Our friend Giri’s wedding was on 15th of August. Since 16th and 17th happened to Saturday and Sunday we thought we could see surrounding places apart from the wedding. The place is called Belve, which is a small village in Udupi district. After about 10 hours of journey we reached Udupi at around 8 am. We got a bus at around 8:25 to Hebri, the bus groaned and moaned and finally reached Hebri by around 10. For breakfast we had all the regional specialities like bansu, rasaayana, kashaya etc. We took an auto from Hebri to Belve and reached in some 30 minutes.
It’s a small village amidst tropical evergreen forests of western ghats. In reainy season it pounded cats and dogs. Fortunately for us, since last 3 days there were no rains, the roads and the place had been pretty neat. Giri sent Madha with us to another house where we were supposed to stay for next 3 days.
Some 20 steps from Giri’s house towards east was the traditional toilet. It was circular pit of some 6feet diameter and 3 feet deep. A stone plank with a hole of 1 feet diameter ran across the diameter of the room. The pit had been thatched with bamboo sticks and coconut leaves. Best part is it didn’t have a roof. And the door, which was made of bamboo and coconut leaves didn’t have a latch! It wasn’t surprising although we giggled imaging us shitting in that “toilet”. Madha just marched on with our luggage as we slowly followed him, absorbing the beauty of the place. Meanwhile Raghavendra made some dirty jokes about the toilet.
Another 50 steps from the toilet near the end of their field, there was this house where we were supposed to live for next 3 days. And there was the twin of this house adjacent to it. By the look of it, it seemed it had been constructed at least 70-80 years ago. There were no windows. The only door which it had was pretty small both in height and width and we needed to bow down to enter it. We finished our morning rituals which had been long delayed by our travel. Visit to the toilet had been particularly enchanting :)
Lunch consisted of regional delicacies like Kadubu (irregular shaped idly baked by wrapping in banana leaf), Jackfruit sambar, kosambari etc etc all cooked in firewood. Perhaps cooking in firewood lent it extra taste. It was difficult to avoid anything.
We roamed around in the evening to see the paddy fields, cashew gardens etc. marriage rituals were going on, but they were not for us, they had gone there to enjoy. After dinner we settled for cards and booze. Raghavendra explained in his usually very detailed way the things that happened from the time he left his house to US to the time he came back. That took nearly 2 hours!! And as Sadashiva reluctantly began to narrate what had happened to his relationship with his “best friend”, there was a knock at the door and a female voice asked “Can you accompany me to the toilet”. Everyone was curious to hear from Sadashiva, no one moved. Sadashiva continued. Two minutes later, again the female knocked at the door and asked her to be accompanied.
There was a gang of some 8 middle aged women and 1 old man staying in the room adjacent to us. I rose up to go. “Hey you can’t go in the middle of the game”. I didn’t give it a damn and walked upto the door. Nagaraj who is timid and very skeptical about everything, held me back. “I think there is something suspicious there, please don’t go”. There was an eerie silence, no one moved… I mustered up some courage, “Hey you are always skeptical, a woman is standing outside and asking for help, I think we need to help her”. “No don’t go, you are putting all of us in risk”. Nagaraj was firm, meanwhile the woman called out a third time and we dint bother to answer it. There was pensive look in everyone’s face. I came back and we resumed playing. But no one talked much, and even when they talked it was in murmurs.
We continued for some more time and heard the knocking on the door and the voice for 5 more times in a span of 10-15 minutes. We stayed for some 30 minutes after that and slept. I got up at around 5:30 and wanted to go to loo. There sky was turning crimson at the east, and there was faint light. I rubbed my eyes and meandered to the toilet. Just before I sat, I remembered that I had forgotten to bring water. As I turned around to go back, I could see a green saree like translucent thing floating in front of me. Before I could think anything, my adrenalin rush resulted in me preparing to gallop. But I can’t recollect much about how I managed to get back to the room.
When I regained my consciousness, I was in the room and my friends were awake and talking around me. I felt that my leg had been rested upon at a high level. Someone sprinkled water on my face and asked me to open my eyes. Four of them were standing beside me, I was lying on the bed but my legs had been kept on a chair. I was sweating. They sighed as I stood up normally. Srikant S, who is a doctor, said I was under vasovagal attack. (A reflex of the involuntary nervous system that causes the heart to slow down, resulting in brain being deprived of oxygen. When that happens you faint. Vasovagal attack happens when you are so paranoid about something). All I could do was wonder if it was really vasovagal attack or if it was because I saw “ghost” or a combination of both. I didn’t bother to inform anyone, since I didn’t want to be sniggered.
That morning I told Madha of my “ghost sighting”. He wasn’t actually surprised. “Saar, although I haven’t seen anything like that in the 16 years I have stayed in the house. But I have heard many people tell that. One guy who slept in the house was found sleeping near the toilet in the morning. My father used to say there used to be a well in place of the toilet earlier and that a woman had fallen into the well after a fight with her husband”.
