Comment by naravara
6 years ago
India has plenty of things roaming around that can kill you, but I don’t remember hearing an abundance of stories about vague spirits that can kill me. Tigers and leopards and snakes are scary enough on their own.
6 years ago
India has plenty of things roaming around that can kill you, but I don’t remember hearing an abundance of stories about vague spirits that can kill me. Tigers and leopards and snakes are scary enough on their own.
I remember a number of stories involving vague spirits. This was a long time ago, and I have forgotten quite a bit as I immigrated to the west when I was very young.. but at least one of them sticks with me:
It was a story about a demon that would hang in trees late at night, and if you were to walk under the tree the demon would drop down and latch onto your shoulders, and then eat you.
There was a mechanic in the mythology that involved telling stories with cliffhanger endings, or guessing the ending - the details are lost to me now.
All I know is that as a young child walking around at night, my pace would quicken when going under large trees. Those solemn rural nights, under the large jackfruit trees in the moonlight, the wind a steady whisper - you could almost get a glimpse of the demon's gleaming teeth in your mind's eye - inspiring a foreboding sort of solitude, a primal fear.
I do miss it at times.
See my dad just told me snakes and scorpions would fall out of the trees, and that they were particularly attracted to kids who were being naughty. . .