ದಿ Psyche

The last bus stopped at the old estate bus stop at 8.05 P.M; Ahalya got down from the bus and started to walk down the street towards the village. The streets were empty and a strong breeze was disturbing her neatly combed hair. Since there were no street lights she had to use her torch. The light from the torch was flickering all along her way to the village as may be the cells in the battery were weak. She had to walk a long distance to reach the village Raighad from estate bus stop.

Raighad was far from city surrounded by beautiful udyan river which was flowing gently at one end and good green filled lands at the other side. This remote village is 29 km far from the city and has a very bad transportation facility. To see the first house of the village, one has to walk for around 2 mile from the bus stop into the village. Street lights are a dream for this village. Raighad has around 45 families in its womb. Education is still knocking the doors of Raighad. Hospitals and schools are very far from the village. Though the land in Raighad is getting enough water to drink yet it is not shying away to show the bitterness of poverty to Raighad. Superstitious and blind beliefs are on the driver’s seat. People believe that their village is haunted or cursed by the goddess Kalikamba, their mother.

Many Children of the village are suffering from one or the other disease that the villagers are not aware. The underground water is quickly drying and the wells are losing its charm. The water is becoming sour to taste, rains are showing at wrong times. The flowers are falling on the ground and the yields are being eaten away by pests. The birds have started to move away from the village. People are dying mysteriously in the village one after the other. All these are happening from few months.

People of Raighad are doing a lot of poojas and yagas to goddess Kalikamba to come out of this grief. The previous morning Samba, chairman of Raighad was found melee to death. He was the one who ordered the village people to perform the rituals for the safety of his people and to overcome the grief in the village. Sambha had ordered the village to perform rituals after the loss of Guna his younger brother, whose ribs were torn apart and body dumped in the pump house next to the rice mill couple of weeks ago. Now, the village has lost Sambha their leader. Still the village heads insisted to continue the poojas and yagas until, the goddess Kalikamba is satisfied and the village gets back its glory and charm.

Ahalya, walked down the street all alone with the flickering torch which was getting dimmer and dinner. She had just crossed the gates of the Hindu graveyard. The trees in there were wobbling to the strong wind and the fire sparks were rising to the sky, dogs were barking from distance. Ahalya heard the footsteps of someone following her. She turned back to see but found none. At about 500 meters she could see a light coming towards her. May be someone was walking on the road holding an oil lamp. She started to put long steps trying to reach the person ahead of her. The sound of the footsteps increased as the heart beat of Ahalya increased.

Ahalya, a very pretty lady of Raighad was stepping into her 26^th year. She was 5 5” feet, fair and had slightly brownish eye which had an innocent look. Her face had some magic which attracted everyone towards her. She had a very good gesture and had a beautiful voice. Her hairs were soft like silk. Although she was coming in the dreams of all Raighad men none had married her. She is the 3^rd child of Mr. & Mrs. Govind who was a farmer. Ahalya’s elder brother was affected by polio and had to sit in house for ever. Her sister the second of Govind’s children was married to a shop keeper in the nearby town. Ahalya was a very bright student in her schooldays. After completing the secondary school she had joined to the college in the nearby town. She was the 4^th lady student to join that college. Although she had scored the highest marks in her first year she could not continue her education because of the financial status of her family. She had urged her parents to send her to college but still Govind could not satisfy his loving daughter’s desire. She then joined to an office in town where she was working on accounts. The owner had chosen her for that job after looking her first year marks. She had made few plans for her further studies like evening college, studying after few years etc. But all went in vain as she was not allowed to study further. Hence, she had disliked her family, village and was very disappointed. Yet she carried her work in the neighboring town as she wanted to come out of their poverty as soon as possible and lead a peaceful life.

