The Kapalik's Disciple

I am devastated.

My parents have left me at the age of 25.

As I stand next to the funeral pyre, tears falling, I feel an eerie breeze brush against my skin.

If I were left to myself, I would be howling and tearing my hair apart as I call upon God, asking Him what I was going to do.

Listlessly, I go home.

As the sun sets, I think about what I want in life.

I find nothing of relevance.

A chessboard lies in front of me – I have seen many a time my father playing against himself. I would run out of moves when I tried to do the same. I remember my mother, who made Malpuas for me to eat in abundance and her rosary beads lying there, just like that.

At night, I venture into the Smashana Ghat where my parents were cremated.

I had lost both my parents, I did not find any joy in my work, I found my life pointless.

These were my thoughts when I saw the Kapalik.

He wore a red turban, a red dhoti, and he, like other Kapaliks and Tantriks, lived in the Smashana Ghat. Kapaliks used to sacrifice humans, somewhere in the long-gone past.

On seeing me, he asked, “Is there nothing in the world you wish to do?”

I say no.

“Then are you open to be my disciple?”

I am astonished.

But not knowing why, I say yes, I can try.

I shave my head, donned a red-white dhoti and come to the place where all the Kapaliks and Tantriks stood ready, about to do the Kali Pujo at the dead of the night.

It is the story of that night.

I had a job – but not one that made me happy.

Nothing I ever did made me feel happy.

After my parents died, I had considered taking my own life – however anything I did, was left unfinished – and so was the wish of taking my own life.

At 11pm, I arrive at the spot and notice ten other disciples-to-be standing there.

A perfect eleven. It was an auspicious number, eleven.

I get to know that not all of them were notified at such a short time.

Some had waited months to come here, on the day of the sacred Kali Pujo, held once in a year at the dead of the night.

Every one of the Tantriks and Kapaliks welcomed us.

They show us the underground passages and told us what to expect.

Then they sent us through separate underground passages and shut the door overhead, leaving us in the dark.

As I go down, it becomes darker and chillier. My feet hit against something solid and spherical. I realise they are human skulls, which are left lying there, after having been cremated.

A chill runs down my spine.

I keep counting as I go down the stairs.

98…99…100.

I hear hissing.

It becomes louder and louder and comes behind me.

I am absolutely still.

The snake comes near my feet, I am motionless as it circles me and leaves.

I wonder if everyone is as lucky as I am. I came to know only later on that the snakes were drained off of poison before they were let go.

I ascend for 50 more steps.

I hear the trickling rivulet we were advised to drink from to initiate us into this world.

They said that the Goddess’s Charanamrita was made from the water of this sacred rivulet.

I drink a few drops before starting to descend again.

100 steps down, I see light from torches.

So this is where they live, I think to myself.

Incense sticks burned inside of the skulls placed there.

Mantras were inscribed in some of them.

Deeper into these caves made from Earth, a single Kapalik sat, chanting with closed eyes.

The Kapalik opens his eyes, spots me, doesn’t say anything.

A woman is crying to him to save her son – she would like to be given up as the next offering.

I listen to her as something wells up inside of me.

“This lady is my mother’s age. Don’t kill her or her son. I will resist till the end, but I won’t allow her to be sacrificed!” I cry out.

The Kapalik laughed.

“The Mother Kali doesn’t want to kill. This is my wife. This was a ruse to test you. You pass,” he says, happily.

He gives me a red-white cloth to be worn as a turban.

I come out into the open and meet the others – five more were wearing red-white turbans, like me.

The other five had failed their tests – they had almost allowed another person to be sacrificed, or had been alarmed at the snake and were bitten.

The tests had been made to understand how we reacted to fear.

The six of us were made to sit around the fire for the Yagna fuelled by sticks and wood. It was a huge fire.

We were instructed that we would have to sit by the fire throughout the entire night.

Each of us would experience three or more ghosts each who would try to speak to us and they would likely be our loved ones who hadn’t had the time to say their final goodbyes.

No one could tell from before how someone would react.

An hour passes by.

I hear a faint screech, but keep my eyes closed and my body still, just as I had been instructed.

Someone whispers faintly into his ears, “It wasn’t our time, my son. What will happen to us?”

I mentally say, “It was not your time – what do I do now?”

Someone out of the other five was screaming – but I didn’t move. I couldn’t, not till the next morning.

“What do you want me to do, mother? Father?” I think.

“Sell the bungalow and donate what you get to the charity. You must discard your mother’s rosary beads and our ashes into the River Ganges. Sell the chessboard to someone who knows how to play chess well. Leave. Don’t wait for us. Leave…”

Their presence disappeared as the wind lost its eeriness.

Soon, though, I could feel another ghost come by. This presence felt more…displeased, stronger. She must have lived as a ghost longer – how I could say this, though, I didn’t know.

Her name was Mrinmayi.

And she was still in love with me, just as I was with her. She had died in a car accident, five years before.

I soon realized, she wanted to live the rest of her ghostly afterlife with me.

I couldn’t make her understand that this was the wrong way to live.

Something about her tightened the feeling in my chest and I was about to scream when a Kapalik came and whispered a Mantra in my ears – the tightening feeling in my chest was released as she too was freed from her ghostly apparition and attained the next state. Such was the quality of the mantra.

As I later learnt, the mantra itself was taught to them for this purpose only – to liberate ghosts.

For the next two hours, I hear words in the winds – but none of it directed towards me.

Finally, a small boy’s ghost attracted my attention. As it turns out, this was my mother’s first infant who had died in his infancy – his next life ended at the age of five years – it was his prayer that his brother would properly cremate him by digging up his body from a place near the Smashana Ghat.

At 3am, all the Kapaliks and Tantriks started to chant.

We were instructed to do so similarly.

From what I heard, three of the disciples-to-be had collapsed.

The three of us remaining did as we were instructed.

We closed our eyes and kept chanting.

The other Tantriks cut their fingers and allowed a small amount of blood to drip into the fire as they threw in more Ghee and wood into the Yagna fire.

They prayed to Mother Kali to give liberation to the ghosts – a safe passage to the underworld – and happy and prosperous lives to everyone on Earth.

Soon, it was dawn.

We were finally asked to open our eyes and each of us asked whether we were willing to be their disciples.

I never finished what I started.

But I said, I would consider.

I left.

The next night, late at night as I was sleeping, a brilliant white light with the image of the Goddess Kali resplendent in a red Benarasi Saree, with an Asura head in one hand and a Kharga in the other, smiling benevolently at me with her tongue hanging woke me up. I could almost hear the Mantras chanted by the Tantriks in my mind.

Maybe this wasn’t my choice – maybe this was my calling, I thought, as I put on the red-white turban and red-white dhoti and left at the dead of the night towards the Smashana Ghat.