The gravestone presses against my back, cool and soothing in the sultry summer heat. I turn my head to my right to look at Shreya. She is already looking at me, her body mimicking mine, head tilted left, palms on her stomach, back casually leaning against the tombstone.
We grin at each other and burst into fits of laughter. Nothing could be funnier than what we had just pulled off. Sneaking out of my aunt's house past 10pm is no mean feat. More importantly, we had got past the 6-year-old lab, Snoopy, who barks, whines, and growls at every opportunity. We had indeed achieved the impossible.
The Kalpalli Cemetery is less than a kilometer from Shreya's home, which is also my home for the summer. I am shipped to Bangalore every school break by Ammamma, who claims it is for me to "bond and explore" (which I love), but I know it is so she can get rid of me for a few weeks (which I don't love but wholeheartedly understand; I am a handful).
-
We first hear about Rangayya from the vendor uncle who sells banana and pomegranate and guava. Shreya and I are sent to buy a dozen bananas and four pomegranates (our first adult task for the summer) and told to bargain them down to twenty rupees (our first adult challenge). We are engrossed in a conversation about the latest ghost story we are attempting to write and vendor uncle, nosy as he is, decides to participate.
"Have you heard of Rangayya?" he asks as he bags our dozen perfectly ripe bananas.
"Who's Rangayya?" my tongue gets ahead of me even as Shreya glares, unenthusiastic about making conversation with vendor uncle who has tattled on her to her mom in the past. I shrug. Curiosity wins.
"He's the ghost that haunts Kalpalli Cemetry down Old Madras Road. Go there at night and you won't miss him. My cousin has seen him with his own eyes."
My eyes widen but I challenge him, "I don't believe you uncle. I've never heard of anyone who has actually seen a ghost."
Uncle shakes his head, "You can see for yourself. Or ask other locals. Rangayya was a gravedigger many years ago. They say that he dug so many graves day in and day out that one day he went insane and buried himself in one of the graves he dug. And that was the end of him, but his soul never departed the graveyard and he haunts it to this day."
On our way home I convince Shreya that we must go. It's not as much a process of convincing as it is of telling, commanding, ordering, bullying her to accompany me. Then I call her a scaredy-cat and that's really all it takes.
-
"Do you think he'll come out tonight?" she whispers, once we recover from our fits of laughter and realize that we are very alone in this vast sea of graves.
"Absolutely." I do not feel as confident as I sound but putting on a brave face is my only personality trait, so I use it.
We sit in silence for a while, a stream of moonlight our only source of illumination. We hear the occasional rumble of a passing lorry or the honk of a motorbike a distance away along Old Madras Road, but even these noises taper down as the minutes tick on closer to midnight.
Midnight. I glance at my Titan wristwatch with the pink strap, the one I begged Ammamma for (it took eight months to convince her) and which I protect with my life (I have no choice, really). Anyone who knows anything about ghosts knows they come out at midnight. We are mere minutes away.
12:02. My heart sinks with disappointment. Where is he? I can feel Shreya's eyes on me, and I don't want to look at her. I had been so certain and had risked the both of us getting into huge trouble for sneaking out, it can't be for nothing...
And then we hear it. A gentle breeze at first, which I brush away as pure coincidence, but it soon picks up to be a continuous, softly howling wind. We are both up on our feet before we know it, clasping each other's hands. Soon, he appears, there is no mistaking him.
Clad in a white shirt and with a grey cotton lungi wrapped around his waist, he steps out from behind a tombstone, seemingly rising from the ground beneath. His face is not ashen but covered with bright pink and red powders, starkly resembling the colored powders used during the festival of Holi. I am taking in every detail, more focused on remembering his appearance than anything else. I no longer have a grasp on Shreya's fingers, I can't even feel her presence.
"I have been waiting for you," he smiles as he walks towards me. He blows out a steady stream of red-colored powder, the moonlight illuminating the dazzling specks that slowly build into a whirlwind, a tornado of red, blinding me and eventually leading to the darkest darkness I've ever seen.
