Continued from An attack of a different kind...
After talking to madha, i met raghavendra's mother and told her what i saw. She had a different story to tell. "Before they converted the forest here for agriculture, huge trees were there here. Some of them could be as old as thousand years. My mother-in-law used to say, after felling the trees she saw an old woman in green saree sitting beside the stumps and weeping. Mother-in-law would say she used to see it quite frequently. But it has not harmed anyone."
I narrated my experience plus madha and raghavendra's mother versions to the rest of our gang. Contrary to my expectation, they were not shocked, but were thrilled. Probably because they had realized that this ghost was harmless, everyone with the exception of Nagraj now wanted to be ghost hunters. Raghavendra was reluctant to spend time and energy on this but agreed to come with us. Nagraj we decided would remain in the house and make a call to one of us if he heard the voice. Now we needed to search for an appropriate place to wait and watch for the ghost. Place should be near yet it should hide us from all other sides. We found a small tree with its branches drooping at the start of the forest. It was around 100 meters from the house and at around 45 degress to the left of the house. One could lift the branches with little difficulty and hide under it. We got hold of a few torches, a mosquito coil. We were set, we eagerly waiting for the night.
After dinner, at around 9:15 we left to our hiding place. We dint tell anyone about our adventure lest it attract attention and distract our ghost guest. We crouched under the tree, lit up the mosquito coil. We decided to to sit with our backs facing the tree so that we could keep vigil in different directions. it was around 10th day of the moon cycle when its size increases, so there was enough light to sight the ghost if at all it neared the house. We felt we had gone there too early. It was around 11:30, we were all tired and sleepy as we were awake the last night. At this point of time, we heard leaves being trampled upon. I kept a watch at the house. Raghavendra was watching forest side. sadashiva was looking at raghavendra's house side. Srikant S looked at the toilet. The trample continued and by now it was apparent it was coming from the forest side. Suddenly there was bustling movement as if someone was running towards us. Raghavendra's torch light ended dint go farther than a few feet as there was lot of plantation. We came to know how ill equipped we were. We were sitting on our toes ready to run any moment if needed.
We heard a gunshot. Raghavendra shot up and his head hit one of the branches. He collapsed in pain. There was more movement and this time it seemed the movement was away from us. There was no sound after a few seconds. We sighed with relief. Raghavendra was bleeding. We hurried him to his house. His mom called one of the two guys in the village who owns an auto. Raghavendra's family being the priests at the local temple is well respected in the village and people wont think twice to come for help even at this ghostly hour. We took him to a hospital in Hebri he was given some first aid. We were told "it looks like a superficial head injury so few stiches might suffice. However its better to get and MRI scan done. Its not available here. You have to go to Udupi for that". We returned from there.
Next day Raghavendra's mom was visibly pretty angry with us. We volunteered to take him to udupi for MRI scan. However both mother and son did not want it. They felt the previous night's dressing and medications were enough. we left for bangalore the same day. Raghavendra stayed back.
Raghavendra had not returned from home. I being indirectly responsible for his plight decided to go and see him. One mystery that i forgot to tell is what happened that night. Since they are living in such close proximity to forest, its common that at night wild animals do come near the house. So some one usually patrols the area during the night. Madha who was patrolling that night, on hearing some wild animal shot dummy bullet from his long barrel rifle to scare away the animal.
(Story will continue in my next blog)
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