Readers: here's a Chapter from my new book "The ANAISHOLA CHRONICLE.....

Set on a remote range of hills in South India called High Wavy's, Myna and her kid brother meet Jehan Dilvadia, 15, one evening. Myna and Jehan share a summer vacation adventure that leads them to a series of strange events that occurred half a century earlier.  Be prepared for excitement, mystery, discovery, wild life and  the glorious plantation lives of an era almost drawing to a close...........

5

Evil Spirits

Jehan Dilvadia comes over barely a week later, and we hit it off immediately. The outdoors, we discover, is a common interest. Birds, snakes and insects are my favourite’s, the biodiversity of the forest, his. Sitting on the porch steps, we find we can discuss nature and it’s never ending surprises almost endlessly.

‘My parents have lived in the High Wavy’s doctor’s bungalow ever since I was born,’ Jehan tells me. ‘I love the forest out here, the wind belts, the tea fields. High Wavy’s is so much more interesting than good old Annamallais, or even the Nilgiris. Yeah,’ he shrugs, ‘though the hospital bungalow is about fifteen km away from here, and the estate roads winding and often wet and misty, I don’t mind distances. Each time I go for a trek, boy, the things one sees! Amazing.’ The way Jehan talks about the outdoors, I envy him his knowledge.  It is obvious the forest here is like a second home for my new friend.

‘You walked fifteen kilometres today?’ I ask in awe, when I find out that he often walks through the estates rather than take the bus. 

‘It’s much more fun,’ he chuckles, ‘I can take short cuts through wind belts…walk on the edges of fields…sometimes, you know, I spot a sambar or barking deer as I go.’

He squints at a pair of birds in the sky as he explains, ‘The three estates I’m most familiar with are fairly quiet; I can hear sounds in the forests, on the ridges or in the wind belts so much better. A herd of wild elephants chomping bamboo further up in the forests on the boundary of the fields,(even if they aren’t actually visible), the alarm call of barking deer,(could there be a panther, close by?), a pack of langur thrashing through the green canopy above my head, woodpeckers hopping like feathered frogs on the trunks, (ever seen them?) or old dead branches of a termite-ridden tree, or ...stopping to hear the odd croaks of a tree frog on a green branch above a stream, the screech of hornbills as they fly heavily through the trees, the rustle of a rat snake as it slithers quickly through the bushes…’ Jehan shrugs coolly again, and I understand completely.

 ‘And now, Anaishola...’ he continues, ‘“Elephant Land”’... I know little about your place. The name’s so cool! Ever since I can remember, this place was just an abandoned and overgrown place, my parents refused to give me permission to explore it on my own.’ Dad and Ma smile, they can understand his parent’s concern.

‘They are afraid that if I lose my way in the jungle here, no one will find me again,’ he tells us, chuckling quietly, as we smile at him. We realize he is quite at home here. Dada and Ma I notice, smile tolerantly at his comments, they obviously like him too.

This morning in early April, he continues with another disarming shrug of his shoulders, ‘Today I wanted to get here quick, so I hopped on the bus. The driver stopped conveniently at the hospital gates, so…’ and Jehan shrugs again. Dingo and Beetle bound up to welcome him with much sniffing and tail wagging, barking excitedly in his face. He soon becomes their friend too. Jehan bends to rub their necks and pat them as he speaks. ‘Hi Dingo! Hello, Beetle!’ he says in his calm, much-at-home voice. ‘These guys are real friendly,’ he says with appreciation.  At fifteen, Jehan looks tall and leggy in his blue denims. There is the hint of a moustache on his upper lip. I like his friendly, unaffected nature.

Ma gets us some nimbu pani and disappears to do some more unpacking. The masons have arrived and are already hard at work. We hear hammering, and chipping, and the voices of the men jabbering in Tamil as they work in one of the rooms, where the ceiling and top of an outer wall is in a dreadful state of disrepair. The plaster has chipped badly, paint is peeling, and a ceiling panel has warped completely out of shape. I know that this bungalow, like some of the others in High Wavy’s had probably been built some fifty years ago. The walls are made of local quarried stone, and joined together with lime mortar. The workmen of those days were so thorough that the plaster has lasted for decades. But I also know that these bungalow walls can look deceptively strong. Only a few years before, an angry herd of elephants on a Wynaad estate far away in Kerala had pushed down one such bungalow wall, giving the poor manager and his terrified family just enough time to scramble into the space above the wooden false ceiling, where they hid in petrified silence for hours, until the herd gave up and left.

‘Let’s explore!’ I shout, as we gulp down our lemon juice, covering my ears, and yelling over the din of hand drills, and hammers. Mayank comes out to join us. ‘I know a great place…’ Quickly I lead the way out through the kitchen, and into the back garden.

Immediately, our eyes focus on the high wind belt up in front of us, leading away to the top of the tea field from the edge of the back garden.

‘Heyyyy, that’s super!’ Jehan smiles appreciatively. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about this place before? That wind belt ……….it’s awesome!’

