The ghosts, jinn, fairies and imps are a strange lot and they have an unpleasant way of poking their nose into places where they have no earthly business to do so. The spooks or jinns or whatever else they may be, who had lain siege to a house at Marir Hasan here, have called a truce and stopped producing sudden fires, brick-bats, hanging knives and other weird phenomena.
The trouble started in the house about a month ago or, it can be said, that an enterprising newsman dug out the spooky story. The occupants of the house reported that they often found their belongings taking off for the roof; stones and all sorts of imaginable and unimaginable missiles flying in their house, and fire breaking out in almost every nook and corner with an abruptness that can be managed either by ghosts or directors of films.
None could help sympathising with the harrassed occupants of the haunted house because, after all, neither is it a pleasant feeling to find your pots and pans hanging from the roof nor is it fun to see your only clean pair of trousers going up in smoke especially if you are about to go out for the pleasant pastime of sauntering up and down the fashionable Mall.
There was no way out except to call the policemen – the protectors of all citizens’ peace of mind against burglars or spooks or whatever natural and supernatural lawless beings they may be. The Inspector who came to investigate appears to have suddenly discovered his hitherto unsuspected powers as investigator of supernatural phenomena. He placed some oranges and a knife in the room which of all the rooms in the house was most favoured by the ghosts.
After some time when he opened the room, instead of finding the ghosts enjoying the juicy fruits, he found the oranges and the knife hanging from the roof. The offence was cognizable, he thought, while scratching his head, but how can you apprehend ghosts? He shook his head, clucked his tongue and left the ghosts and the occupants of the house to their own devices and little games.
Now there was no way out except to call the practitioners of occult arts or sciences, but none of them could put the spooks in a bottle, nor could they burn them up altogether. One of the ‘amils’ who was hurriedly paid off and asked to go away propounded the theory that the spooks had been called upon to intervene by one of the ladies of the house, who wanted her sister and brother-in-law to vacate the house, and leave it for her exclusive use. His theory won the maximum popularity in the neighbourhood. In a way he succeeded in driving away the ghosts, because they have ceased to play their tricks ever since the theory gained currency in the local gossip-circles.”
There cannot be an understandable reason for this truce between the supernatural beings and the homosapiens who live in the haunted house. My own theory in this respect is that the ghosts lifted their siege in sheer disgust at the poor comprehension of human beings. After all, it is not dignified, even for ghosts, to be involved in women’s disputes and on top of it to find all and sundry explaining away the manifestation of supernatural powers in the same way as one would do in respect of tricks a third-rate juggler putting up a show at a primary school. I believe that it was the ever increasing derisiveness of human beings at each appearance of the ghosts that finally forced them to keep generally to themselves and sulk at the lack of imagination of the modern man. However, the occupants of the house, and especially the ladies, do not appear to have much liking for this explanation of the truce between them and the ghosts.
Civil and Military Gazette (Lahore), 3rd April 1963.