When Imagination Creates Ghosts And Spirits

[ 2007-8-10 ]

Durga Aryal

http://www.gorkhapatra.org.np/content.php?nid=24797

GhostS and spirits appear from nowhere merely from imagination of men, women and children. One day, one of my neighbours suddenly came to me.

Her eyes were wide-spread with fear when she started to talk about ghosts and spirits. Now we are living in a rented house. The house contains three floors. The house is situated in an open space near Bagmati River at Thapathali. To the east, there is a huge garden having many tall trees just next to our house. To the south and west, there is lot of open space. To the north, there are some houses. Just next to the huge garden, there is a metal workshop. Both during the day and night, a lot of disruptive noise comes from there. on a calm night, the side road used by the workshop and workers create much noise. Just next to the house on the southern side there is an open land surrounded by high walls. The ground is covered with bushes. Many dogs frolic there barking, crying, jumping, etc. This is the immediate surrounding of my rented house.

My neighbours are scared to stay in this house thinking that the house is always haunted by evil spirits (ghosts, hungry spirits of passion, witches etc).The case appeared to be serious when my neighbours knocked at my door and asked whether I know about that fact. The lady down my floor said, " I always hear sound of footsteps at night. I hear cries of children near from my bedroom ? sometimes ladies chattering away at midnight just near my window." One night, at one o' clock, she heard two children groaning as if in pain, their running footsteps.. Sometimes, she and her children heard the branches of the trees being pulled. Sometimes, they heard sounds resembling the like the cutting of grass at night.

She was more scared when at night somebody made knocked at her door. She came and opened the door but nobody was found. She asked the neighbours who stay in the ground floor about what they experience. She found that they sometimes have similar experiences but they don't care much it. Then she came to for confirmation about the mystery of that house. I explained it in a different vein so she didn't believe me.

Her situation became complex when her grown up children could not sleep at night for many days. I made my endeavor to console her telling that the surrounding of the house was quite different from other houses that is why the sound from everywhere comes that way. Sounds like hissing, crying, laughing, talking, knocking, stepping, dashing near the rooms come due to sound reflection from various factors in calm and tranquil night.

Those sounds come from real objects but they provoke the unsound side of the mind or imagination since men, women and children have been brought up with the belief in ghosts, spirits, and witches from the tales narrated by their ignorant grandparents or illiterate ancestors.

I understand the fact that sounds from various sources are reflected to our ears. There is a huge dark garden of fruits. When the wind blows hissing sound comes. The figures of trees appear to be the so called ghosts of the darkness provoking awe, haunting the unsound side of the mind. There is a vast grassland and bushes on the land where many rats and dogs have made their settlement. They always create different sounds. Their sound is neglected in daylight but on quiet calm night it is heard with clarity. When people lose their sleep, the nocturnal sounds works as devils in the imagination of people. I felt serious when her grown up children compelled her to abandon that rented house just from the blind belief and superstition.