The witch of Paashaan Devi

His fear proved his undoing. As soon he saw the witch he froze, rock solid, like the ice on the pavement. But then the witch saw him. She screamed and ran towards him. The fear galvanized Umesh into action. He ran without even seeing where his foot fell and slipped on the slippery patch of ice on the pavement. He twisted his knee and he was now at the mercy of the witch. He crawled and begged her for his life without even opening his eyes.

But the words fell into deaf ears. There was no one nearby.

The last scene he remembered of that horrible night, was the yellow sari clad women, trying to reach for him, but moving farther with every step. It is said that the feet of a witch are joined backwards at the ankle. He knew it and seeing her going farther didn’t make him feel any better.

The witch of Paashaan Devi had claimed her first victim. Till now, the yellow sari clad witch had only screamed and ran towards people but this was the first time someone got hurt. Umesh was laid outside on a bed in the bright sunny day. He had broken his leg. The entire foot below his knee was swollen. No one looked at the blue wound around the swollen ankle. People were mesmerized by the yellow color on his entire foot. His old mother, was sitting with a blank expression on her face. She was a speech impaired octogenarian but she is so expressive in her body language that you will never fail to understand what she meant. Today she was silent.

There was a crowd outside his house and everybody had bought his own special conspiracy theory. There was no doubt about the role of the witch but there were doubts as to what that yellow color signified. Has he been chosen? Has the witch entered into him? There were as many questions as there were answers. To the simple villagers it occurred only in the evening that taking Umesh to a hospital was also an option. A worthless one but they tried it anyway. Doctor Joshi inspected the wound and referred him for X-Ray. Finally he was admitted Umesh for a fractured leg. Doctor Joshi was annoyed by the crowd lining up his ward. When the crowd asked about the yellow color on his leg Doctor Joshi replied in a matter of fact tone “Turmeric paste.”. This time it was the turn of the crowd to be annoyed.

One more hour got reduced from people’s daily timetables. Now at 5’O Clock the streets would be deserted.

(2)

I was just 7 years old. I was quite afraid of the witch. Probably because I had never met her yet. Probably because I was expecting to meet her. It was inevitable. Every house in the town had two large red hand prints on their walls, except our house. My parents didn’t paint the gerua[a red clay] hand prints which magically kept the witch at bay. My mother didn’t want to spoil the recently painted wall. And my father wasn’t afraid of anything in world except my mother. Every kid in the schools knew that I would be the next target of the witch. That was in the back of my mind.

The inevitable happened. I had gone to the market with my father. At around four I started pestering him.

“Papa..Lets go home!”
“wait..I have to meet him”.

He kept to his normal routine of meeting almost every passer by. I was annoyed. I stopped talking to him and just followed him. Finally at around five he entered the vegetable shop. It was a large shop with a last minute rush that happens just before curfew. I didn’t enter the shop and waited impatiently for my father. The shopkeeper, desperate to close his shop, was fighting with customer. Everyone was anxious to get home before dark. I was distracted.

Suddenly I looked around and my father was not in the shop. I thought that he had left me and gone home so I raced out of the shop. I didn’t find him, so I decided to go home alone. After all it was getting dark and the witch would be on her way.

That was a stupid move. Soon I had lost my way. I climbed the hill but I reached an unfamiliar place. There was no one whom I could ask. I could see China Peak looming ahead of me but that wasn’t enough to figure out where exactly I was standing. The more the time passed, more nervous I got. Finally I descended back to the market. May be my father was searching for me there. When I reached the market it was completely deserted. There was no one there. At last I found “Mausi”, a middle aged widow who had visited our house few times. I didn’t know her well and I had found her pretty weird. But today I had no choice. She seemed to have recognized me. She clasped my hands we started walking together. She didn’t speak a word and words had deserted my mouth.

We took a detour of the market and started climbing up to the familiar road to my house. I initiated the conversation.

“This road leads directly to the home. Isn’t it.”
“yes, it does”
Then we saw a shape down coming toward us. Mausi stopped. She mumbled
“who is he?” I asked. Worried.

