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When I was about 4 we were living in the Temple Street of our village which had about a dozen houses, ours roughly in the middle. In the evening all the kids of all the houses used to come out for play. There were apparently two lookouts on either end of the street, for, suddenly there would be a shout:
"Dimmakaay is coming!"
That was the alarm call that drove us all into our houses and hide in our kitchens. After a few minutes we used to peep out and if we found some kids back there we would also troop out and restart where we left off.
Most of us never saw this fear-figure, Dimmakaay, and none talked about him...
One evening when Dimmakaay was announced I was hurrying inside but saw my 2-year-old sister playing alone in front of our house...whatever girls play at the age of 2...I have to ask Ishani.
And I grabbed her and was running in when I stepped on a stone, fell down and started crying. Then I saw this Dimmakaay...he was a dark, tall, mustachioed man with a red turban walking with a stout stick. I guess we feared him because our moms wanted someone to put the fear of the Devil in us so we kept quiet when his name was mentioned and drank our milk without protest.
And then there was this huge tree in our Kali Temple whose trunk had the terrifying figures of two intertwined serpents embossed on it; much like those on the Staff of Hermes:
I never dared go anywhere near that tree till I reached Class X and my senior showed me how to take a cobbler's needle and etch out on the trunk of the jamun tree the message:
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http://photo-junction.blogspot.in/2009/08/adolf-hitler-photo-gallery.html
"...Dansay had said that hearing the banshee brought calamity to the hearer and his family, and fearing that I would be blamed for any calamity that befell the family, I said not a word of my experience. Danger of any kind has an attraction for everyone, including small boys, and though for many days I avoided the area in which I had heard the banshee, a day came when I was back at the edge of the heavy timber. As on the evening of the storm a wind was blowing, and after I had been standing with my back to a tree for some minutes, I again heard the scream. Restraining with difficulty my impulse to run away, I stood trembling behind the tree and after the scream had been repeated a few times, I decided to creep up and have a look at the banshee. No calamity had resulted from my hearing her and I thought if by chance she saw me now, and saw that I was a very small boy, she would not kill me; so --- with my heart beating in my throat --- I crept forward as slowly and as noiselessly as a shadow, until I saw Dansay's banshee.
In some violent storm of long ago a giant of the forest had been partly uprooted and had been prevented from crashing to the ground by falling across another and slightly smaller giant. The weight of the bigger tree had given the smaller tree a permanent bend, and when a gust of wind lifted the bigger one and then released it, it swayed back on the supporting tree. At the point of impact the wood of both trees had died and and worn as smooth as glass, and it was the friction between these two smooth surfaces that was emitting the terrifying scream. Not until I had laid the gun on the ground and climbed the leaning tree and sat on it while the scream repeated below me, was I satisfied that I had found the the terror that was always at the back of my mind when I was alone in the jungles. From that day I date the desire I acquired of following up and getting to the bottom of every unusual thing I saw or heard in the jungles, and for this I am grateful to Dansay for, by frightening me with his banshee, he started me on compiling of many exciting and interesting jungle detective stories..."
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When I was about 4 we were living in the Temple Street of our village which had about a dozen houses, ours roughly in the middle. In the evening all the kids of all the houses used to come out for play. There were apparently two lookouts on either end of the street, for, suddenly there would be a shout:
"Dimmakaay is coming!"
That was the alarm call that drove us all into our houses and hide in our kitchens. After a few minutes we used to peep out and if we found some kids back there we would also troop out and restart where we left off.
Most of us never saw this fear-figure, Dimmakaay, and none talked about him...
One evening when Dimmakaay was announced I was hurrying inside but saw my 2-year-old sister playing alone in front of our house...whatever girls play at the age of 2...I have to ask Ishani.
And I grabbed her and was running in when I stepped on a stone, fell down and started crying. Then I saw this Dimmakaay...he was a dark, tall, mustachioed man with a red turban walking with a stout stick. I guess we feared him because our moms wanted someone to put the fear of the Devil in us so we kept quiet when his name was mentioned and drank our milk without protest.