As she approached the light, it was ram khanna walking back to his house with an oil lamp in his hand. His wife had died few years back and the village suspected that this drunkard ram had only murdered her. Ahalya explained the strange things which happened to her now and asked him to accompany her till her house. Ram khanna looked back and tried to figure out what was the problem. He wanted to exhibit his heroic skills in front of this gorgeous lady. So he walked straight to the graveyard. Ahalya was pleading him to come back but he still opened the gates of the graveyard and walked inside the graveyard bravely. As he laid each step ahead he was moving far from the village. The coolness of the wind was making him shiver. He didn’t care for the loud screams of the dogs around. He started to feel that he was not alone in the yard. He called out for Ahalya in a brisk tone but could not get any reply for it. His intoxication started to reduce because of the fear around him. He decided to walk back to the village. Then he turned towards the exit of graveyard. Thad, Ram khanna closed his eyes before he could realize what just happened.

Listening to the scream of Ram Khanna, Ahalya ran towards him and saw his bloodshed body lying on the ground, she started to scream and run towards the village. Listening to her scream the villagers came out of their house. Ahalya explained what had happened there and took the villagers to the spot. All were shocked to see the brutal murder of Ram. The villagers decided to take the body to the village and do the necessary things tomorrow morning.

The next day, everyone in the village met at a place and started to discuss what was going wrong to Raighad. Few people were arguing that a giant monster kind of animal might have been residing in the woods; few were putting their point that the goddess was angry about the village and hence it had sent her lion to kill people who have committed sin to her. The discussion went on till the evening. Then few young people of Raighad decided to stay awake in the night to find out the reason behind all the killings happening.

That night few strong young men were hiding behind the woods with few weapons and torch.

They were hiding a bit close to the village. Two men were coming back to the village after attending a wedding in the town. As they walked down the streets of Raighad they sensed something following them. Fearing that it might be the monster that they villagers are afraid of, they started to run into the village. They could still here the footsteps running closer and faster towards them. They started to scream and listening to the scream the young people hiding behind the woods started to move towards them with the torch. As they approached the two people they asked them what was wrong and why they were screaming. The two men after explaining to the young mob what had just happened took those people to the place where they first heard the steps. Everyone there started to look around for the monster. Each one of them took their weapons and went in different directions. Towards the north of the woods a loud noise was heard and everyone started to run towards that noise. It was a well, from where the noise had come from. Two people among the mob jumped into the well to see if someone had fallen into it. After searching for 30 min, they could not find anyone down there. Then Ramesh, one of the young men in the mob asked the two guys to come out of the well and told others that the monster might have thrown a stone into the well to divert the concentration of the mob and escaped from the place cleverly and then everyone went back to the village.

The Next day the mob explained what had happened the night before. The villagers were in fear after they came to know that the monster was very clever and hence could kill so many people. This made the beliefs of theists stronger that it was the goddess itself doing all these things. The young mob of Raighad asked 15 days of time from the villagers to resolve this issue and put an end to the killings in Raighad. They insisted people to avoid walking at nights and also to move in groups at day time or nights.

Night vigilance continued for a week thereafter. The village was a bit relieved and sleeping in peace. The people were coming out of the terrifying nights day by day and the lives were moving towards normal. As a shock to the village came news that a bus had met with an accident killing 8 people and injuring 25 out of which 3 people of this village had expired. The entire village went into silence fearing the past. People had bought the bodies back into the village from government hospital to carry out the final rituals. All the three bodies were buried in the Hindu graveyard.

The next day when the villagers gathered to carry out the first day ritual to the dead, for their astonishment a body was missing. The grave was dug and the body in it had vanished. People started to look around for it everywhere. This was the first time that a body was dug out of the graveyard in Raighad. At last they found a body which was cut into pieces and to their surprise It was the body of the dead man. The villagers were shivering of fear as now the monster as started to attack the dead also. This made the villagers to think again about the monster.

That night Ramesh made clear to his men that there was no monster kind of thing as it is killing only few people of the village, hence he said that it might have been killing the people who troubled it. So he said that one amongst the villagers or a few people are doing this. Then they went back to their position behind the woods. As it was time for the last bus, Ramesh had gone till the bus stop on his cycle to see if anyone is coming to the village in the last bus.

