The mythology of Rekesh

The mythology of Rekesh

                After watching a werewolf movie called The Wolfman Rekesh began to differentiate for us the truth and fiction within the movie. Although there is reference to the Hindu Kush Rekesh seemed to think that the movie was based on a character of events that occur with some regularity within the north of India. I should point out that this isn’t a work of fiction. I’m sat down now seconds after locking the door behind Rekesh trying to write this down as quickly as possible in order to ensure that i don’t forget it before the morning comes. Have to pull an all nighter to sleep on the bus.

                Rekesh told us how one could take a non too dissimilar story of say, what happened to his sister, embellish it with a film makers imagination and have something akin to the movie we had just watched. Rekesh might be forgiven for this not so excellent parallel simply because his story had so much of interest within. He began talking about the local spirit. Apparently the spirits aren’t something that takes on manifest form, or transforms the corporal nature of a host. It does however have the ability to inhabit objects and people both. Rekesh told us how his sister was inhabited by such an entity, and he spoke with a steady stair and a tone of almost insistent sincerity underlined with a slightly frail doubt, as if sure he was speaking on death ears but persisting none the less. Apparently his sister suffered from what i think might have been fits or speaking in tongues, the translation was a little bit hard to decipher here. The first day the Buddhist monk came and performed some mantras and the women calmed. He repeated the performance on the second day, though perhaps we can imagine, with a little more vigour. However the third day the tactic changed. It now became evident that they were dealing with a spirit that was stricken with vitriol. The priest prepared the family beforehand. He has to go in and speak a charm or mantra over the sister, and then he would, by means uncertain to Rekesh as a lay folk, evict the spirit (s) from the body and into a nearby vessel. The family need be on ready stand by with a hot fire and fleet steps. The monk would indicate with object the spirit settled in by throwing rice upon it. The job of the family was to rush in and grab any object that might have been indicated and hurry it to the fire, without looking back during the procedure. I can only believe that this is a eye witness account for Rekesh details the serene picture that the monk’s calming hand had drawn his sisters face into. The fire consumes the new host of the spirit and it is believed that the spirit leaves the earth by the normal means under the stimulated reminder of the funeral pryer. Whether it is thought that the spirit itself believes that it is once again granted the connection of the extreme divine, or whether it is thought that spirit has little choice in the matter, it is known that it will have departed.

                Unfortunately the sister didn’t have much luck, maybe the stars didn’t shine very bright over her, she died from a stroke when her children were still very young. The stroke occurred somewhere around the area I’m currently residing, Kalpa. She was driven to the big hospital in Shimla by her neighbour, but died mid route by the doctors reckoning. She was certainly dead upon arrival. However she persisted in phoning her mother’s house, which Rekesh stated was closer to her own earthly home. Amidst explaining that the case was not so extraordinary, for if people became spirits it was certainly for valid reasons to remain, such as the strong passions that burn in a still new mother, amidst this Rekesh, with astonished eyes seemed to emphasise that what was astonishing was that she could use a phone, her not having a body and what not. Although for a spell he was not positive of the truth of his mother’s story, he was by chance there one day when the phone rang. He seemed to want to convey the impression that the ringing was somehow different. Possibly this is the construct of my imagination, but he heavily emphasised the ringing of the phone in some manner alerting his mother, and possibly others, to the awaiting spiritual connection. His sister spoke with the distinctive voice, the cause of her death kept fresh in the mind by the heavy breathing of the once terminally overweight. She apparently came to watch over her mother’s behaviour amidst other actions, and to invert the role of her childhood, scolding her mother for silly actions in a very matriarchal manner.

                Apparently such spirits are not uncommon within the north of India. Indeed there seems to be a specific type of priest who’s job is to connect and act as steward to the spirits, in both senses of the term. Unfortunately the title of the priest escapes me- perhaps ‘sudas’- but the first of the two roles that Rekesh embellished on was akin to that of a hunter or curator of the spirits. It was implied that the priest removed the malicious spirits from the air like a loadstone. The second role was of a more productive rather than destructive nature- the priest would in the spirit of his country, act as a middle man between the living and the dead. Either the priest would allow the spirit to posses him, or he would somehow reveal it’s presence and intentions. Either way one was not excepted to be known by the priest who would none the less allow the spirit’s to provide answers to questions unasked, and problems unvoiced.

                Even with the presence of such priests however, the spirit world seems to remains a wild place. Rekesh told us that around the local mountains where- i can’t recall if he said places were thin there, or that it became thick with something else. But what was clear that there were certain spots known to the locals where you hoped, with the hope of a tested solider, that your stars shone strong for you that night. When I enquired about the stars Rekesh elaborated that if a the young men, having had a drink or what not, were to go through, or even directly to such places that you would count your stars lucky that you walk away unscathed. If your stars did not shine strong that night then any manner of supernatural mishap would occur. When i said he should keep a careful look out for them on his way home, in jest mostly as he’d only had two beers, short man that he is he none the less gave a full barrelled laugh and said that he knew where all the local sports lay. Anyway, he’d be at home in bed before the spirits really begin to do more than the mental stretching of their muscles of mischief. The time now is 11:37pm, and if i burnt this down in less than an hour then Rekesh left hours before midnight, and it’s midnight, when the new days starts as Rekesh said, that the spirits really step into their own. Early risers.

                The date is the 05/05/11 and I’m in the once capital of Kinnor, Kalpa. The only way i could possibly reference the town to the western world without direct use of the Himalayas is via Kipling’s novel Kim, where Kalpa appears towards the end, under the old name of Chini. Rekesh owns the lat shop below our lodging, Chini Bungalow, were I’ve spent the last moth residing. He picked up his English across the course of ten years or so talking with tourists and is, upto the point of intoxication, an extremely nice man. He told me everything that I’ve written here in less time than it took me to write it, and without any apparent malice or intent to deceive. I and Harel are leaving on the six O’clock bus tomorrow morning to Kullu or Manali and this was the perfect way to run my mind right into the pillow.