Kid brother and I nod in agreement, our eyes bright with excitement, and the three of us race through the terraced garden plots to the end of some newly furrowed rows. Something catches our eye. We can just discern a scruffy but wide mud path leading up from the lower end of the wind belt, first in high crudely built rock steps, and then disintegrating into an overgrown slope. Jadappa, the gardener, has obviously been hard at work ever since we moved in. I notice that all the tall elephant grass in the veggie patches has been cleared, and already the terraced slopes have been dug up and weeded.  One or two rectangular plots look ready to be planted with vegetable seeds.

 As we begin our climb, we pass the gardener whistling happily as he digs and weeds the soil.  Suddenly the man spots them, and raises a hand, signalling for us to stop. 

‘AAIYO, where are you going?’ he calls in agitated Tamil. His eyes are open wide, and he clutches his head, looking shocked.

‘Up to the top,’ Mayank yells in quick reply, pointing excitedly to the top of the wind belt. ‘I have to let these free.’ And he shows the gardener a small cardboard box filled with hairy spiders, which he has collected and prevented Ma from killing. They were found under one of the sofas in the drawing room, and he’s now tired of holding them prisoner. Jehan and I grin at Mayank’s antics, but the gardener still looks solemn.

‘Aiyo!’ says Jadappa again, one foot on his spade, as he stands for a moment watching us. ‘That’s risky, chinne dorai, little master,’ he says, his eyes wide.

‘What’s risky?’ Jehan and I ask together, perplexed. ‘The spiders?’

Jadappa looks hesitant; he shakes his head, looking fearful. ‘Uhuhh,’ he mumbles. ‘There are evil spirits up there...’ he points vaguely at the forest on the hilltop.

‘Evil spirits?’ Jehan smiles politely. ‘What spirits?’ Mayank hesitates, taking a quick step back and looking doubtful suddenly, but we two are not so easily taken in, and are keen to continue.

‘Spirits of the dead!’ says Jadappa, intoning his words in a low deep voice. He actually looks afraid. ‘Do not go there, chinne kaaron, young people. No one goes there. I hear it’s not safe.’

‘Have YOU seen these spirits?’ asks Jehan, looking down at the gardener from the first step of the pathway.  He sounds sceptical, the smile still lurking at the corner of his lips. I do not believe in ghosts and spirits either, but I do also know that most estate workers in the South are deeply superstitious. Their heads are full of vague beliefs and strange rituals, black magic and sacrifice. Two years before, I had attended the Konda festival with Mum and Dad. It was my first major brush with faith, superstition and the workers’ beliefs.

I recall one day in particular. That day the entire labour force waited outside the main temple, for the managers and their families to arrive. Another twenty of them collected together at the festival grounds; men, women and some children, all dressed in their Sunday best, plastered with ash and garlands round their necks; these were the Festival participants. A twenty foot long, ten foot high stack of wood, set alight the previous night and now burnt down to a foot high pile of fiery red coal lay burning fiercely in the middle of a large, level barren patch of ground. Bystanders hung around the edges with bated breath, a short distance away. From where I stood, the heat of the coals burnt my breath away, and I gasped at the mere thought of what was about to happen. At a signal from the priest and to the accompaniment of heart thumping drumbeats over loudspeakers, a series of eardrum splitting firecrackers exploded. Then, as everyone watched, the garlanded, ash-plastered workers walked slowly and deliberately onto the twenty foot long stretch of red hot burning coals. Deliberate, calm, and one by one, until each one reached the other end of the pile. It was a long, slow, twenty sole-scorching steps to the far end. Everyone ran forward to stare in disbelief at their feet.  Unscathed!  No burn marks, no pain, nothing.   Dad had once remarked that faith can work miracles. He had no answer for the fiery coal walkers who had no blisters or burns on the soles of their feet.  

That had been two years ago. Now, Jehan and I exchange a quick look. Above us, the forest beckons. ‘Never mind, Jadappa,’ Jehan smiles tolerantly at the gardener. ‘We’ll be careful, don’t worry.’  Jadappa shakes his head with worry, mumbling incoherently as he watches us continue our climb to the top.

The path does not make for easy ascent. It has obviously remained unused for decades. Tall woody stalks, some full of thorns, endless crooked barbs and painful clinging tendrils seem to lunge out at us as we pass. Several times we stop to remove these, or to pull away thin, sharp, gashing, often hooked thorns from our jeans and T shirts, and the skin of our arms. An hour later, and a little out of breath by this time, we reach the top of the wind belt at last, and there we sit down exhausted on a large rounded boulder that gives us a super view of the tea fields below. Winding mud roads, a tractor and trailer chugs slowly along. It’s full of freshly plucked tea leaf in bulky netted jute sacks. Another field is busy with pluckers, jute sacks hanging across their backs, filled with freshly plucked tea leaf. We hear a gentle murmur of Tamilian voices interspersed with loud guffaws and hoots of laughter as they pluck their way up the slopes between the tea bushes. The Venniar river meanders it’s watery way down in the valley, now far, far below them. White shimmery edged clouds scoot along against an azure blue sky. A pair of buzzards high above our heads placidly ride a thermal, calling to each other as they circle each other way above us. Below the birds, the breeze whistles in our ears, bringing with it a strong but almost unreal feeling of peace and serenity.

