Dead Man Walking

For many a day could not update the blog. Maverick is down, but Joe is going well. Joe always sets up encouraging examples.

So this time, I'd like to share an incident that took place around the start of this year and had a stark affect on both my roomie and me. We have common interests like food, travel, and above all music. When he moved into my room our group of music lovers grew and we started jamming to pass the free time away. Soon it took a considerable time of our lives in Pune (may be the prime reason of me not socializing as I used to.)

Once we had rather a long jam at my room, and ended at around 2:30 in the morning. One of the friends who does not like to sleep anywhere else but his room, asked for a drop. To our common interest, we decided to drop him, as we did not want to loose the sleep after a tiring gig. Willingly I decided give company to my Roomie for a late night early morning ride is always sought after (that too in Pune’s weather). This fellow’s place was around a couple of miles away off the Bhandarkar Road.

Early Morning, no traffic, no cops we reached the place in a few minutes. While returning we had a strange but true incident, both of us were on my scooter moving from Bhanadarkar Road towards S.B. Road. The Bhandarkar Road looked like abandoned that morning; to our surprise we could not see not even a single stray dog, a sight so uncommon on the roads of Pune. All of a sudden, my attention was drawn towards a moving figure. We saw an image crossing the road. It had a blanket around it and to our surprise the head was missing. Its true! And we could see it moving relatively to the road divider and to us. I asked to my Roomie “Dada, are you seeing what I am ?”. In reply he said “Yes”. Holding our nerves and calling the Almighty we drove as fast as we could to reach home.

The next day, we went to Chaturshringhi Mandir to seek the blessings. To our anxiety we decided to find what could have been the reason of our experience, was it our hysteria, or does this hold any relevance to life. In our finding we studied about the background of the Bhandarkar Road and the history of the Pune city. We found that such incidences had been common in that area and folks say that when under the British Rule, the city was a military center and was confined to the parts what is known as ‘Camp’ today; while thew Indian lived in the 'Peth' area. The British used the Chaturshringhi Hill and surrounding areas as a butchering yard. The rest can be easily deduced. What we know as S.B. Road and near by area was used as a dumping ground for the corpses of the killed. Its also said that the Chaturshringhi Mandir was built to ward off the evil that was thought to be associated with the place.

Though I still dismiss the experience and regard it as hysteria of both of us but sometimes it does make me believe in Super Natural. Till that day I had been mocking the people, who shared this kind of experiences, but this time I think that I will have to think a little more before making a firm opinion.