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Mohan Vamsi is studying in High School and wanted to cultivate the hobby of writing stories. His hobbies are playing video games and skating
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Banyan Tree
By
Mohan Vamsi
Fear engulfs me from all around when I think of the banyan tree which was on the east side of our village. Among the boys, we used to think there was a devil residing on it. It was the biggest tree in our known locale. With all its aerial roots descending down from its branches it was kind of scary in appearance. It was huge and if you stand below it even in the mid-afternoon, it was kind of dark and gloomy down there.
All of us used to be scared of that tree. There were lot of stories which were linked to that tree. People used to say that our village president Kama Reddy’s second son committed suicide and he roams around that tree in the night time. People attribute even the death of Sissamma, a small girl died of cholera sometime back, also to that devil.
That tree was in the route to our closest town and around half a mile from our village. Whenever we crossed that tree, we never forget to recite the mantra of Hanuman. My grandmother used to tell me that mantra always protects me from the devil.
It all happened one day, when we decided to go to a newly released movie in the town, which was four miles away. We decided to go to the second show, which starts at ten o’clock in the night and ends between one or two in the midnight. Normally the last bus from the town leaves around eleven o’clock or so. Our Reddy friends, who were rich in the village, normally returned thorough a bullock cart after the movie. People like us normally would take a walk in the middle of the night.
The only problem what we had, was to pass through the banyan tree in the mid-night. Normally we request one of our elders to accompany us. We used to sneak behind them while we crossed the tree. The elder themselves were afraid of the tree and would cross the tree with closed eyes. Of course, that was immaterial for kids.
For that particular movie, what I am talking about, no elder was ready to go with us. My cousin Ramana and I wanted to watch that movie very badly, but we were scared to go without any elder person with us. Nobody showed interest, except my father’s younger brother Raju, who was just two years elder to us. We had no other go, but to go with him.
After the movie, three of us started walking. Raju asked us about the movie.
“I liked the movie”, I answered promptly.
“Fights should have been better”, Ramana commented, seeing across the empty and deserted big streets in the town. They were seeming more wide and long on that night.
“This movie is a big hit and is collecting lot of money”, Raju gave the statistics about the film. He was good at that kind of information.
We came to the end of the town and took the road, which leads to our village. I saw two men walking much ahead of us, we didn’t recognize them well. We were silent for some time and kept on walking slowly. We knew very well that after some time we had to pass through the dreaded banyan tree. My mind started recollecting all the stories, I looked at Ramana and found him also in my condition.
I cleared my throat loudly.
“Are you not afraid of the banyan tree?”, I enquired Raju.
“No. Why should I?”, Raju showed some brave signs.
“You know, they say that ghosts roam around in the tree…”
“Come on! There are no ghosts. I read lot of scientific books”, Raju answered.
I liked his confidence.
“So, all these stories about this tree are not true then?”, Ramana was curious.
“Must be”, Raju started explaining, ”See boys, all these stories are man made. The real stories might be different and over time these stories will be changing”
“All the stories..?”, I stressed little.
“Yes. All the stories”
“So, you think there are no ghosts really”, Ramana blinked his eyes.
“I challenge the ghosts to come and stand in front of me “, Raju shouted dramatically.
Raju was a good student and in school he got good ranks. I believed what he said and felt comfortable with the talking. We kept on walking and I noticed the two men in front of us were no longer visible. We must be walking slowly while we were talking.
We came almost hundred yards to the banyan tree. We three were walking holding hands together. Raju was on the left most side, close to the banyan tree, I was in the middle and Ramana was on my right hand side. I could feel Ramana's hand holding my hand very tightly. I knew he was getting tensed. I also increased the grip of my hold on Raju’s hand.
“Raju, say something”, I almost begged.
“Why are you so terrified? See..there is nothing..it is just a tree”, he showed the tree with the other hand.
“Let’s us go near the tree. I would like to prove that there in nothing scary about it”, he started pulling us towards the tree.
“No…No.Raju, please”, we started pulling him away from the tree.
“I am here with you. And it is just like any ordinary tree”, he assured us and we were near the tree by then.
We were standing right below the tree. Ramana closed his eyes while he was holding my hand more intensely. Raju and I were watching the tree. Having little moonlight, it was hard to see through it. It was pitch dark towards the corners and when we looked upwards, we could see feeble light here and there but it was mostly very dark. With all its roots and huge branches in the dark it was looking like a big monster.
“Raju, let’s go”, I pleaded.
“See. Nothing here”, Raju reiterated.
We started walking towards the village again. As we took just steps ahead, something happened. It must be a small dried branch of the tree or something of that sort. Ramana stepped on it in the dark. He was already in such great fear that he thought he stumbled on something. Instantly he shrieked and jumped into air. As he landed again on the land, he stumbled on to same again and it bumped into air and hit Raju at the back of his head. It was so pitch dark, and all of a sudden everything became very scary. The so called, brave Raju, was trembling with fear now. He thought it to be something else and shouted loudly. I did not understand what happened and the only thing I could do was to shout loudly “run”. Ramana’s loud cry got added to that. We released all our hand locks and without looking back we all started running.
We didn’t stop running till we reached our village. Raju ran faster than both of us and was waiting for us. We were all panting. Our bodies were full of sweat and our faces were red with fear. We turned back and saw the road. We could hardly see the banyan tree from there. It look us couple of minutes to come to normal state.
I wanted to say something, but my mouth was dry. I wondered what happened there down the banyan tree. But we were not having guts to talk about that. As the fear slowly getting dissolved, we started walking towards our home.
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