Ammalu's Ghost - of an incident in the 1930s, by K. Vasudevan

(written in 1978)

From Maymo in Burma, where I was born, to a sleepy village in British Malabar, ten miles from the nearest railway station and without a post office, it was a long march albeit down a slope.  It was a contrasting experience: in culture, socio-religious customs and, in general, civilisation itself.  A typical village life which revolved around the weather, the position of the planets, the astrologer and the temple priest.  The latter had a say in every happening in the village to the point of striking terror in the youngsters.  After all, was he not the one nearest and closest to Lord Siva, the temple deity?  Every major or minor event required an astrologer to select an auspicious day and the precise moment to perform.  Before stepping out of the house, you watched out for the 'shakunam', which made the elders decide if you would venture out, even if it was the act of going to school.  One gradually accepts these regulations, sanctified by submission, and in course of time, falls in line with customs which are absurd to the core. 

The family in later years....

The ritual of visiting relatives, dear and forgotten, near and far, followed our arrival in quick succession.  We were the proud exhibits, two brothers and a sister, wherever we were taken and paraded - the Malayalees of Burmese origin.   

One such visit stands out vividly in my memory.

A gaily decorated double-yoked bullock cart took all of us, one fine auspicious morning - the number of persons that were squeezed inside that contraption would make a Calcutta Sardarjee bus driver green with envy - to a village eight miles away.  It took just three hours of vibrant oscillations and bone-shaking jerks over dusty countryside roads to reach our destination.  Since the index of family bonds is directly related to the number of days stayed with the host, we often parked ourselves wherever we went for at least five to six days.  

This particular visit was to my great grandfather's tharavad - a family conclave under the matriarchal system - consisting of over one hundred and fifty members.  The huge mansion had countless perennially dark rooms and a number of verandahs.  My brother and I had a room for ourselves, but being strangers to the place, I insisted that grannie sleep in the same room.  

Sometime in the stillness of the night I woke up.  I heard soft footsteps and the sobbing of a woman.  Grannie woke up too and, covering my face, told me to go back to sleep.  I closed my eyes, but not my ears!  A few seconds later I distinctly heard a scream followed by a thud and a splash.  When I partially opened my eyes, I saw the Tharavattillamma - the old lady of the house - following the same trail with a nilvilakku - a lighted brass lamp - and muttering something incomprehensible to my ears, more like the prayers of a Burmese monk.  I asked Grannie what it was all about to which she whispered, "It's that mad beggar woman.  Now you go back to sleep."  A mad beggar woman at midnight indeed!

The next day after dusk, a pooja was performed in the Bhagavathi temple - it was a status symbol in those days to have small shrines in the compound for various Gods and Goddesses.  I felt sorry for the handsome fowl that was sacrificed for the Goddess.

The sobs continued to haunt me though I didn't have the courage to tell my elders about it.  Weeks later, I caught dear nanny in one of her reminiscing moods - she is still going strong at 96 - and, in the pretext of trying to understand her parental household - asked about the midnight incident.  At first reluctant, but after much cajoling and a promise to not spread the story around she told me that what I heard was the ghost of Ammalukutty, on her last journey.  

Ammalukutty was around eighteen and in the seventh month of pregnancy when she became the victim of the Odiyan cult.  

Inter-family or succession-to-property rivalry invariably ended in someone resorting to witchcraft, invoking the devils or going to a tribe that specialised in the Odiyan cult.  This cult, I gathered from several sources, is a form of sorcery somewhat similar to the tantric cult and was prevalent in Kerala even during the early part of this century. To settle old scores, men of a particular tribe are hired who, after assuming various animal forms, waylay their victims.  It was believed that the potion which helped them assume the forms they wanted was made out of herbs mixed with the foetus of a first pregnancy. The young mother-to-be was killed, the foetus removed and her womb stuffed with hay and then the body thrown into a well.  That they could attract their victim from a tharavad teeming with inhabitants showed their tremendous ability to cast a spell with their witchcraft and sorcery.  

Every year on that very day, Ammalukutty (or her spirit) repeated the sadistic scenario of her last journey.  Visitors used to be warned of this and the path cleared, but in course of time it ceased to be news.  The old tharavad house was demolished just a decade ago and with that the ghost vanished too.  The remote possibility that I could have come face to face with the sobbing apparition makes me, even now after four decades, shudder involuntarily.  

Footnotes by a diligent son 😇  
Vasu (daddy, uncle or appuppa, depending on who is reading this) wrote this in 1978 shortly after his retirement.  He had begun travelling often to his ancestral home in the villages of Ethanur and Kakkayur to reconnect with folks he had met on rare occasion over the earlier two decades; this story must have been rekindled in one of those conversations.  Though he mentions being born in Maymo in Burma, that seems to be an error; he was born in the beautiful little home of Kootalai in Kakkayur and was taken to Burma as a toddler.  But then, these details hardly matter! 

And a final point: he loved his 'grannie', and she was a remarkable woman with assertion, dignity, a fetching (toothless) smile and a never-say-die spirit (more about that later).  She must have been just about in her early thirties when he was born (that's something to think about; his mother was around fifteen years older than him), so she treated him like her son.  

I remember my great-grandmother or Mutashi (his grannie) with deep fondness.  She passed away in 1980 at the age of 98, leaving an indelible memory of a thin person with bent back and a large vent where the earlobe had once been, and a smile that lit up the lamp of familial bond.  

And, yes, she's the only person I have known (and shared a Britta biscuit with) who lived in the nineteenth century.