October 13, 2007

My relatives always have fascinating stories to tell about the older members of my family and I especially like the one about my grandmother whose name was Farzana when she was of my age, 14 or 15.

She, her cousins and her friends used to be very fun loving and adventurous. Once when her best friends and cousins came for a sleep-over to her house, they decided to call the spirits, just for fun. Her little sister asked if she could come too.

“Aapi, can I come? I won’t make a noise and sit quietly. I also want to see how you call spirits,” said her little sister.

“No, I won’t allow you. You are too young to come,” my grandmother said.

Her little sister ran to her room angrily and started to cry. Then she decided to take revenge. She planned that when her sister’s friends would be preparing to call the spirits, she would slip under the bed and scare them off.

My grandmother and her friends sat down on the floor and started the process; as they were about to finish it, her little sister with a scary dark makeup stood before them. She looked very scary with long white hair and a big white robe. They all screamed when they saw her and ran down.

In the meantime her little sister went to her room, changed her clothes and took off the makeup and went to bed. But she left behind one clue in her elder sister’s room: the white face powder.

When they all came back up and saw the white powder on the floor, they at once understood that it was her little sister’s joke. The next day they decided to punish her for her joke.

That day too, they decided to call a spirit just to see if her little sister would play the same prank or not. All the preparations were made and when the concluding part came, a spirit showed her presence. She looked the same as her little sister looked the previous day. They all got up and moved towards the spirit and hit her. When they saw that their hands moved through the body, they realised that this was no joke. They again screamed and ran down.

Then for the next two weeks, their hands were as if they were paralysed. They decided never to call any spirit in future.