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<\/div>\nConversation with Ruskin Bond<\/h3>\n
THE\u00a0RAISON D\u2019ETRE\u00a0<\/span>FOR TELLING A GHOST STORY was probably best summed up by the Fat Boy in Pickwick Papers, when he said: \u201cI want to make your flesh creep!\u201d<\/p>\n But it isn\u2019t always as simple as that, and not all ghosts are frightening.<\/p>\n The other night I woke up around midnight with bright moonlight streaming in at the window and lighting up the bedroom. Someone, or something\u2014a vague, nebulous figure\u2014was standing beside my bed, looking down at me. It could only have been a ghost. I waited for the spectre to say something but it remained silent; nor did it move away.<\/p>\n \u201cHello,\u201d I said. \u201cAnd what can I do for you?\u201d<\/p>\n No answer. Not even a gesture, either of goodwill or ill-will. A most ineffective ghost.<\/p>\n \u201cDo you have a message for me?\u201d I asked. \u201cAnything you\u2019d like me to do for you?\u201d<\/p>\n No response. It just stood there, shimmering in the moonlight.<\/p>\n \u201cWell,\u201d I said, \u201cI\u2019be got better things to do than just lie here holding a one-sided conversation.\u201d And I turned over and went to sleep again.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n * * *<\/p>\n The ghosts in this collection are far more alarming. Most of them were observed, experienced or imagined by British writers during the period 1840 to 1940: a century of ghosts! The British are phlegmatic people, not given to displaying much emotion or excitement, with the result that their supernatural experiences are quite convincing when put down on paper. When C.A. Kincaid of the Indian Civil Service described people who turned into panthers (or vice-versa), and mischievous spirits who entered the bodies of straitlaced Englishmen, we have to believe him. As we believe those who found themselves in haunted dak bungalows, graveyards, villages, forests, forts…. Haunted India, in fact!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n For the British, coming from a land where haunted houses and castles were the norm, were fascinated by the wonderful variety of supernatural manifestations that they found in India:\u00a0churails\u00a0<\/span>(the ghosts of wayward women, whose feet always faced backwards),\u00a0munjias\u00a0<\/span>(the spirits of Brahmin youths who died before marriage),\u00a0bhoots\u00a0<\/span>who took up residence in peepal trees, or mischievous\u00a0prets\u00a0<\/span>(Indian poltergeists) who sometimes entered the homes of living people and created havoc in their lives. When I was a boy, one such pret took up residence in my grandfather\u2019s house and made life hell for everyone\u2014throwing dishes around, knocking pictures off walls, pulling the cat by the tail, and tying knots in my Uncle Ken\u2019s pyjamas\u2014so much so, that we had to move to another house for a time. But the pret followed us and would not leave until it had been propitiated with the help of a wandering mendicant. He taught me the following useful mantra:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Bhut, pret, pisach, dana,<\/span><\/p>\n Shiv ka kehna, sab nikal jana!<\/span><\/p>\n (Ghosts and spirits in house or tree,<\/p>\n In Shiv\u2019s great name we bid thee flee!) Amongst the writers represented here, two were keen observers of Indian customs and folklore: Lt. Col. Sleeman, an administrator who, in the mid-nineteenth century helped eliminate the menace of the Thugs, a sect who waylaid and murdered innocent travellers; and C. A. Kincaid, one of the more enlightened of British officials, who wrote sympathetic books and essays on Shivaji, the Rani of Jhansi, and other heroic figures. Kipling, poet of the Empire, wrote the occasional ghost story; as did Alice Perrin, wife of an Indian official; her stories were quite popular in the 1920s. In\u00a0Caulfield\u2019s Crime,<\/span>\u00a0she reveals the more arrogant, cruel aspect of the colonial official. In\u00a0The Summoning of Arnold\u00a0<\/span>she demonstrates that the spirits of the dead recognise no frontiers. Ghosts require no passports. They are truly universal beings! Kincaid brings a touch of humour to his stories, but this does not lessen their dramatic impact. The stories of this period tell us something about colonial attitudes\u2014ranging from the paternalistic to the cynically indifferent\u2014but we must remember that they were written purely to entertain, to enliven a dull railway journey, a sleepless night, a rainy day in the hills, a long sea voyage, or a period of recuperation from a tiring illness. Ghost stories are meant to frighten you, but at the back of your mind you know it\u2019s all a nightmare from which you are going to wake. In other words, it\u2019s a \u201csafe\u201d fear and you can enjoy the process of being frightened.<\/p>\n Doctor Johnson once said of the supernatural: \u201cAll argument is against it, but all belief is for it.\u201d Those of us who enjoy reading ghost stories are the people who half believe or want to believe. Those who are already convinced of the existence of ghosts usually look for \u2018factual\u2019 accounts are usually very dull and consist of \u201csightings\u201d of unusual phenomena, rather like the sightings of UFOs, unidentified flying objects, whose reconnoitrings are singularly without interest or purpose.<\/p>\n The human imagination is a wonderful thing, and I shall conclude this brief introduction with a \u2018factual\u2019 experience of my own, which was certainly hair-raising.<\/p>\n Some years ago, a neighbour of mine, an old English lady who lived alone, died of heart failure and was laid out on her bed for the night, as it was too late for the funeral. A friend and I decided that we would take turns at her beside, and at about midnight I sat down on an easy chair in the bedroom to undertake my part of the vigil. There had been the usual power failure, but we had lit candles and I could see the features of the corpse quite clearly. For some reason I couldn\u2019t take my eyes off her face. Her eyes were closed, but after a while I was sure I could make out a slight smile on her lips. This smile gradually grew wider until it became a rather menacing grin. I was frightened out of my wits. Was I about to see her rising from the dead?<\/p>\n As the grin grew even wider, I got up from my chair, ready to flee the room. Just then there was a loud report, like a pop-gun going off, and her false teeth shot out of her mouth and rolled off the bed.<\/p>\n We had forgotten to remove her false teeth.\u00a0Rigor mortis\u00a0<\/span>having set in, the rigidity of her jaws had forced her mouth into that terrifying grin, ejecting the teeth with considerable force. Not a ghost story, but a ghostly one all the same.<\/p>\n Happy Hauntings!<\/p>\n Ruskin Bond is the author of several bestselling novels and collections of short stories, essays and poems. These include The Room on the Roof (winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize), A Flight of Pigeons, The Night Train at Deoli, Time Stops at Shamli, Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra (winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award), Angry River, The Blue Umbrella, Rain in the Mountains, Roads to Mussoorie, A Little Night Music, Tigers for Dinner, Tales of Fosterganj, and A Gathering of Friends.<\/p>\n Ruskin Bond was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India in 1999, a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Delhi government in 2012 and the Padma Bhushan in 2014.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ghost Stories From The Raj by Ruskin Bond contains nineteen short stories which were written during the British colonial times.<\/p>\n![\"Literature,Horror](\"https:\/\/m.media-amazon.com\/images\/W\/MEDIAX_792452-T1\/images\/S\/aplus-media\/vc\/b6b14ef3-7889-433f-8177-734b9175ea0a.__CR0,0,5304,5304_PT0_SX300_V1___.jpg\")
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About the author<\/h2>\n
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\u00a0Ruskin Bond<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nProduct details<\/h2>\n
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