Middle : Of Ghosts and Printer's devil

Of ghosts and printer’s devil
by Jupinderjit Singh

Ghosts scared me a lot in childhood. I grew up hearing stories about evil spirits, all scripted to keep me indoors at odd hours.

But the ghosts in those times had some character. They killed without much melodrama. Dracula was one such ‘straight -forward’ spirit. He appeared and directly buried his two long teeth in the neck of a young damsel and sucked the last drop of blood from her body.

They were so unlike modern ghosts of the Ram Gopal Verma kind, who keep on teasing the actresses by throwing plates, entering their bathroom or disturbing the curtains and photos in the room till the end of the movie, when they finally show themselves.

While one laughs more at these, I recall how I trembled all night when my friend lent me a new comic on Dracula and instructed that it should not be kept in the bedroom as Dracula may come out. I had hidden the comic in the boring chemistry book, and kept it in the other room. My mom (trust her to spoil all my such plans) brought the chemistry book saying I had to read a certain chapter first thing in the morning. All night I lay in the foetus pose fearing Dracula as well as my mom.

Today, I laugh at those fears. But that doesn’t mean there is no evil spirit that scares me. Most frightening one is the Printer’s Devil that gives goose bumps to all.

A hapless photographer with a vernacular daily had twin assignments one day. One, to click a photo of cows in a pond and second, to cover a fashion show. The devil jumbled up the captions.

Under the picture of beautiful models, it read in Hindi , “Ludhiana ke ek talaab mein bhainsen nahaati huyi (buffaloes bathing in a pond).” On another page was the picture of the dung laced cows which said, “Ludhiana ke ek fashion show mein sundriyan jalwe bikherti huyi (beauties mesmerise at a fashion show)”.

This devil works out of the printing room also. The Indian Railways introduced new enquiry numbers in Ludhiana. I got the story first and thought we would be the first to provide public information. But by mistake, they gave me Jalandhar enquiry numbers. Next morning, I called up at one of the two numbers to ascertain if they were working.

“I will bang my head against the wall. I will kick you and burn your paper,” said a badly harassed old man from a colony in Ludhiana, whose number it actually was. He was getting calls since morning: “Is Shatabdi right time ji?” The clarification provided temporary relief.

A reporter in a town on the rail route from Ludhiana to Jalandhar got hold of the “wrong” information and filed the report five days later, this time in all the editions.

I didn’t dare call the old man again.

(published in The Tribune dated November 22, 2010
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2010/20101123/edit.htm#5

This is my 12th Middle)