[1]I’m in a strange mood these days, continually seeking scary films and shows. When I was on my third such adventure, I decided to pause, read up on what was going on. Some experts say that teens and 20-somethings, people who score high on a scale that measures sensation-seeking, are more likely to seek films that scare than older people because “life’s (real) horrors scare them” much, much more.
Others say the opposite — that the appeal of horror lies in the fact that “distress and delight are correlated”. That “the pleasure comes from the relief that follows... It provides a cathartic effect, offering you emotional release and escape from the real world.” Hmmm. Since I’m not ande se nikla naya chooza, perhaps I am a bhootni in metamorphosis. Confused, I bhatkoed in cyber space till I got endorsement, from the great Stephen King himself who writes, in Danse Macabre, that terror is “the finest emotion, and so I will try to terrorise.”
Having got my licence, I returned to my sensation search, and this time it was called Fear Files... Darr Ki Sacchi Tasvirein (Zee).
The horror stories on this show are, allegedly, real. That’s why real people arrive to narrate exactly how horrifying the horror was.
I began with an episode set during Partition. A gorgeous Hindu woman and her family, refugees all, move into a house that, before Partition, belonged to a Muslim family. The Hindu woman, who looks like she’s pregnant with quintuplets, is already traumatised by the maar-kaat she witnessed in Pakistan. And now, after spending barely two nights in the new house, she gets possessed by a Muslim girl who was raped and killed by Hindus during the riots.
A pregnant woman going paglet is seriously scary. Roman Polanski and Ira Levin knew that, Sujoy Ghosh and Advaita Kala figured that, and now Zee’s stumbled on to this nightmare.
So their pregnant girl sleeps on her stomach, chews on a live goat, and does other horrendous things till either the maulvi saab’s azaan or mandir’s bhajans get into her ears. She pauses out of respect but, as soon as it’s over, resumes her scary antics, including blood-curdling attempts to kill her unborn child.
This episode, set against the Partition, was poignant and very scary and got me so excited that I quickly went to the next episode of Fear Files. Thankfully, this one restored my faith in the mediocrity of Indian television.
I landed in a middle of a puja being conducted by an aghori baba who was chanting India’s all time favourite bhoot-bhagao-mantra: “O Mai Chamundaya namah, bring, shring, some drink vrink.”
Soon the aghori baba started beating the possessed man with his peacock feather jharoo, forcing the pret aatma to leave the man’s body. Which the pret aatma duly did, only to take up boarding and lodging in the man’s wife’s shareer.
The pret aatma seemed to find this greatly entertaining, so it flit from husband to wife and back and forth, back and forth till it’s revealed that the pret aatma is a woman scorned. All my sensations, from fear to relief, from anger to exhaustion had been duly served, and I was ready for my next round.
Links:
[1] http://103.241.136.51/t3jpg-576