Saturday, August 15, 2015

The Nail on the Head





I was 10, when I realized there was something very wrong, when everyone in the village would tell me not to venture outside our farmhouse after 5 P.M every day. Here’s how it all began:

I’ve been born and bought up in Chennai, but we spent the holidays in a small farmhouse belonging to a relative in a village near the Thanjavur district, a village known as Umayalapuram. However, the location doesn’t matter, here’s the most horrific thing that has ever happened to me..

Our holidays at Umayalapuram were pretty relaxing, but a little boring. We had lush farms all around the farmhouse with fruit, vegetable and grain crops all across, which was great for a child of 10 to explore every day, but because of the vastness of the farms I was never allowed to wander off too far. I had no friends of my age, as no children were allowed near the farm. The farmers and the ladies at the village kept an eye on me whenever I was in the farm; they’d be kind and sweet and offer me ladoos and mangoes as long as I obeyed the rules and complain to my parents as soon as I turned into a brat. They were over protective, and I never really found out why until much later. 

There was this day, a nice Sunday afternoon, around 3 in the noon when I decided to take a stroll all by myself. Girls my age would be happy playing with their Barbie dolls, but there I was chasing butterflies and dragonflies and fighting off imaginary dragons till exhaustion. I remember finding a nice and cool green patch and lying down, and then remember walking up in the dark to howling winds and not knowing where I was, the only thing around me was the moonlight and the winds. It was dark, clammy and windy; even if I had screamed nobody could have heard me. As I tried to wrack my brain and think which direction led to the farmhouse, I heard it… a blood-curling scream in two different directions, it didn’t sound like an animal or like a human, it was… something else entirely and it sent chills down my spine. I tried running away from it, but heard the noise from all directions. I suddenly came upon, a barn of sorts. It was abandoned and heavily locked, however I found two loose wooden planks and managed to rip them out and crawled inside. 

Till today, I can never ever describe what I saw inside the barn. It was dark, there were no lights but I could see several dozens of wooden planks in different sizes because of the moonlight, the top of which were nailed to the wall of the barn. They were glistening with oil, adorned with jasmine flowers, sandal wood and kumkum. There was more, the jasmines and the sandal could not hide the smell of something dank, pungent and rotting, it was suffocating and it was making me want to retch. There was something sinister about the wooden planks; I have never encountered a place as horribly evil and dark as this. I could hear new screams, now louder and I also heard someone heavily panting behind me. Through the stifling smell, noise and atmosphere I heard a squeaking noise, I watched in horror as a nail slowly began thrusting itself out of a plank. The nail unscrewed itself from the plank and fell down on the damp floor, and almost instantly out of the corner of the barn a small and bright orange ball rolled out, and I swear I saw someone or something move in the same dark corner. I froze in horror for what seemed like an eternity, I instantly decided that I would rather be outside with the screams rather than cooped up in here with these dreadful planks (How I didn’t die from a heart attack I’ll never know).I decided to make a run for it, I ran till I thought my feet would fall off. An elderly lady caught me as I was running, and in my fear I thought she was the screamer and decided to scream my head off. Finally my parents found me, as they had all been searching for me in the farm, and had been calling out my name; I had never been able to hear them because of the howling wind. They rushed me into the farmhouse and after several hours of me crying incessantly and having a nervous breakdown I told them what happened. My parents told me I was imagining things, however their pale faces told me they were hiding something from me and I hadn’t imagined a thing. We left the following day never to return again to the farms. Soon, my relative sold our farmhouse and my parents never went to the village or contacted the villagers. 

After haggling with my parents for years, they decided to tell me the truth about the barn when I was 20 years old. 

About 100 years ago, several rich families who owned a lot of land in the Ulayalapuram village had begun to commit atrocities in the name of cast and money. They had shunned everyone except people from their own cast as outsiders -tying them up with ropes, depriving them food and water for days, letting small children starve to death and plundering the innocent for money and land. The rich specifically focused on making the children work to the point of exhaustion or killing them for disobedience. 

It is said that one day the souls of the dead children began to attack the families slowly, and drove them all insane. One day, the dead cornered the families inside the farm and brutally murdered them all. The descendants of the family were all in grave danger, and decided to leave the village. However, one by one they all died or went insane. The dead souls needed new flesh to kill, and began to brutally attack and kill the children of the village. Several prayers and poojas were conducted to please the souls and leave the children be. The new leader of the village begged the dead to stop the attacks and promised to give the souls what the needed as long as they left the people alone. The dead agreed on one condition, that all the souls will lay on a wooden plank and their heads be nailed to a wooden plank. If the nails are removed either on purpose or by accident, the souls will be free to attack and kill as please. The people of Umayalapuram agreed, and all the souls were nailed to the planks. A pujari comes in every week and baths the planks with sacred oils, holy water and pays his respects. They are kept at the barn, out of the reach of people. My parents told me they never believed the villagers, and went to the village because it was a great place for a vacation. They had brushed off the stories as superstitions, and until I told them what I saw they had never even heard a scream from the barn. 

If all this was true, Why wasn’t I hurt? Why was I still alive? How did the nail unscrew itself? I know the questions, but I don’t think I want to know anymore answers.

Friday, April 3, 2015

Quilled Earrings




Dahi Bengan




1. Heat a little oil in a tava and add jeera and mustard seeds and wait for them to splutter.
2. Meanwhile, chop a big brinjal into big chunks and roast in the tava for 2 minutes on each side.
3. After the brinjal roasts, add some salt, chilly powder/pepper, coriander powder, turmeric powder, cumin powder and kitchen king masala and roast for 5 minutes until the brinjal is soft.
4. Mix a cup of curd, a spoon of besan and tons of coriander leaves, add the curd to the brinjal and sauté till it becomes thick.
5. Wait for the curd mixture to boil for 2 minutes and then remove from flame.

Friday, January 2, 2015

Dum Allu in 5 steps


Easy Peasy Dum Aalu

  1.   Boil a combo of baby and big potatoes (I used 8 small potatoes and 2 medium potatoes). Peel the skin and slightly pierce with a fork. Heat a little oil and fry the potatoes till they are evenly colored. Take them out on a paper towel to remove the excess oil. 
  2.  In a kadai add coriander seeds (1 tsb), jeera (1 tsb) and red chillies (6-7) and dry roast them till they  give a nice aroma. Let them cool and make them into a powder and set aside.
  3.  Chop 2 medium tomatoes, 2 green chillies and 1 onion roughly, and blend in a mixer along with 1 ½ cups of fresh curds till finely blended.
  4.  In a kadai with some oil add the curd paste, salt and wait for the paste to cook thoroughly, until the smell of raw onions is no more. Now add the potatoes and the powder and let them cook in the gravy for 10-15 minutes. 
  5.  Chop up some fresh coriander leaves and garnish the dish. Serve hot with rice, chapati or naan.