So much as promised to all my welcoming friends from Nagaland out here I shall attempt to send a chill down your spines with an account of an encounter that I was a part of. Till then I am worried about my bathroom designs, whether the renovation make them surprised or not. I shall only put down the account as it is and the rest is up to my friends to derive a conclusion. I do not necessarily expect them to arrive at a single conclusion as they may try and find some scientific explanation behind it, which has escaped my understanding over the years.
This goes way back in 2000 at the start of the new millennium give or takes a few years. I was barely into my late teens and may have been a mere 17 or 18, give or take. I had been sent to study engineering in a college in Maharashtra. The college was situated way further inside the outskirts in a village where there was no electricity for 17 hours a day and the worst part is without knowing this fact, I took the rent fridge facility. Fortunately I also took a rent bed facility also. In the day time the temperatures would soar to almost 50 degrees and at night it would be chilly wind blowing making the temperatures drop to as low as single digits. Almost extreme desert climate. The vegetation and inhabitation in that area was also sparse. The hostel was situated a further kilometer walk away from the college, both of which were the last points of civilization in that stretch. The villagers used to live further down in slum like settlements. at night they would drink their local liquor and never by mistake even stray into our side of the village.
The college boys' hostel was outside the college campus and was a further kilometer uphill walk into the deserted road. On the other side there was huge expansive barren crop land for miles at a stretch. No other source of lighting other than the fireflies and a bulb kept on in some student's balcony in one of the far away rooms in the hostel. Walking down alone on that stretch would only be the boys from the hostel. At the end of the hostel, virtually ended all signs of civilization. It was carpet like pitch black road leading to a national highway, frequently used by transport trucks but that apart, it was largely unused by humans. The villagers and locals never came down as far as that as their day to day activities were settled near the market square and then into their settlements. Only humans to tread that road were the college boys, who were perceived by the villagers as aliens. I later understood the reason was because we were mostly perceived to be usurping their existent culture and traditions, unsettling the peace and spirits of those kindred with our fancy clothes and indifference to their superstition and fears.
We had long been told by many a village elder including a Kannu Maama, who used to make Bun Butter for us and give us some bathroom renovation ideas as he worked on the same field. He loved smoking his biris and was blind in an eye and hence his name. He had seen a generation of students arrive as children and leave as men.
This goes way back in 2000 at the start of the new millennium give or takes a few years. I was barely into my late teens and may have been a mere 17 or 18, give or take. I had been sent to study engineering in a college in Maharashtra. The college was situated way further inside the outskirts in a village where there was no electricity for 17 hours a day and the worst part is without knowing this fact, I took the rent fridge facility. Fortunately I also took a rent bed facility also. In the day time the temperatures would soar to almost 50 degrees and at night it would be chilly wind blowing making the temperatures drop to as low as single digits. Almost extreme desert climate. The vegetation and inhabitation in that area was also sparse. The hostel was situated a further kilometer walk away from the college, both of which were the last points of civilization in that stretch. The villagers used to live further down in slum like settlements. at night they would drink their local liquor and never by mistake even stray into our side of the village.
The college boys' hostel was outside the college campus and was a further kilometer uphill walk into the deserted road. On the other side there was huge expansive barren crop land for miles at a stretch. No other source of lighting other than the fireflies and a bulb kept on in some student's balcony in one of the far away rooms in the hostel. Walking down alone on that stretch would only be the boys from the hostel. At the end of the hostel, virtually ended all signs of civilization. It was carpet like pitch black road leading to a national highway, frequently used by transport trucks but that apart, it was largely unused by humans. The villagers and locals never came down as far as that as their day to day activities were settled near the market square and then into their settlements. Only humans to tread that road were the college boys, who were perceived by the villagers as aliens. I later understood the reason was because we were mostly perceived to be usurping their existent culture and traditions, unsettling the peace and spirits of those kindred with our fancy clothes and indifference to their superstition and fears.
We had long been told by many a village elder including a Kannu Maama, who used to make Bun Butter for us and give us some bathroom renovation ideas as he worked on the same field. He loved smoking his biris and was blind in an eye and hence his name. He had seen a generation of students arrive as children and leave as men.
SHARE
