Of Zombies and Graves - Part II

Well coming back to the cemetery’s haunted stories, there was this ghost that haunted the workers during the time the school was built. The legend goes that, it had cried all night through for days together after having lost its grave amidst the school foundation. Soon the crying became so unbearable that all the priests and the nuns from the church and even some Hindu exorcists were called in to control the spirit's antics. A chicken’s throat was cut and its blood had been trailed all over the building foundation to appease the tormented soul. Not sure if the ghost got pleased with that single chicken throat though! Heard from fellow boarders that there were occasional cries in the night ! oooohhhhhhhhhh.!

The graveyard was functional having atleast one dead body in a week for a decent burial or for cremation. Many a times we would hear, the echoing drum beats as we sat in our classrooms trying hard to concentrate. After school we would see a newly laid chariot of the dead peeping above the compound wall. The brave among us would climb the wall and take a peek at the new mound of mud.

Burial just got us the stench of flowers of the dead. But the cremation was the worst. The stench of burning flesh was nauseating and frightening. The school hostels were situated adjacent to these graves and they had a tough time from preventing the smoke from entering into the dorms. They had to shut all the windows and lit incense sticks to help get rid of the lingering smell. Many of my friends who lived in the boarding used to complain that their uniforms, which they had left for drying in lines next to the big wall, had got the smell of the burnt flesh.

The burning pyre always attracted the attention of the girls in the hostel. There would be a scramble secretly in the night to peep through the dorm windows at the burning pyre. Once when someone was peeping hard through the concrete windows to see the pyre, a burning bone had jumped out with a crackle. The onlooker fell off the chair screaming, which inturn rose screams from the gang below, who in their anxiety fell on top of each other. The Warden Sr Mariya had rushed to the spot wondering if the roof had split into two. She had pulled all of them up and issued decrees for the unwomanly behavior. News came later that the girl who happened to see the jumping bone, had fallen sick and had retired to her home for a real long vacation.

Smells of dead decaying carcasses used to flood our noses once in a while and during those days many huge eagles and vultures were sited circling the graveyard and the school grounds. They had so much of temerity, that they would swoop and attack our lunch boxes too. Someone was always there to chase them away with crackers and shot guns. These huge birds brought in a waft of pungent dead decaying smell in their feathers as they flew low. Soon the vultures dimminished in their count, thanks to all the pesticides that we humans used for our crops and the cow hormone ofcourse!

Among the long corridor of bathrooms, there was one which was seldom used by the oldies. It was said to be haunted and only the poor unsuspecting new comers were made to use it. It always happened that who ever used that bathroom ended up to tell real spooky tales. The almanac of the school had it that, someone saw a real zombie crouching behind its door. No amount of cajoling and threatening from the Sisters did any good to make the girls use that particular bathroom.

Princi Sr Angela tried her best to make the local people understand that cremation was very problematic and wanted the people to either use another grave, that was quiet a walk away or to use the burial method. But ofcourse, all her pleas fell on deaf ears. Soon, whenever any big shot came to school, Sr along with the Mother Superior would provide him/her a petition about the nuisance caused by the graveyard and how it disturbed the juvenile minds. Every one of them used to assure Sr about doing something. But as long as I was in that school nothing happened, which was about eight long years.

Soon afterwards when I recently visited school,a huge compound wall around the grave attracted my attention. It had a wide metal gate that seemed to shut all the restless souls behind those iron bars. The compound wall that bordered the school and the grave had been raised in height, with metal thorns ontop for extra protection. The hostel compounds were also raised to a level that no more peeping was possible. The entire isolation of the grave with the huge walls could easily put to shame the walls of 'The Ghetto'. As I perceived the entire area, I did wonder if all the stories of the uncanny were still going on among the kids or if they had died a pitiful death. hmmm...