Horrors in the Rauza.

My home in Maahul is at the end of the village and right next to our house is the Rauza.It's a place which looks like an oasis.It has a lot of tall palm trees. Also, there is a shrine(the rauza of imaam hussain a.s.) and there are graves of forty freedom fighters who lost their lives in the first war of independence(1857) including that of sufi saint Syed Basharat Jahaan and my grandfather's grave.Enclosing the rauza is the Gurguj(which is actually a mound that looks like a very small hill) and across the gurguj is the gadhai(it's a small lake).During night the rauza becomes really eerie.In fact, several jackals come and wail there quiet often during night time and it becomes really creepy then.
In the days when my father was a boy, harvested crops(khalihaan) were brought and kept at this place and processed or whatever it is that's done to crops after harvesting.There was one person who was supposed to protect the crops at night time.So he had to sleep during night at the rauza.According, to my father this person was a bit of a chicken and therefore an ideal pray for their pranks.So what the gang does is when this person was fast asleep on a charpai, they take a long rope and tie it to one of the legs of the cot.Then from a distance they slowly start pulling.
Petrified, he sits up and starts reciting prayers for his life and starts shouting and wailing.
There is a similar prank they played on another guy who was really mean and kept abusing people.when the guy was sleeping on a cot outside his house, they tied a thread to a fishing bait(which was invisible in the dark) and attached it to his blanket and pulled it little at a time.In his sleep he would pull the blanket over his head and again they would strip him down.When he came to his senses after some time he too got scared.However, his reaction was different.He started shouting at the top of his voice" kaun hai?......,himmat hai to saamne aa" and other dharmendresque dialogues.One of the kids had trouble controlling his laughter and then they ran for their for life for a good distance as he found out the embarrasing reality that a bunch of kids had him horrified.

MAAHUL, My paternal village

Maahul is the place where my father spent his childhood.It's situated in azamgarh district Uttar Pradesh.It's very much like any other village except that it has a scarcity of milk(which you would think would be unheard of in a village)apart from the scarcity of electricity,good schools and other usual shortcomings that characterize most indian villages.My family takes a trip to our house there almost every year during 10 days of Moharram(that's when many other migrants too return to this old abode and it's like a reunion for my father's friends) and we have a good time their( i found it even more thrilling as a kid).
Well, there are a lot of wonderful stories about my fathers childhood( most of them are hilarious) and basically that's what this page is all about.For starters,as kids my father and his friends were very very mischievious and there is a long string of very tell-able funny tales about them.So keep looking at this page.