Since Halloween is round the corner, I’ll share a couple of spooky/mysterious happenings from my life for the upcoming Sunday Storytimes in October🎃👻 Share your spooky stories here :) So today I wanna talk about the usual inhabitance of spirits and wandering souls in the mountainous region, from the village my ancestry belongs to.
Around 5 decades ago, my grandparents lived in a village, high up in the mountains (they migrated to the city where we currently are, in the early 90s). My grandma tells us so many stories of the village life and how there was no road at all. At a slightly elevated area, the muddy, grassy paths were the only ‘roads’ villagers had. There was a deep rocky cave close to one of the paths. It was believed to be inhabited by djinns. Villagers could hear loud banging of utensils and slight murmurs from there quite usually. My grandma told me that they were friendly djinns because they were treated respectfully by all villagers and experienced no hinderance to their existence. So much so that whenever a large gathering or a marriage ceremony was to be held in the village, the shortage of bedding and chairs was often arranged by the spirits themselves. So, the villagers just used to politely speak into the cave opening about the requirements and the next day, the items were found outside. The villagers in turn, returned the items after washing/cleaning and also left meals for them.
One day, they didn’t return the items in great form and so the djinns got offended and never ever helped the villagers after that To this day, no one heard from them again! Here comes the interesting part now.
Many years passed. In the late 70s, the govt was finally keen for the construction of a road. One day, one of the priests of the village temple had a dream about the road being constructed. In his dream, he was told by the djinns not to let the road pass through their cave and avoid its destruction. The next day, he had a discussion with the officials and got to know that indeed the road map was such that it was to pass through the cave (it’s so crazy right)!!!! So he told the villagers about his dream and it was mutually agreed that the road would pass slightly away from the rock cave. The road was constructed without causing any harm to the rocks. My grandma said that since the cave is situated a little downhill from the steep slopes where the road is, a small flag has been erected- indicating the presence of the cave from a distance.