by Nag Mani
Something inside her began to cry. She had known long ago that she had a miserable life ahead with the man she was married to. It had been hard to accept, but she eventually did. But never had she imagined it would come to this. He had an affair. There was one whole year he lived alone, enough time to nurture it. Now that he had found his cow-like wife, there was no need for her. She had to be disposed of… And he had the perfect way to get rid of her – the Devi. That was why he wanted her to come along even though everyone advised otherwise. That was why he made her go to the temple to bow and didn’t come himself. Damn! Was even the Mukhiya involved in it? Did they perform some dark magic in the temple to get rid of her? And he himself ran away so that no one would suspect him… What a fool she was to fall in the trap! Damn this woman’s heart! It was the perfect plan…
…only that the Devi didn’t take her.
She wiped her face. Her cheeks had turned numb. What about Zeenat and Zeba? Why had the Devi killed the two girls? And what about that tall, bearded man?
That old woman! Hadn’t she asked to call for her? Didn’t she say it was not the Devi’s way of killing? That they would know if the Devi killed someone.
And she was bloody right!
The Devi didn’t blacken her victims’ skin or rot their flesh. She dragged them to the sacrificial platform and chopped off their heads.
She had to talk to that woman; and the key to her was Arvind.
The clouds had parted in the sky laying bare a scorching afternoon sun. Bhagvati came in with a cup of tea. “I am sending Payal to the market. She will pick up some vegetables. Do you need anything?”
Payal poked her head through the curtain. She must have been what, about twenty-one. Thin and tall. Her bushy hair pulled behind and tightly tied. She was eyeing Aditi with wonder. “Go to the bank,” Aditi spoke directly to Payal. “Ask for a man called Arvind. Tell him Madam wants to talk to that old woman who goes to the Devi’s temple.”
CHAPTER 16
THE ANCIENT TREE
Aditi was standing by the window in her room. The maize field was swaying slightly under a scarlet sky. Stars had begun to appear eastward. The fan had stopped moving and the bulbs were reduced to mere glowing filaments. She had made up her mind to leave the village on her own. She would find a way out no matter how flooded the lands were.
There was a soft knock on the door. She opened the other window and found the old woman standing on the veranda.
Aditi’s eyed the woman as Payal brought in two cups of tea. Bhagvati was filling a bucket with water in the backyard. The old woman was examining the stained ceiling, the dead fan, the dim bulb. “Arvind didn’t replace your battera?” she asked.
“He…” Aditi fumbled for words, though she wanted to ask point-blank how the hell did she know Arvind and that he changed the battery of her house.
“But then,” the woman continued, “you were not here. And with all the… you know… things… happening here, who can blame him!”
“How do you know Arvind?” Aditi blurted out. And the answer came on its own. Battera…
The woman smiled. Her teeth were yellow and stained, broad gaps in between. Wrinkles swarmed around her eyes. “I am his mother, Madam.”
His mother! What the hell had she been thinking? Of course, she was his mother. She was lighter skinned though, tanned and patched. And unlike him, she was thin and frail. “Oh, I am sorry. I couldn’t tell. I see the resemblance now.”
The old woman didn’t reply. Aditi wanted to ask about her son’s sickness, whether it was true, or just a rumour, but she thought better of it. There were so many questions, she did not know where to begin.
“You saw a man, you said,” the old woman spoke, still examining the room, her cup untouched.
“Yes. I wanted to ask about him. And the Devi. About the Mukhiya…”
Bhagvati entered the room and after a brief greeting, sat down on the bed beside Aditi. Payal brought in another cup of tea and left as quietly as she had come.
“That is a lot many questions you have.” The woman settled the aanchal of her withered sari. Aditi noticed a string of rudraksha around her neck. “To begin with…” she heaved and crossed her legs on the bed, making herself comfortable, “… I have to tell you about the temple and this Aambari.”
“I know about the legend of the Devi, about the queen who was sacrificed,” Aditi glanced at Bhagvati, “and the killings that took place in the Aambari.”