The air is cooler here, and the three of us breathe in greedily. A sudden gust of wind blows from behind, Jehan’s cap flies off, and he charges after it, snatching it up before the thing flies out of reach. Mayank cackles in glee.

‘Let’s go to the end of this ridge, what d’you think?’ Jehan suggests, and we jump up in enthusiasm. We come upon a narrow and well worn mud-track, probably used by wild elephants and other animals to get to greener feeding grounds. 

‘I guess this ridge is the tail end of Anaiishola estate, and the High Wavy’s range,’ I mumble to myself, making mental GPRS calculations as I follow the boys. Suddenly there we are, on the top of the ridge, looking down on the left side of it. A lovely landscape meets our eye.

‘Look! You can see the plains down there,’ I say with glee, my hair blowing wildly in my face as I point way below. We spot the shallow gleam of a large water body in the middle of a vast green forested area, and figure it must be Periyar Lake, an integral part of the famous Sanctuary. A shiny car, speck though it is, blinds us momentarily in the bright sunlight, as it winds along a track on the edge of the water.

We walk to the tip of the ridge, stepping into a forest patch at one point, and then out again and almost immediately into tall elephant grass, as tall as Mayank. Here the air becomes suddenly still and silent. Neither cricket or grasshopper moves, nor a butterfly flit its way above the grass seeking nectar, or a bee or wasp in sight. We stop too, for the first time a little unsure.

‘Perhaps we should backtrack,’ I say uncertainly for the three of us, and we quickly turn to retrace our steps.  Suddenly, a hundred metres from the forest edge now in front of us, but still in the tall grass, we hear a terrifying ground-shaking rumble.  Jehan signs for us to stand very still. The rumble continues to grow louder and still louder. Seconds later, we watch, mouths open in petrified horror as an enormous gaur charges through the grass. A mere six paces between Jehan and us. The heavy beast thunders down between us and the forest edge, only the tips of its massive horns visible above the tall grass down towards the edge of the slope. Five horrifying seconds later it’s vanished, and we stand frozen in terror, shaking in our shoes. Had the animal really dashed past only a few feet away from us just moments earlier?

‘Man, that was dicey!’ Jehan gasps, wiping a shaky palm on his sweaty forehead, his heart pounding in his chest, as we run at jet speed back to him. ‘Way too close, guys. That was a lone gaur…..not funny.’  We stand stock still and close together, getting our breath back for a few moments and shocked into silence.

Once we get back into the cool cover of the forest canopy along the ridge the suns’ brightness begins to fade. In silence, we retrace our steps along the path we had taken earlier.

A mixed party of birds pecks on the ground, chirruping and whistling on the path in front of us. The birds hop up and fly a little way, flopping down to feed again some distance from them. Being crazy about birds, I stop to watch them.  Ever since my last nature camp, two years before, bird watching has become a favourite hobby during summer and winter vacations. I could spend hours in the garden watching the birds and making little notes about them in my bird book.  A woodpecker keeps me engrossed for five minute’s, and suddenly I realize the boys have moved far ahead.

‘Hey, guys, wait for me!’ I call out and begin to run after them. Stupid mistake. Seconds later, a jutting rock catches my shoe and I fall headlong with a loud OUCH. The boys turn just in time to see my fly through the air and land face down straight in a pile of fresh elephant dung. ‘OUCH!’ I say again, sitting up and scraping the fibrous dung off my cheeks and nose as both boys race back to me.

‘Ooohhh!’ Mayank cackles. ‘Look at your face! Full of poo! Wait till I tell Ma,’ and he clutches his stomach and howls with glee. Jehan gives him a shove, gallantly pulls off his own neck scarf and gives it to me. Quickly, I wipe my face, knowing I look idiotic as I do so, but unable to stop grinning back at them.

‘What happened?’ Jehan asks, lending me a hand to pull me to my feet. I point at the rocky culprit that has caught me off guard.

‘That nasty rock,’ I snort, trying to get the blobs of dry dung off my freckled nose as I speak. ‘I didn’t see it.’ 

Jehan bends to take a closer look at the small boulder and gasps. “Wow!” he whoops, letting out a low whistle as he examines it in excitement and we run back to him.

The stone, as it turns out, is no ordinary one. Black, crudely carved in the shape of a sitting elephant, its trunk is thrown back above its head. It nestles along one edge of the pathway, just visible in a clump of green grass, sitting on a small, neatly chipped granite platform that is fixed so firmly in the ground that they cannot budge it.  A faint mark of red powder still stains the sculpted elephants’ forehead. When had it been placed there? By whom and for what?   

As we walk down through the wind belt and back into the Anaishola vegetable garden, none of us knows we are on the verge of making an awesome discovery that will have a far reaching effect on not just the three of us, but on others we have not even met yet. Had evil spirits begun their work already?

*****