The Yakshi and the Doctor

Chapter 2: The Other Side

Mohini was sitting on the top of the palm tree reflecting about her past. Now this was quite abnormal for the yakshi, known locally as the Man eater of Wyanad. She didnot like to think about her past and how she became the most feared yakshi of the region in last 10 years. But today her thoughts seemed to go back in the past.

She was born in a poor but hard working family. Her parents were local tea plantation workers. They struggled hard to give her a good education. She knew that education was key for better living and wanted to bring her parents out of poverty that had gripped them for ages. She studied hard and consistently topped her classes. Her parents were very proud when she had completed BTech from Regional Engineering College, Calicut and got a job as Software Developer in Infosys, Mysore. The days of family poverty now seemed the thing of the past. She was always very pretty and her parents wanted to marry her at the earliest. 

She was quite certain that she would continue to support her parents with her salary even after her marriage. A locally reputed family, the menons, approached her parents with an offer of marriage. Sriram Menon was a civil engineer with flourishing business. The family was rich since ages and were in to making apartments and houses. Mohini's parents were overjoyed with the offer. The Menons also didn't want any dowry, which was otherwise a prime worry for her poor father. Mohini also didn't have any reservations for the match. But she set out a condition that she will continue to work and support her parents after marriage as they dont have anybody else to support them. This was agreed and marriage was a grand affair.

However, the economic position of the country had started to change. Due to various policies of the government, the menons started to feel the heat of economic policies like GST and demonitization. Their sources of income started receding. This led to increasing arguments about the need to divert the salary of mohini from her parents to in laws. There was also increasing taunts about how lack of dowry and her family's economic position had affected the menons. Mohini continued to ignore these as her parents had taught her to adjust to family life at in laws place. That she was staying at Mysore and was visiting her family only during weekends became another major source of family flare ups between her and her husband. She never said any of these things to her parents as she didn't was to make them tensed or disappoint them. They were under the illusion that their daughter were well settled and was happy.

During one of these altercations, things went out of hand and verbal abuse changed to physical abuse. In the resulting confrontation as mohini was cooking and was about to light the burner of the stove before the fight started, gas cylinder burst and unfortunately she died just three years in to her marriage. Her parents also died in shock after coming to know of these affairs. People say due to broken heart as they could not save their daughters happiness or life. As she died without fulfilling any of her wishes, she turned in to a vengeful ghost or yakshi shortly.

Her husband married shortly again but before she could take any revenge, the whole family died in a car accident. After all karma did play a role in the family getting their due punishment. But mohinis thirst for revenge was not quenched. She started targeting men and started taking their lives in regular intervals. She used to haunt in the neighborhood of Palm Tree Road and was residing on the top of a Palm tree there.

Over the years, she got a fearsome reputation. It was believed by the local population that she would kill any man who used to pass that area in the dark. She used to take the guise of a pretty damsel in distress and used to ask the help men. Any men who tried to make unwanted advance would be promptly despatched to yamapuri by her. Her thirst for revenge and the number of men who lost their lives continued to grow exponentially. As she was a virtuous women in life, the traditional methods of driving the ghosts like the crucifix or mantras or holy water didnt seem to have any effect on her. She also knew it. In effect she was invincible.

However, what was not known among the local population was that she actually didnt kill all the men who had passed her path. Afterall she loved her father and knew there were good men too though their numbers were few and far. So first she actually took guise of a old women and sought men's help. Whoever helped were left to pass unharmed. Even those who didn't help the old person version were again tested with damsel in distress version. Those people who didnt help her in younger version also were left to pass without being harmed. 

But people didnt know about this and neither she wanted it to be known after all she has a fearsome reputation to keep. Over the years, visitors who happened to pass the Palm tree road after sunset were far and few. Any resident person who knew her tale didnt take that risk.

It had changed over last couple of days. Dr Karna Basker stayed in the neighborhood. After finishing his practice in the hospital, he used to take this road to his house, as it was just 1.5 km away by this road. People had warned him not to take the road and had told him the tales. But he thought it is all part of a grand tale of superstition and conspiracy formed by some ingenious mind.

Today his practice had continued till 9 pm. There were a lot of patients to be looked. So he started his walk back home quite late. Normally he used to finish his practice by 6 pm, as people were affraid to walk in dark here. But now some new pestilence had struck in the region. He had not seen or studied about such a disease earlier. So he was trying combination of various drugs.  This had kept him occupied today. As they say who can change the path drawn for you by the destiny. Time had come for the first meeting of Mohini and Dr Karna today. It was going to change both of them. However, they were yet to know it.

To be Continued