I like this holiday- Halloween a lot... wearing different costumes for parties.. its sorta cute..
I see a lot of Ghost decors, horror movies around... This reminds me of something truly memorable for me.

Its common if you are from India, you might've seen people around talking about bad omens, inauspicious times, dead people coming as souls and spirits... This narration is about such an experience!

When we (my sister and I) were kids, every summer we were taken to my dads home town Jagannathapuram (AP, India). There were a lot of power cuts in those days. Ofcourse it was a part of enjoyment for the kids, we could play different games taught by our favourite aunt and chatter all night long on the moonlit terrace.

One day, when we all were sitting in the living room and watching a Sunday movie, a girl in her late teens came running and panting. We were shocked to see her crying her eyes out and not stopping even after seeing her crowd of apprehensive audience. Although she looked sorta relieved to see some people around, she didn't talk for an hour,after a lot of counseling she cried that she saw her neighbouring woman burning herself up and dying inside a closed hut...!
That night and the following day, there were sobs all over the place. Firstly, it was a suicide, and secondly she burnt herself!..imagine the woman's state when she was found, ghastly! Ofcourse, all I could do was imagine, children weren't allowed to talk about it.

Days passed, every day there was a new rumour. One night, there was power cut and I got to hear the rumours about the dead lady, which were avoided from children as much till then...Some said she was waiting near the well, some said she was sitting at the water tank crying for help, some said she was on a banyan tree calling out...
Hmmm...I was around 8 with least rational thinking and my imagination ran wild!
This introduced a new aspect - fear to me-..quite interesting, yet scary! There was fear all over for rest of the week..

On one good day, we (kids) were all on the terrace, and no power as usual, after the rumours incident, the kids, all of them, liked to hear them every day..so horror stories were on..gathered and narrated by a few of our spies and confidants. It started to get dark, we discussed a whole lot of them... we also planned to do some spooky things like talking to her spirit (or soul or ghost) and asking her to go away..it was all too scary and bizarre. We discussed about horror movies like evil dead, omen and the exorcist, and how many people died watching them. As our gibber continued, I was seriously waiting for the power to be back on, I really had to go to the restroom! Restrooms in villages were like outhouses, in the backyard, even in the mid 90s. Scared of darkness, I went to my aunt asking for help, she said, "its very dark out there, don't you go there and get into bad things. There are many bad spirits at this time, and children are not supposed to roam around in dark!" I thought, "my God so all those rumours are true!" I went to my mom almost crying, and caught her with my cold, trembling hand. She realized at once something was up with me. I asked her to come with me till the restroom. She was smiling pleasantly, I still remember the beauty of her calmness in the golden light of lanterns. She just said "don't get scared, and don't believe in such things..." when I refused to go alone, she added "there is no devil other than the fear in us, there is no God other than the courage in us " -"దయ్యాలు లేవమ్మ, మనలో భయమే పెద్ద దయ్యం, మన ధైర్యమే దేవుడు" I was too young to understand this clearly...I still didn't go. Then she asked me do you remember Hanuman? I thought to myself "ofcourse I do! my favourite hero in Ramayan" she atlast saw a smile on my face and said "whenever you are scared for anything, anything in this world..just say 'Jai Hanuman!' and your fears will be driven away!"
[My mom had always told me stories about how Hanuman helped Rama in saving his wife Sita from the evil king Ravana, how he was known for his courage and righteousness, and that he is a Chiranjeevi- which means- he lives forever- and many believe that he is now in penance in Himalayas.]

She still came with me and waited for me at the restroom. But I felt like a loser and coward.
That night, not being able to sleep, with lot of duality in mind, I started walking towards the backyard again, chanting softly to myself 'Jai Hanuman' and calling out loud to the 'devil' to come and eat me. I stood in the dark for atleast 20breaths and faced my devil which was nothing but a few moments of fear.

Evil, like fear, is not an external force, its inside every person. And one might think why do we believe in an external positive force called God when the belief is, there is no thing as devil. It could be because its hard to believe in our own strength, but surprisingly easy to believe in super hero stuff!-that there exists some force, who can do anything and everything.
[In Ramayana, even Hanuman did not know that HE had such great strength to help the omnipotent Rama, unless he was reminded of it. (although it was a bane from sages that he forget his strength)]
At times some yet to be explained things are attributed to Gods leelas..Although making judgments about such things is out of scope of this blog!

So, concluding..
Fear is in us, suppressing it is a mistake, knowing it and facing is right, I believe.
I can never forget those words of my mom..that I always kept in mind..
'there is no devil greater than the evil in self and there was no God, stronger than the strength in self.' Because they were the one's that made me discover my courage - and curb my fears by facing them.

PS: Hanuman is my favorite God forever..I have a poster of baby hanuman in my room gifted by my friend! :) I simply love his righteous and heroic tales!

Jai Hanuman!