Seeing my plight, Dimmakaay stopped, approached me, lifted me up, kissed me roughly, entered our compound, dumped me on the ground and resumed his stout-walk. Then on, I lost all fear of him, and when other kids ran in, I used to stand where I was and smile at him...
Talking of lookouts, I am reminded of the chaps who were posted on the roofs of all Halls of Residence at IIT KGP every midnight during the OP season in the 1970s when there were no phones, cell or dull. Apparently messages in semaphore used to be transmitted from RP to Azad of the approaching Dimmakaays in their vans on spot-inspection.
And then there was this turbaned itinerant walking along the street with a stick in one hand and a leash in the other dragging his reluctant bear. That was a ghastly enough sight for us to hide again in the kitchen...why kitchen I never knew...I have to ask Ishani again.
Till one day the chap stood in front of our house apparently displaying the dance of his bear to my mom, pulling a hair from the bear's back, making up a talisman with it inside and selling it to my mom at a hefty price...apparently there is this belief that a bear's hair on a child's body would make him lose all fearful dreams and such. One day I peeped out and the guy called me and lifted me up the back of his bear perhaps @ Rs 0.25 extra. And all of a sudden I lost all fear of all wild animals...not that I met many. IIT KGP in the 1960s had only jackals prowling and howling in the nights in the shrub jungle that now houses the Vikramshila Complex...no nightly jackals there now I hope.
But to this day, when I walk alone in the streets of Hyderabad at night and hear the sudden bark of a stray pup, adrenaline surges, and while hairs don't stand up, it is an electrifying experience though. It may be due to the memory of the nasty dog-bite I had at 9 and the 14 painful injections around my navel on 14 successive days.
And then there was this huge tree in our Kali Temple whose trunk had the terrifying figures of two intertwined serpents embossed on it; much like those on the Staff of Hermes:
I never dared go anywhere near that tree till I reached Class X and my senior showed me how to take a cobbler's needle and etch out on the trunk of the jamun tree the message:
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I
Radha
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We were the World War II Generation and the name of Hitler was always associated with fear-figures like moms-in-law:
http://photo-junction.blogspot.in/2009/08/adolf-hitler-photo-gallery.html
My Father was the culprit of this association in our home...
But PGW has his own take:
"For some time Stiffy monopolized the conversation, not letting me get a word in edgeways. Women are singularly gifted in this respect. The frailest of them has the lung power of a gramophone record and the flow of speech of a Regimental Sergeant Major. I have known my Aunt Agatha to go on calling me names long after you would have supposed that both breath and inventiveness have given out."
Now listen to Jim Corbett's Bansheee:
"...Dansay had said that hearing the banshee brought calamity to the hearer and his family, and fearing that I would be blamed for any calamity that befell the family, I said not a word of my experience. Danger of any kind has an attraction for everyone, including small boys, and though for many days I avoided the area in which I had heard the banshee, a day came when I was back at the edge of the heavy timber. As on the evening of the storm a wind was blowing, and after I had been standing with my back to a tree for some minutes, I again heard the scream. Restraining with difficulty my impulse to run away, I stood trembling behind the tree and after the scream had been repeated a few times, I decided to creep up and have a look at the banshee. No calamity had resulted from my hearing her and I thought if by chance she saw me now, and saw that I was a very small boy, she would not kill me; so --- with my heart beating in my throat --- I crept forward as slowly and as noiselessly as a shadow, until I saw Dansay's banshee.
In some violent storm of long ago a giant of the forest had been partly uprooted and had been prevented from crashing to the ground by falling across another and slightly smaller giant. The weight of the bigger tree had given the smaller tree a permanent bend, and when a gust of wind lifted the bigger one and then released it, it swayed back on the supporting tree. At the point of impact the wood of both trees had died and and worn as smooth as glass, and it was the friction between these two smooth surfaces that was emitting the terrifying scream. Not until I had laid the gun on the ground and climbed the leaning tree and sat on it while the scream repeated below me, was I satisfied that I had found the the terror that was always at the back of my mind when I was alone in the jungles. From that day I date the desire I acquired of following up and getting to the bottom of every unusual thing I saw or heard in the jungles, and for this I am grateful to Dansay for, by frightening me with his banshee, he started me on compiling of many exciting and interesting jungle detective stories..."
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