“You do?” The woman raised her eyebrows. “Then let me start from where it began. With the birth of Puran Devi.”
“The birth of Puran Devi?” Bhagvati interrupted. “You mean how her shrine came into existence? Why, correct me if I am wrong. It’s similar to the story of the Shakti Peeths that are scattered across the country, where different parts of Goddess Parvati fell. Puran Devi is another form of Goddess Kali. Once, a long time ago, Goddess Kali was chasing a demon across these lands. In a deadly duel, two little parts of her body fell to the earth. One fell here, in this village and took shelter in a mango tree. Another part fell in the old city of Purnia and clung to a stone. The stone was worshipped there, and then a temple built around it.”
“Yes, that was the exact story I was going to tell, except, there were three parts that fell, not two.”
“What?” Bhagvati said on the verge of mocking, “When did this third part come in the story?”
“There are two versions of the story,” the old woman replied calmly. “One that you just told. With two parts. And another that I am going to say.” Aditi held her breath as the woman searched for words. “The Puran Devi temple here has an old mango tree. That was where one part of the Devi climbed up to. People worshipped the tree. Then a stone was accidentally dug out from its roots in the shape of a woman’s torso. A temple was constructed, the ruins of which you see now, and the stone was placed in the shrine and people began to worship it instead. This continued till the queen was sacrificed. Angry with the villagers, the Devi left her seat. The stone crumbled to pieces and the tree dried.”
TRING. TRING. Then a knock.
Payal opened the door.
“Namaste, Madam,” Arvind greeted from the door, rather dully. Then there was a sound of something heavy being kept on the ground. Something else was lifted and then placed. Silence for half a minute. Then CLICK and the bulb suddenly grew brighter. The fan began to move. “Should I wait?” Arvind asked from the hall itself.
“Go back to Bijju. She will be hungry. I will come,” the woman shouted back.
“Let me make some tea at least,” said Payal timidly, standing at the doorway to the bedroom, the curtain draped around her. Arvind must have said something for she began to smile. She went to the kitchen. Arvind dragged a chair to the veranda and sat heavily with a sigh.
“And what about the third part you were talking of?” Aditi whispered, not sure if the story should be continued.
“That third part. Yes. There was a third part also. An evil part. It fell from the demon she was chasing. That time, long before people began to settle, there were only two mango trees here. And that part of the demon crawled to the second mango tree, the older of the two, and instead of climbing the branches, it went down to the roots. And there it stayed, down in the darkness, where it was stronger and protected. And there it stayed, growing deeper and deeper.”
“So that was the man I saw, the one who killed the girls?”
“Ah no, Madam,” the old woman chuckled to herself. “These powers are too unworldly to interfere with us petty humans. This power, this evil bit that we are talking of, took no part in the history of the village. It stayed underground, growing in its own world. It could be a reason why Puran Devi could not destroy it, because it never interfered with her or her world and she had no claim to interfere with his. Maybe, it knew, that she was waiting for it to come out, to give her one small chance, to end that duel once and for all… for it never came out. Even after she had left. But there was something else that happened
. Powerful as it was, it attracted evil spirits! Tormented souls… evil, dark… they were all lured by its aura. They took shelter in the tree. While the Devi resided in her temple, she warded off these spirits. But after her departure, they swarmed like fleas. Pret, pisach… The dead dacoits, their victims. They all live in that tree now…
“You see, Madam, this ancient tree, it is not far from here. It is right in the heart of this plantation. All these mango trees, they were planted during the reign of Puran Devi. They blossomed and bore fruits, but none dared to even touch that old tree.”
“There is a path,” Aditi interrupted in a small voice, “from here to the market. At one point it branches off to the left. Is it...”
“Yes, Madam, that is where it leads to.”
“One of the ghosts that live there… did it haunt the girls?”
“It could be. But there is still more to the story. That tree, Madam, that old tree swarming with ghosts was a haven for those who practised black magic.”
“Aren’t the people where you live known for black magic?” Bhagvati interjected as-a-matter-of-factly.