She didn’t answer and instead took to the road going down towards Andheri Road, the popular haunt of the witch. The road was favorite place for anyone who committed suicide by drowning in the lake. Naturally it didn’t find favor among the alive population. Sometimes few tourists, unaware of the sinister stories, would venture into that road. They too would report the eerie feeling that place evoked. Paashaan Devi was a old temple located on that road. Once you crossed the temple you reached “Faansi Gadhera”. The place got its name during the rule of British, who hanged several freedom fighters there. The entire route was part of the kingdom of dead.

But for now, I was sure that the witch coming down towards us from the main road. So it made sense to take a detour to Andheri Road. I followed Mausi who almost ran downhill with me. We didn’t look back. Anyways there wasn’t much point in trying to look thorough layer after layer of pitch black darkness. After a while we started walking at normal pace. I don’t know why fear deserted me as soon as I saw the entire expanse of lake besides me. The reflections of light were making candles on the lake surface. We both walked in silent hurried steps. Soon we reached Paashaan Devi temple where the road suddenly rises in a bulge. When we reached “Faansi Gadhera” , we took to the road going back up to complete the detour. No untoward incident happened.

The scene at my home was quite different. My mother and sister were crying. There were many people there. The search and rescue party was readying to meet up the challenge, collecting torches and mashaals and even drums. Someone had called a tantric too. After all you can’t defeat a witch by force of hand. My father had already gone, alone in search.

When he had come out of the shop I had left assuming that he had already left. The assumption had backfired. It didn’t matter anymore. The inevitable had happened. The elder son of Pandeyji had been “abducted” by the witch. Everyone concurred on that point.

I, blissfully unaware of the scene at home, continued my long trek with Mausi. I hoped to reach home soon but I was surprised to hear from Mausi that she was taking me to her home. She said she didn’t know where my home was. I was totally annoyed at her. I thought “Wasn’t she always so weird? Why didn’t she tell me?” I had no option so I requested her. I even faked crying but to no avail.

Mausi’s home was a dilapidated house. An old lady was sleeping there. It seemed like a house of dead. There was no sign of life. The kitchen looked as if no one had prepared food since ages. I was very much uncomfortable and hungry. Mausi didn’t offer me anything and went to sleep. She indicated a bed to me for sleep but I stayed awake by the dim light of a kerosene lamp.

There was no way I could sleep there. I had to do something. I thought that the witch must be down in the market and I can take a chance. I decided to go home but how? I came out to inspect and found that the house stood right above the main road. It was the much too familiar road which lead from my house to the school. I thought I can run back home in five minutes and so I did.

I reached home, running. There was crowd gathered there. As soon as they saw me running towards them they ran in all directions. I was very surprised. Probably they assumed that I was being chased by the witch. She was everywhere.

My mother came out and hugged me so tightly that I almost choked. She was crying.

She asked me “Where did she take you?”
“We went to Andheri road..” I was still out of breath..many people had found courage to come back and stood around me
“..then to Paashaan Devi..” The murmurs around me rose a little
“..and then to Faansi Gadhera..” now their worst fears were confirmed. People were gaping with fear in their eyes
“..and then she took me to her home.”...Climax..
“Home?”
“Yes”....No one knew that the witch had a home..

It never occurred to me that no one knew that I was with Mausi. It never occurred to the crowd that when I said “She” I meant Mausi, not the witch.

I was hungry. I ate as if I haven’t seen food since days. Then I slept. When my father reached home and found me there, I was already half asleep. His kiss on my forehead was the last thing I remember.

That night the witch was not seen or heard in the town. There was enough evidence to implicate the witch for my abduction and the town passed the judgment. Life continued.

I woke up at noon next day and skipped the school. When I reached the school the day after, I was already a celebrity. I had been abducted by the witch and I had miraculously escaped. There were curious eyes all around me. You don’t get too many opportunities to become a hero. I didn’t miss mine. I told them that I fought with the witch and I had broken her skull. The entire class took a punishment when the teacher walked in and all children were lost in my story. The life changed. I was no longer afraid of anything. I had been there, done that..

It was only after two days that my father asked what actually happened. I took him to the house of Mausi. He told me a tragic tale. Her husband had died six month ago. She and her old mother-in-law lived there. He told me that Mausi was mad. I didn’t know what mad meant but the word somehow matched her behavior. My father didn’t tell anyone. He simply didn’t care about all the gossip around the witch.

After almost 2 weeks, the witch sightings were reported again in the Amar Ujala, the local newspaper. The kids had a tough time. Their play life was smothered by over protective parents. I and my brother found it hard to find companions for playing. Those were the tough days for everyone.