Ahalya stepped down the bus and was happy to see Ramesh out there. Ramesh was a young well built and handsome guy. He was working as a teacher in Raighad. He was moved by the beauty of Ahalya but never had courage to propose her. They were almost of the same age. Ahalya sat behind him on his cycle. He started cycling into the village without much talking to her. Ramesh took initiative to break their silence and asked her about her job. Then gradually both of them started to talk to each other. When they crossed the graveyard, the cycle toppled and fell down suddenly. Something had stuck the spokes of the cycle which made the cycle to topple. Ramesh helped Ahalya to get up and lifted his cycle and turned around to see what had just happened. He then heard a sound near the bushes and ran towards it asking Ahalya to stay where she was. He ran deep into the woods for half a mile but could not find anything out there. He then started to walk back to Ahalya with a bit of disappointment. He was taken by surprise when he saw Ahalya lying unconscious below his cycle with blood strains on her fore head and arms. He then took Ahalya on his arms and ran into the village calling for help from his friends.

Ahalya opened her eyes the next morning. She was surrounded by her family members and Ramesh. He asked her to recall what had happened last night when he had gone into the woods. In turn Ahalya tried to recall what had happened after Ramesh left her. She could recall that after he left her and went, she called him as he had not returned back for a long time, then she started to walk into the woods in search of him, but suddenly his cycle was thrown on her by the monster and the handle of the cycle hit her on her fore head and she lost her consciousness.

Ramesh went back to place, to do an investigation there. His cycle’s handle shape had changed. He then observed the entire place for half an hour and walked into the woods to see if he could find any clue over there. Then he came back to the village, explained everything to his fellow mates. They changed their hide out place this night. They also took few nets with them. Few people went on the trees and few behind the trees to hide. They waited eagerly that night to hunt down the killer. Ramesh ordered his friend Gopi to patrol the woods. Gopi started to walk into the woods slowly. Ramesh got down from the tree so did couple of them with nets in their hand.

As Gopi walked into the woods, a stone hit him from behind; he fell down on the ground. He got up and turned to see, who hit the stone. He then walked few steps ahead, due to the darkness in the woods he could not see anyone but he could only hear Ramesh screaming at him, asking him to run away from that place. Then for his surprise, Ahalya was standing in front of him and she started to attack him. Gopi started to run to save his life. Ramesh then signaled all his friends to throw a net on her and they did the same and trapped the monster. They bought her to the village in that net and called everyone in the village. The entire village could not believe their eyes and few of them argued that the murderer was not this sweet girl of Raighad. Mates of Ramesh asked him how he came to know that the murderer was her.

He then said that when he had been to inspect the place in the morning he saw his cycle’s left handle was bent but when the cycle was on Ahalya it had fallen on the right handle. Also there were no blood traces on the cycle so the cycle had not caused her injury on the head. Moreover Ahalya’s toe had hit a stone and was bleeding at that time. He could not understand this. When he bought Ahalya yesterday night he had saw a knife in her bag, when he had inquired it with her parents today morning they didn’t have any clue about it. When he asked about her behavior in house they said that she used to hurt herself in the night and they were noticing it only in the morning. Also she was neither allowing others to sleep with her nor was ready to consult the doctor.

This evening Ramesh had kept a keen watch on her the whole day. She wasn’t sleeping in the room. She was staring at Ramesh and his people and hence Ramesh had changed the meeting spot for the day. She had left her house in the evening and had gone near the pond. Therefore Ramesh asked Gopi to walk towards the pond and then Ahalya attacked him.

When the villagers asked Ahalya what was the reason for this, she said that she was upset with the villagers and their stupid beliefs. With that belief only they had killed her close friend who was buried alive near the pond. Also she killed all the men who were behind her, who committed sins and who troubled others and her. The villagers then decided to home arrest her and allow her to recover from her mental illness.

After few years Ahalya recovered from her illness she led a normal life hopefully. After all this I woke up to just see that, yet another day I was late to office L …………..