The old woman hung her head. Then quietly, she continued, “There are procedures, Madam, ways with which you could call upon a spirit and ask him to do something for you. I know a person whose son was taken away by a chudail. Of course, there is a price, but when you are desperate enough, price is often overlooked. Most of these spirits are summoned out of jealously. I can tell you Madam, of farmers whose farms withered overnight, of small boys who were lifted into the sky and carried off to somewhere no one knew, and of beautiful wives, who disappeared while sleeping in their beds. Then another spirit came wandering to the tree, or maybe he was summoned. We call him the Jinn.
“Those were terrible days, I remember. Young girls would suddenly fall sick, and then die before anyone understood what had happened. One sneeze, and who knew you would be dead within the hour. How can I forget those days! That was when we stopped going to the forest altogether. Girls were not allowed to wear lipstick or kajal or perfume, for it would attract him. They were not allowed to keep their hair untied. They were not allowed to go out after sunset. But of all the things that attracted him, it was the fragrance of a red rose. It made him come pounding to you.” She took a deep breath. “I saw him once. I was very small them. Must be like what, nine or ten. And unlike now, we had a good home. My father lived with his three brothers. And we had this big courtyard surrounded by houses on all sides. I remember it was a full moon night. Because the moon was so big, so bright. You could read right in the middle of the night even without a lamp, that is if you knew how to read. We were sleeping on a charpoy. I was in between my mother and my father. It was cold, so she had covered me with her aanchal. I was sleeping and all of a sudden, I opened my eyes. I didn’t know why, but I opened them and I saw a man on the roof right above me. He was leaning over, looking down at me, his hands behind his back. He was tall like no man I have seen. I was terrified. I thought he was a robber or something. And then he started walking around the perimeter of the roof, hands behind his back, head held high, calmly, proudly as if he was a king surveying his kingdom. I closed my eyes and wriggled into my mother’s chest.”
No one spoke for a while. Aditi could hear Arvind sipping his tea in the veranda. The old woman removed a thin layer of cream that had formed on the surface of her tea and wiped it against the lip of her cup. She drank half the beverage in one gulp.
“Initially, most of us thought it was the Devi behind the deaths, that sacrificed queen…” she continued. “You see, she had inflicted far more terror than this spirit, this Jinn had. Unlike him, who was rarely seen, she used to freely roam the streets at night. That was long time ago. My mother used to tell me these stories. You could wake up to see a woman passing by your window. Many a farmer saw her gliding over their farms. That ruins of the temple, she would often be seen there. A dark figure floating from pillar to pillar. And no one had forgotten the killings. Yes, how can I not mention that. She had killed all the members of the royal family.”
“And this… Jinn…,” Aditi asked, “he continued to haunt this village while people thought it was her.”
“No. Not for long. These jinns are only interested in young women. Somehow, he grew powerless. He shrunk back to that ancient tree. You see, we had started taking precautions. We burnt all the rose plants in the village. Threw away perfumes and cosmetics. He couldn’t bother us for long. Unless a girl went close to the tree seeking trouble.”
The chair in the veranda creaked as something heavy lifted from it. Arvind cleared this throat, loudly. Then there was creaking of iron and TRING-TRING as he left on his cycle.
“So this man I saw, he is the Jinn?” Aditi asked.
The old woman nodded. “Maybe.”
“But why now? Why after such a long time? All of a sudden?”
“He is weak Madam. He wouldn’t have dared to leave the protection of the tree… unless someone made him do it!”
“What?”
“Unless the girls were offered to him!”
“But how? And why?”
“There are ways Madam, as I said, to set spirits upon someone. It is easier to do on someone you are related to, or live with, because you share a bond with them. But for others… there are ways. And there is one ritual I can think of. Dark magic. It requires a minor sacrifice for the tree, usually a young goat. You perform the ritual. To do this you need something that carries the fragrance of your victim. A piece of cloth often worn. Nails. Hair. A drop of blood. Then you put that something in a crack in the trunk, or bury it near the roots. This is done to mark your victim. Then you have to please the entity you desire to summon. Often it is a sacrifice, or a promise of a sacrifice if the work is done. I have seen things, believe me. And I have a feeling the Jinn didn’t act on his own. It can’t be a coincidence that he took two girls from the same house one after the other. Someone must have hated Razzak with his life and soul.”
