The Power of Stories: Phantasms & Fantasies I
I’ve loved stories from the time I can remember. I would pester any adult I could find to relate new ones to me. Of course, once I learnt to read on my own all I needed were books and more books :D. Chandamama (an iconic children’s magazine) came to our house in its English as well as its Malayalam avatar, Ambili Ammavan (Uncle Moon).
There were also other Malayalam weeklies in the house. Usually a willing adult would read out and explain the stories in them. Ambili Ammavan had the legends of King Vikramaditya through the Vikram-Vetal series along with tales from Indian mythology and folklore.
Chandamama also had the occasional ghost story. I remember the illustration from one about a young bride who’s too lazy to answer the knock at the door one night. She elongates her hand all the way from her bed to open it! That visual has haunted me.
There were more horror stories in the form of serial comics in the weeklies. Neeli left an impact on young me, yup, the same one on which the movie, Lokah, is based. Especially, its climax episode when the pretty Neeli transformed into her true form, with gaping holes in a horrifying face. Not surprising considering she was a yakshi (spirit). :D
The only time Mom had for stories was at night when her work for the day was over. My siblings, Jaya, Swapna and I would gather around during dinner, food forgotten. Why? We were eagerly waiting for the next episode of… Bram Stoker’s Dracula! :D Till date whenever I refer to the name of the book it is with the author’s name because that is how Mom referred to it. We were fascinated! A being that had fangs to suck blood and that could turn into a bat or scrabble up walls! For some reason, fear had not set in then. To me, those were ‘stories’. They didn’t seem real.
Till one day… Jaya helpfully pointed out the darkened building opposite. There were two red lights shining from a window and she said, ‘Look, those are the monster’s eyes’. I looked. They did rather seem like the red, glowing eyes of a monster glaring down at me. That was the day I learnt fear. There now existed the possibility that monsters could step out of stories into real life. That was the end of any demands for horror stories.
Long before the storytelling sessions, around my kindergarten days, I had these spectacular nightmares. An aside: my dream began with intros that were influenced by the state-owned TV channel Doordarshan. :D At the beginning of every show, the Doordarshan logo would slowly spiral out. Similarly, my dreams began with bubbles in various pastel shades that slowly expanded from the size of a dot till they filled my dream vision. Once a few of these bubbles were done, my dream or… my nightmare would begin.
There was one where I was driving a Premier Padmini (my nightmares were quite particular about the make of the cars I drove :D). Now, strangely as in the case of dreams, I was not driving over a road but up a series of wide, shallow steps. In the outdoors, brightly lit by moonlight. All my windows were rolled up and yet I was terrified...
Because the moment the car reached open ground at the top of the steps, it was surrounded by wraiths trying to get in. I don’t know what they intended to do or what I thought they could do but having near-translucent formless figures stretching out limbs to me... That imagery was so vivid that years later I did what a writer does… I used it in a different form in the first book I wrote. :D
I realize now that horror stories formed just one part of a lot of childhood tales that also included animal fables. Yet, the stories of gods and demons captured my imagination. They were the beginning of my fascination with fantasy, with things larger than life, with things beyond what we know as real. Also, perhaps with things that could potentially to come to life? :)
Next Part: More nightmares and stories ;)
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