village would offer prayers to the God, squash some lemons and chillies, make a special turmeric paste and apply on the ill-behaved as a first level of treatment. At the second stage, he would make a broom out of the Neem leaves and start whipping. The Muslims in the village would visit the nearby Dargah and have the amulet/talisman (“tayathu“) and things would be normal in a few days.
Fortunately or unfortunately, this infamous Banyan tree happened to be right on the way from our house to the paddy fields. There were small passages in the middle of cultivable lands and this Banyan tree was adjacent to the passage. We had to walk right underneath the tree as the adjacent farms had fenced their respective lands, leaving little room for any alternate road. Every time I passed through the tree, I would feel jittery. Majority of the times, passing by the tree was uneventful. But for that one day, when things had to be a little different than normal.
That morning, my Grandpa got the cattle, couple of cows and their little calves, along with us to the fields. The cows did pretty much what I do every day. Graze away to glory and relax by the tree shade. The calves got a little adventurous till noon and they too found a quiet place next to their mums.
It was around 5pm in the evening and was time for us to return home. The sun was fading faster than usual and there was an unusual dust storm indicating that it would rain badly that night. Even the otherwise calm and composed cows were getting a bit restless. The sun faded rather quickly and by the time we were nearing the infamous Banyan tree, it was completely dark.
As we came closer, we saw something unusual with the Banyan tree – it was absolutely still. Completely oblivious of the dust storm around. Not a leaf was moving while the trees around were swinging wildly. There was an unusual eeriness to the whole scene!
My Grandpa had lived in the village for decades. The sudden change in weather was not surprising to him. Moreover, he had witnessed strange things himself and would be the last one to have been scared of anything. But I could see him speed up his steps. He started sweating and wiping his sweat with his white cotton towel that he used wear around his neck.
As we approached the Banyan tree, the cows suddenly stopped. They wouldn’t move an inch forward. The calves began to jump hysterically. My Grandpa first twisted their tails urging them to move forward. Then he started pulling them by the noose. Then he tried the ultimate option of carrying the calves, so that the cows would follow. But none would work! They wouldn’t move an inch ahead. They kept staring at the tree strangely while the winds blew heavily.
I was going through mixed emotions! I always liked drama and a bit of “action”! But seeing my Grandpa sweat made my legs go weak.
For the next fifteen minutes or so, my Grandpa kept trying. Having exhausted all options, he asked me to look for help. It was almost six in the evening and it was pitch dark. I was scared like hell to move away from the visible range of my Grandpa. I was about to take a step or two, when I heard my Grandpa yelling his throat out. He spotted our neighbour carrying a plough on his shoulder at a distance. He kept shouting till his voice broke the wind barrier. The winds that had gone stronger indicating that it would pour down any minute now.
Fortunately, the neighbour turned around. But that momentary happiness turned sour when instead of coming to help us, he started waving his hands violently. He put his plough down, took his head scarf and waived it to make some signals that made no sense to me. He ran away leaving the plough behind! my Grandpa was soon to grasp what he wanted us to do. He immediately picked up the calves and started walking in the opposite direction. The cows followed him and so did I. We walked, walked and walked in the vast open fields far away from the Banyan tree. The sharp thorns from the fencing shrubs started making their way through the slippers and the trousers. But they wouldn’t stop us. The cows stared at the now distant Banyan tree once in a while as they walked briskly through the open fields.
We finally reached home around seven. As we reached home, we observed that there was neither any sign of gusty winds nor rain. It was as a regular evening and skies were blue and completely at peace.
My Grandpa asked me to take a shower immediately before entering the house! My uncle who was waiting for us, could sense that something was off as both my Grandpa and me were visibly shaken. My uncle didn’t bother milking the cows that he would do everyday when cows returned home. Instead of leaving them in the shed, he brought the cows and tied in front of the house and kept the fodder for the night. They were shaken too. He would otherwise tie the calves up a little distant so they don’t empty the milk by the morning. That night, the calves wouldn’t leave their mums.
As I was about to sleep, I heard the last bus halting and footsteps of people making their way to their homes. Strangely, my neighbour’s door too knocked and I heard a faint voice of the neighbouring aunty asking him how the day was at the city he visited. The voice I heard next was that of the same person who had waived at my Grandpa that evening! The last I heard was my Grandpa telling my Granny that the neighbouring lady started remembering “him” again! I don’t know when I slept that night!
Life had to go on. My lonely visits to the village had to continue. I couldn’t sit at home all day staring at the walls. I had to go accompany my Grandpa to the fields and pass by the same Banyan tree. Every single time, my legs would shiver. My heart would pop out as I see the squashed lemons and chillies and the turmeric powder around.
I never got the answer for why the tree was ‘still’ that evening in spite of the gusty winds around. I never got my head around why the cows wouldn’t move an inch forward and why the skies were so different near the tree and in the village. I never could understand why the neighbour uncle appeared suddenly from nowhere and why he disappeared! Finally, could never dare to ask how we could hear the foot steps, door knocks and voices when the neighbour uncle had passed away years ago!
Some questions are best left unanswered!
(Partly true and partly fictional… I narrated this to my daughter during a story telling session with her cousins! Any guesses how the rest of the evening would have gone!?)
