outside in their trance-like states, and reaching the crossroad a little way ahead, they stopped. One of the shamans stooped down to light some wicks in their clay cups and then he flung two fistfuls of rice, vermilion and a yellow powder on the ground. The leader held the struggling rooster high up in his hands and raised his naked khukuri to slice its neck off while the other two started jumping around still more vigorously and the beating of their drums grew louder and louder. The small boy had followed the trio and as he watched in wonder, he noticed a group of people at the far end of the street.
The half dozen drunken men, who had now sobered down suddenly, stood transfixed for a few minutes. The sight of three skinny and bare bodied men with belts of jingling bells around their bodies, jumping around beating on drums and chanting in an unintelligible language in the dead of night would have been enough to turn anyone’s blood cold. That one of them had a live rooster in his hand and a naked khukri in another was added incentive to make the group turn around as one and rush helter-skelter in panic and dread.
This, more than anything else, the small boy would remember for a long time to come and it is to him, one of the most hilarious scenes he has ever witnessed! Grown up men running helter-skelter in blind panic in the dead of night! The woman afflicted with the ghostly spirit is a neighboring aunt who is a feisty 70 now. After all these years, 30 to be precise, he can vouchsafe that she never again suffered as she had done that night, and neither did she have the hysterical fits she was prone to have every six months or so. In other words, she had been cured. He still doesn’t know what to make of it. It all happened before his