(3)

One day a shopkeeper had to finish a repair work. He knew he would be late so he took his Alsation dog with him. When they were coming home, at around six, the dog saw the witch and started barking. The witch screamed and the dog pulled the chain out of shopkeeper’s hand. The dog attacked the witch and she fell down. Moti was a fierce but intelligent male dog, not withstanding his feminine name. After he got the witch down, he waited for the shopkeeper to come but the shopkeeper ran in the opposite direction to his home and closed his door.

After few moments someone scratched the wooden door as if with the sharp claws. The shopkeeper, his wife and son, went to hide in a corner. The witch continued scratching the door, getting impatient with every passing moment. The nine year old son of the shopkeeper didn’t understand what had actually happened. He had waited for hours for his father and his Moti to come back but then he fell asleep, only to be rudely awakened at the middle of the night. Slowly he came back to waking state and said

“Papa its Moti, open the door”..The dog heard the voice and immediately responded with a frustrated bark. The shopkeeper looked at his wife.

“Nooo…wait..Its the witch acting like the dog”. His wife said.

May be she was right. After all Moti would not have survived today. The door screeched as if it will give up any moment. The shopkeeper got up and put table, cot, chair whatever he could find to support the door.

Finally the scratching the door subsided. Then they heard the long wolf like howl which pierced the silence and the spirits alike.

“Oh god, She has possessed our Moti and turned it into wolf.”

The sequence of occasional scratching, frustrated howls and panic continued throughout the night,. The door didn’t open.

The next morning they found the dog almost freezing. He had a piece of blood stained, yellow cloth stuck in his canines. The shopkeeper was too afraid to let him in. After consultation with the elders everyone agreed that the witch had possessed the dog. The dog remained in the corner, reluctantly wagging his tail. Poor dog….He had lost the status of a trusted family dog. Did he know, like everyone else, he could turn into a man eating wolf any night.

He was kicked out of the home. He howled miserably for 3 days, everyone shivered as they heard the sound. Interestingly the witch had disappeared. Now the whole was convinced that she had entered into the dog. It was decided that the dog be killed.

When my father came to know about this plan, he was outraged. It was such a handsome dog. He bought some meat and brought the dog home. Our house was accursed anyways. The next day was the best day of my life. For the first time I had a pet dog. It was so big that it could lick my face without stretching a little bit. The more people saw me and my dog together, the more rumors there were about our queer relation with the witch. We both were under the spell of the witch.

(4)

As always Doctor Joshi was just glancing over the long queue of patients waiting for him. His eyes stuck to the women. He had seen here sitting there almost every day but he doesn’t recollect treating her. Today she was looking very pale. Perhaps it was the yellow color of her sari that made her look so. He asked her if she wanted to be checked. She followed to his room. When the doctor asked questions She remained silent. The doctor was shocked when he checked her pulse. She hadn’t eaten anything since days if not weeks. He took her to the emergency ward and asked the nurse to put a glucose drip in her hand and said he would be back in five minutes

As he went back to his room to look after other patients, it suddenly struck him that he had seen this women. Then he remembered that the she is the widow of the person who had died of jaundice. During a year long treatment she was a familiar face in the hospital. Even after the death of her husband she came to hospital and sat there. It never occurred him to ask her why she came here. Probably he should ask now.

He hurried back to the emergency room. The nurse almost collided with him. As she regained balance she told that the lady has been badly bitten, probably by a dog.

“I wonder if she would survive fourteen shots of anti-rabies.. She is took weak..”
“then what should we do?”
“Clean the wound, do the dressing and pray that the dog lives to see the next year”

The nurse promptly followed the instructions. In the weeks to follow the woman recovered. She was sent for a sanitarium for treatment of hysteria.

As for the witch she was never seen again after the encounter with the dog. For a long time people believed that she was definitely inside either me or my dog. Everyone was so scared of

me that it was fun. I no longer needed a company. I could play almost any game with my dog. I changed his name to “Rocky”.

The dog lived for six more year before he was eaten by a tiger. Later when I roamed the jungles of Jim Corbett park in moonlit nights, the thought of meeting that tiger would cross my mind. Unfortunately, or fortunately, the tiger didn't cross my path. Probably he too was hunted down by the inhabitants of a dog eats dog world.