Context: My grandfather did his K-12 studies at a boarding school in India. His school was in a remote location, and it was built on top of a hill. Right below the hill was a graveyard, and a famous legend had its way around campus – whenever children of his school would go out for an excursion and return late at night, they’d see a woman with a veil selling corn, late at night, by the roadside along the mountainous curves. As his school was on top of a hill, people had to be careful when driving around the corners of the mountain, especially at night, to avoid accidents. Residents would call this ghost the “corn seller” as she and her family had died due to an accident on this road. The story is that one day, a group of young boys was driving a super-fast car on these narrow roads. Suddenly, they saw a truck coming from the front. As there was no time for them to brake, the boys took a sharp turn towards the side to save themselves, but unfortunately ran over the corn seller’s canopy, killing her and her two-year-old child.
Story: Let us call my grander D for the story. His school allowed these excursions only for students in high school. Excursions were two-day-long trips from Saturday morning to Sunday night, and the students would travel during the nighttime to attend school on Monday. D had heard many stories of his seniors spotting this corn seller when coming back to school from the city. This time it was D’s turn.
D, as usual, left campus on Saturday morning. On the way down, he was vigilant to find the corn seller and bust the legend, but to his surprise, there was no canopy or woman selling corn. As his trip came to an end, D told me all his friends were super tired, yet they were trying to scare each other by pretending that they saw the women.
Suddenly, the bus got a flat tire as they were about to reach the hostel, right after they passed the graveyard. It was around 10 pm, and all the children went silent. However, the bus driver was confident and let D and his friends come out of the bus to help him fix the flat tire. Most of the children were either sleepy or too scared to come out of the bus, but D and a couple of his friends decided to step out and help the driver.
As the bus driver started to repair the puncture, D did not have anything to do. As he and one of his friends (let’s call him V) started talking to each other, paying almost no attention to the flat tire. Suddenly, they saw a deer. It was not moving, but its eyes shone like a diamond. For some reason, it caught their attention. Being young boys, they wanted to see what it was. D told me, “I was not sure if it was a deer, a dog, or some other wild animal, though the eyes looked like those of a deer.” Without thinking much, D and his friend V moved towards this weird creature.
The headlights from the bus barely reached that part of the jungle/road. As they stood there, both heard a faint voice from behind, “Bhutta le lo” ( which means please buy corn in English). V looked at D and said laughingly, “Did you hear that?” Before D could respond, the voice came again, this time sharper than before, as if the person was much closer. D and V slowly turned their heads for a brief second, and though they saw a faint figure on the other side of the road, they moved towards the bus.
They were merely 200 meters away from the bus, but when they came back, the driver asked where you guys were and why you were both sweating. Both together said, “Kuch Nahi, we were just checking if we could get a lift, that’s why we went a little forward.” They both did not share this with anyone at school, but now, when they think about it, they still do not know what exactly it was. Did they see the corn seller, or was it just their mind telling them that you are tired?
Their Thoughts: D brings this story almost every time we have a celebration at our house. He says that this incident made me believe in ghosts, and even since he never dared to be curious about spirits or haunted things in general. He told me, “I still remember not being able to sleep at night, and the next morning when I met V, he too was in a similar situation.
My thoughts: I think D was tired, but if the story is true, then in my analysis, the ghost was wanted and was there to help people by scaring them to not stay on the road, as it was not safe due to the narrow roads. She was there not to scare people, but in reality to save their lives as they were standing on an accident-prone road.