“You told him? You told Razzak about the tree? Does he know?”
“My son did. But they listen nothing coming from our people. For all he knows we would lead him into more trouble. And his woman is bent on believing that you are the reason it happened, after all this time.”
“Why would I do such a thing to the girls? I loved them…”
“She is a good woman, Madam. But she is a woman. She doesn’t question. She accepts whatever is told to her. She and her little brain. She knows that roses are banned in this village. And you planted them anyway, even after she threw them away. Yes, don’t look surprised. Zoya saw them planted behind the coop. She knows that the forest is forbidden. Yet, you went there anyhow. She knows that the Devi must not be meddled with. That the haunted temple must be left alone. Yet you… she thinks you turned the wheel that had laid still for so long.”
“Yet you what, my son?” Bhagvati interjected.
“Yes, I went there!” Aditi screamed. “I wanted a child! I was desperate! So I went there, but I did not ask for this. I did not ask for anything! Just a child, my child!” Bhagvati sighed and shook her head, but otherwise remained quiet. Aditi went on, “Let her think whatever the damn she wants to. If someone is after the sisters, Zoya is in danger too. Laila must know. Don’t tell me it is too late, please! There must be something that can be done.”
“Maybe. If we can find what was put in the trunk, we might know what dark magic it actually was. Who the targets were. We can then look for ways… find the culprit. But first we have to be sure than my assumption is correct.”
“And how do we do that?”
“By searching for what was put there…”
“Didn’t you tell Laila? She is a mother. She can lay her life for her daughter.”
“Yes, that is exactly what she said. That she would lay her life. That she would sacrifice herself to the Devi and ask her to spare her daughter.”
“I will talk to her,” Aditi said, almost shouting. “I will get her to go to the tree.
I will go with her if I have to. Tell me how to do it?”
“Are you mad, Aditi!” Bhagvati screamed, for the first time taking her name. “You are going nowhere. You will not risk your life, not while I am breathing. I don’t know what this old woman has gotten into your head.”
The old woman unfolded her legs and slowly stood up. “I must leave now. I have my own house to run. Cook dinner. It is safer in the sun. And whatever you see, don’t look at its face, don’t let it inflict fear in you.”
“What?”
“If you go looking, that is.”
“She is not going anywhere,” Bhagvati said firmly, standing up. Aditi wanted to argue, but instead, she felt touched by her concern. Maybe, it was after so long a time that someone had stood up for her. “I won’t let her. There was no third part, you wicked old woman! You just made that up. And don’t you take me for a fool! I haven’t greyed my hairs just for show. It appears to me that you want to send my son to that tree. That bloody queen is beheading people all around the village and you are asking her to go right into her lair. It is her, my son, don’t you see it? It is the Devi. I cannot explain the man you saw, but I am certain he had something to do with her. You say it’s the Jinn that killed the girls. What about the Mukhiya? Why did the Devi kill Om Prakash Singh? Ask this woman. Ask her!”
The old woman was quiet. She suddenly looked tired. Sick. Dying. “I don’t know. You can ask the Devi herself. She might answer.” With that she began to leave.
“Why don’t you stay a little longer.” Aditi followed her to the hall, furiously signalling Bhagvati to stay back. “Have dinner with us?”
“No. Madam. But some other time. Maybe when all this is over. I will bring my Bijju along. But not now.”
It was already dark. A crescent moon was hanging low in the deep blue sky. Aditi watched from the veranda as the old woman made her way slowly to the main road. Two police constables were sitting on a charpoy outside Razzak’s house, chatting away secretly. “Constables!” she murmured. “Constables watching their house. As if they are going to catch the culprit.” A damn jinn! What else the village had in store? “I am going to Laila’s,” she declared.