Bread, onion and ghost

Raju didi was teaching a group of students each evening comprising of class one - class four. We were going to her home taking each a lantern, mat and books. Our group comprised of Sambu, Raghu, Kalia, Nipili, Rulu bhai, Nandu bhai and guni didi. The difficult part of tuition was returning to home after completion of teaching. While other students home were near Raju didi's home, my home was far away.

I used to walk back home through a lonely road covered with trees. In those trees ghosts were living! On one of the tree Shyam uncle commited suicide by hanging himself on a banyan tree. After that his ghost was staying in that banyan tree. Any how he was very close to me so I was confident that he would not trouble me and protect me from other ghosts. Those days ghosts were very notorious, they would kill the person and drink their blood!

Guni didi used to tell us many ghosts stories and she would promise that those were true. She was generous in telling us stories even though we did not show interest to listen it because of fear. According to her ghost of the the persons whose desire were not fullfilled in their life time become very notorius and trouble people more. To save us from different ghosts (i.e. muslim ghost, unmarried person's ghost, women ghost) she used to tell us different mantras. We remebered those mantras by heart.

One day Guni didi told a truth which terrorized me! She told in Rourkela one new ghost is seen. So many people have died because of that ghost. The ghost would come to home in night, and would knock door and ask for bread and onion. The person who would give bread and onion would be killed by the ghost. If no body opened the door, the ghost would kill every body. I thought I would open the door of my house if ghost knock our door. I did not want to loose my family members who were very good to me. I did not tell the truth to my family members, I did not want any of my family members to sacrify their life to save me. For few days I did not sleep properly in the night. Some time I would wake up by hearing sound of knocked door. Later I would realised that my neighbour's door was knocked that time. As per Guni didi if any body can chant Gayathri Manta, ghost would not cause any harm to that person. But that mantra was very difficult to be remebered by me as I was in Class one. I heard that Rourkela is 400 km far from my home and it would take one month for a ghost to walk to our arae. I was relieved by that.

After few days Guni didi went to Rourkela to her uncle's house in summer vacation. I was worried about Guni didi. She returned back safely from Rourkela, I was relieved. I inquired about the ghost and wanted know ghost had killed how many people. She told with a smile that she killed the ghost. She told one night the ghost came to her uncle's house, she open the door while chanting Gayathri manta. By hearing the mantra, the ghost died! I was relieved. Now I could sleep properly in the night. I remembered her as a brave heroin for many years and remembered Gayatri mantra to save me from any ghost in the world
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