Bhoot Badha

My Bua was married to a businessman in Mysore. When she had newly arrived in the city, their family, which consisted of a benevolent (honestly!) mother-in-law, an always amused brother-in-law, a more or less surprise resistant husband and herself, moved into an apartment in a lesser known locality. Since the husband would often be away on business trips and the bro-in-law being in merchant navy amused himself at the seas, so the ladies were generally left to enjoy each other's company. They got along well since gossip was available in plenty. Rather it was so much in excess that they had to borrow hours from their nap time to finish the daily quota.

On one such moony loony night, Bua and sasu ma gossiped their way into slumber. Bua was comfortably snoring when something surprisingly louder than her snores woke her up. Her partial consciousness evolved into complete horror when she realized that the sound is coming from the kitchen and felt like somebody was throwing all the utensils around. She glanced at the clock "hey prabhu!! Its three in the morning!". The Devil's hour!!

Of whatever sense she could gather, she woke up the mother-in-law. When they both sneaked out slowly and silently and peeped into the kitchen. They could both not believe what they saw as much as I cant still believe what they said. The utensils were flying about in the kitchen. SUO MOTO.

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It will take another decade to go through the details of that night. Just that everyone was alive and well and that the coverage was better than that of Al Jazeera. Calls and visitors kept them busy that day. Sasu Ma, though visibly traumatized, soaked all the attention. Remedies were suggeted, Jyotshis were called. Flat was declared contaminated and unfit for residence until the twenty grand bhoot bhagao pooja was done.

By the time, the final agreements were reached, the moon was up again.

So then saas bahu yet again talked their way into snores. Bua who is famous as the "Tabela bech ke soti hai" sleeper, perhaps did not wake up to the routine endeavors of the ghost. Poor Fellow! I am positive he must have tried. But then when nothing else seemed to work, there was only one option left.

*Phattaaackkk!!!* Bua sitting on the bed wide awake, open mouthed, hand on her cheek. Clock declared 'ten minutes past' three (I told you he must have tried).

Next morning the not so amused brother in law called to relate a frightful incidence of being slapped hard by no one around ten past three in the morning.

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Drama repeated. The now vindictive Bua and Sasu ma decided to take the matter into their hands and refused to sleep that night. They furiously chatted through it.

At three in the morning they heard a painful howl.

Shhhh.... What was that?? Its nothing... okay yes... So as I was saying....

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A thousand miles away.. a horrified ghost spent the night on the pavement.