08 – “Ghosts” to the Rescue
One night Mukunda’s neighbourhood in Calcutta was disturbed by a noisy sankirtan (group singing). Alternating the drums and the bells, the singers continued hour after hour to shatter the nocturnal peace. Into their songs the men infused none of the softness of love that draws a divine response. Drunk, rather, with the love of noise, the singers seemed bent on gaining a heavenly interview by force.
The stillness-loving dawn was appearing timidly ere the men, hoarse from nightlong exertion, ended the tumult. Unfortunately for the neighbours it was almost time for them to get up and meet their daily duties. A leaden-eyed community faced the morning sun that day.
A delegation from the neighbourhood sought out the house in which the sankirtan of the night before had taken place. The men there proved to be a group of rather simple-minded, superstitious people. They were apparently lacking in regard for the feelings of others. They themselves had enjoyed the music; they could not understand why outsiders had been offended.
“You mind your business, and we’ll mind ours,” said one of them, shrugging his shoulders as if to imply that only an unholy curiosity could have kept the neighbours awake all night. With keen anticipation he began to finger his mridanga (drum).
“Besides,” argued another, “a little noise – not that we make any, mind you – but still, a tiny little bit of noise is good, especially at night. It keeps ghosts and demons away.” The others in the group nodded their heads in earnest assent.
The nights of the following week brought little sleep to the harrowed neighbourhood.
One day a man lamented, “The uproar of those fellows is enough to wake the dead.” Mukunda, overhearing the remark, suddenly smiled. Turning to a friend, he said, “That’s it! That’s how we’ll stop them.”
“What do you mean?” asked his friend.
“A plan about the ghost-fearing devotees,” answered Mukunda, laughing. “Let us get a group of boys together. Tell each one to bring a tin pan and a large kitchen spoon. We’ll meet in my house tonight at ten o’clock.
Among his playmates Mukunda was well known for mischief and hilarious pranks. He had no difficulty in gathering a large band of boys to participate in his latest scheme. Though as yet he had given them no more than a hint of his plans for the evening, smiles of anticipatory delight, ill concealed from the observing eyes of teachers and parents, danced on their faces for the remainder of the day.
By the time the boys had assembled that night, the neighbourhood song-fest was already in full sway. Mukunda came with a box of firecrackers in his hands. After he had confided his plan to the boys, they crept stealthily near the house in which the sleep-shattering festival was being held. Caution was scarcely necessary in all that din; nevertheless, lest their plans go awry, they took pains to move quietly as they stationed themselves in a dark place near the open windows.
Within, the singers could be dimly seen, sitting in a circle. They were swaying back and forth. Shouts alternated with blows on an assortment of drums, bells, and other instruments. The sounds rushed out discordantly and engulfed the night.
Suddenly, amidst the bedlam, a new noise intruded itself. Beating tin pans and emitting sepulchral moans and howls, the boys had joined the chorus. The singers stopped, astonished. Immediately the boys followed suit. A welcome silence reigned for a moment.
“Wh-who’s there?” queried one of the men, timorously. There were sounds of fearful whispering and shifting about within the room.
“Go and see what it is,” someone said in a trembling whisper. But, understandably, no one seemed willing to obey. At last the front door was hesitantly opened. From within, someone called out in a quailing voice, “Brother Ghost?”
It was at this moment that Mukunda threw the lighted firecrackers into the center of the room. The ensuing explosions were accompanied by another outburst from the boys (well hidden from the view of the men inside the house), who renewed their moans and the banging of tin pans.
The singers fled. In a few minutes they were out of calling distance. The house remained untenanted for the rest of the night.
The episode was too hilarious to be kept a secret. Before the next day was over, the chagrined singers had learned from several gloating neighbours the identity of the chief “ghost.” The angry men visited the school principal’s office and demanded Mukunda’s expulsion from the school.
“But surely,” the principal objected, “you must have done something to goad him to such a deed.”
“No, no,” they protested earnestly, “nothing at all. Oh, it’s true, we were singing a little every evening, but we were always finished by ten o’clock.”
“How late? demanded Mukunda, who was present.
“Oh, perhaps occasionally a little closer to eleven – that is, maybe sometimes even twelve.”
“Never later? Inquired the principal, suspicious by this time.
“Well,” they admitted reluctantly, “sometimes even till two or three, or perhaps slightly later – oh, but ever so rarely,” they insisted. “We were nearly always finished by three-thirty or four.”
“That’s enough,” said the principal sternly. “If ever again I hear that you are disturbing the neighbours at such hours, I shall make it my business to teach you a lesson myself.”
The men, grinning sheepishly, agreed to discontinue the singing. They thought, perhaps, that although nightly noise might have banished true ghosts it had summoned “ghosts” equally unwelcome.
Neighbors heard no more disconcerting “concerts.”
