A Close Encounter of the Mysterious Kind
Ghosts, Spooks, Aliens- what rot! As students of Science we ought not to believe in them and be frightened by them. Yet in the heart of our hearts we nurse a secret fear of them, probably instilled in us since childhood stories of bugaboos. We found this out to our own peril, at a place not so far away from Mumbai, at Matheran.
We, as in me and my 3 friends fancy ourselves daredevils. We eat from really dreadful roadside shops when the others cower from fear of jaundice and diarrhea. We had also gone for trekking in Dalhousie on 31st December to experience the snows and sub zero temperatures. So we thought a trip to Matheran in the monsoons a cinch as compared to our earlier escapades. So we set off on a Thursday. We prayed that we get plenty of rains in Matheran as Mumbai was going through a dry spell then (This was before 26/7). Rain Gods did not disappoint us; in fact we were quite sick of their largesse by the time we returned. Anyways, when we reached Matheran sheets of rain were crashing down from the heavens and we realized that we had landed in a ghost town…
Or so we thought. Matheran wears a different garb on week days and a different one on week ends. It was deserted with a smattering of people here and there. Undaunted, we embarked upon our wanderings. Trees lined the dirt roads. The shade of the trees combined with darkness of the overhead clouds lent a twilight-like atmosphere even at 2 o’ clock in the afternoon. All around us were ruined houses left since colonial times. All in all it was quite eerie! We were searching for ‘Apple Point’ which finally turned out to be non-existent. At 4 o’ clock the darkness had deepened. I was slightly uneasy but did not voice my fears to my friends for the fear of being scoffed at by them, who were by the way were yelling at the top of their voices. Any ghost asleep in his/her slumber of centuries must have woken up by the sheer noise we were making.
5 o’clock and still no sign of any Apple or Orange point. The darkness had thickened. We finally had to admit that we were lost. We stood at a fork in the road with no clue where next to go. Prajakta the trekker in our group had earlier regaled us with stories of ghosts who live in the hills and deliberately made weary travelers go in circles for their spite and entertainment. The stories seemed uncannily relevant to us then. Finally we began to yell, “Anybody there?” We tried its variants in Hindi and Marathi. To no avail, as no one answered…Then finally we got an answer- a whistle. It was melodious but tuneless all the same. A sound that road side romeos make. That scared us. We yelled again, but all we got was the whistle. The trekker of our group, Prajakta was struck badly. “Lets go from here, hurry”, she remarked. We complied and fled.
We trudged on and finally we came to a point –‘Lord Point’. Our travails were rewarded as the view was magnificent. Gossamer strings of silver and gold rain water cascaded down the green clad slopes. The view made us forget our mysterious encounter of a few minutes back. We started making a ruckus again. We yelled (cussed) all our class mates names roll number wise. We broke into an impromptu jig on the tune ‘Rakhi can’t dance without music,’ which emananted from Rakhi’s refrain ‘I cant dance without music.’ After the racket and the dancing came a moment of quiet. This was the scariest part as we heard it then – ‘the whistle.’ Now we all were scared big time. The ghost of the road side romeo was upon us, or so we thought. The whistle continued intermittently. Melodious and tuneless, but ceaseless all the same. We were truly spooked and so we scooted from there. On our way back, we came across a shop selling goodies, meaning food. Between bites of hot steaming food, we again forgot our tribulations. The level headed one- Shweta asked the shop keeper ‘Uncle is there any bird out here that whistles like a man?’ The shopkeeper replied ‘Yes, it is called Gogil.’ Well the mystery unfolded. Our ghostly whistle was in fact the call of the bird. Bit of an anti climax finally.
As we trudged back the Gogil’s cry followed us. We laughed at it and wondered how something so innocuous could have scared us so badly. Yet this incident brought to the fore the secret fears that lurk in the dark corners of our mind. Hopefully we realized that we need to look before we leap and not leap before looking. So, henceforth we have decided to restrict our foolhardiness to eating in dubious road side stalls.
We, as in me and my 3 friends fancy ourselves daredevils. We eat from really dreadful roadside shops when the others cower from fear of jaundice and diarrhea. We had also gone for trekking in Dalhousie on 31st December to experience the snows and sub zero temperatures. So we thought a trip to Matheran in the monsoons a cinch as compared to our earlier escapades. So we set off on a Thursday. We prayed that we get plenty of rains in Matheran as Mumbai was going through a dry spell then (This was before 26/7). Rain Gods did not disappoint us; in fact we were quite sick of their largesse by the time we returned. Anyways, when we reached Matheran sheets of rain were crashing down from the heavens and we realized that we had landed in a ghost town…
Or so we thought. Matheran wears a different garb on week days and a different one on week ends. It was deserted with a smattering of people here and there. Undaunted, we embarked upon our wanderings. Trees lined the dirt roads. The shade of the trees combined with darkness of the overhead clouds lent a twilight-like atmosphere even at 2 o’ clock in the afternoon. All around us were ruined houses left since colonial times. All in all it was quite eerie! We were searching for ‘Apple Point’ which finally turned out to be non-existent. At 4 o’ clock the darkness had deepened. I was slightly uneasy but did not voice my fears to my friends for the fear of being scoffed at by them, who were by the way were yelling at the top of their voices. Any ghost asleep in his/her slumber of centuries must have woken up by the sheer noise we were making.
5 o’clock and still no sign of any Apple or Orange point. The darkness had thickened. We finally had to admit that we were lost. We stood at a fork in the road with no clue where next to go. Prajakta the trekker in our group had earlier regaled us with stories of ghosts who live in the hills and deliberately made weary travelers go in circles for their spite and entertainment. The stories seemed uncannily relevant to us then. Finally we began to yell, “Anybody there?” We tried its variants in Hindi and Marathi. To no avail, as no one answered…Then finally we got an answer- a whistle. It was melodious but tuneless all the same. A sound that road side romeos make. That scared us. We yelled again, but all we got was the whistle. The trekker of our group, Prajakta was struck badly. “Lets go from here, hurry”, she remarked. We complied and fled.
We trudged on and finally we came to a point –‘Lord Point’. Our travails were rewarded as the view was magnificent. Gossamer strings of silver and gold rain water cascaded down the green clad slopes. The view made us forget our mysterious encounter of a few minutes back. We started making a ruckus again. We yelled (cussed) all our class mates names roll number wise. We broke into an impromptu jig on the tune ‘Rakhi can’t dance without music,’ which emananted from Rakhi’s refrain ‘I cant dance without music.’ After the racket and the dancing came a moment of quiet. This was the scariest part as we heard it then – ‘the whistle.’ Now we all were scared big time. The ghost of the road side romeo was upon us, or so we thought. The whistle continued intermittently. Melodious and tuneless, but ceaseless all the same. We were truly spooked and so we scooted from there. On our way back, we came across a shop selling goodies, meaning food. Between bites of hot steaming food, we again forgot our tribulations. The level headed one- Shweta asked the shop keeper ‘Uncle is there any bird out here that whistles like a man?’ The shopkeeper replied ‘Yes, it is called Gogil.’ Well the mystery unfolded. Our ghostly whistle was in fact the call of the bird. Bit of an anti climax finally.
As we trudged back the Gogil’s cry followed us. We laughed at it and wondered how something so innocuous could have scared us so badly. Yet this incident brought to the fore the secret fears that lurk in the dark corners of our mind. Hopefully we realized that we need to look before we leap and not leap before looking. So, henceforth we have decided to restrict our foolhardiness to eating in dubious road side stalls.
posted by tilo @ 11:30 AM
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