THAT’S THE SPIRIT: Rationalist Vandana Shinde performs tricks for Alibaug Jail inmates

Nabbing prisoners trying to scale the high walls, snuffing out tussles, disciplining rogues – manning jailbirds can be hard task for prison guards. But even harder? Expelling ghosts. Jail wardens in Maharashtra often find themselves in a quandary when some inmates in their nightly paranoia scuttle like weasels claiming that they can hear the jingle jangle of anklets, see shapes against the wall and are tormented by spirits sliding right into them. The pack of shadows allegedly manifests itself after midnight in diaphanous forms of a three-eyed, long-haired woman in white, her feet pointed backwards or in dark silhouettes and serpentine shapes, clattering about the cells or muttering in a hollow sepulchral voice.

A 35-year-old woman in the Kalyan jail once complained of being a ghoul bait when she awoke every night to find a pair of cold hands pounding her chest. She would follow the figure around and drift back to sleep at dawn, thus refusing to partake in daily chores. Another time Aruna Mugutrao, Byculla women’s jail superintendent stepped into the prison courtyard to find a dozen women chanting around an inmate and slamming her head on the ground in an attempt to exorcise her. “These incidents are common on new moon nights and result in general hysteria. Someone claims to have seen a ghost and others follow,” says Mugutrao. On days like Navratri they sing and swing themselves into a trance to suggest supernatural powers entering their body.

Belief in apparitions is as old as time but Maharashtra’s jail authorities are striving to rid the cells of these pesky spirits. Only, there is no shaman at work, but a team of rationalist ghostbusters flushing out these phantasms with common sense, reason and counselling.

Bernadette Pimenta of Sevadham with the help of 72-year-old Vandana Shinde of the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (Blind Faith Eradication Committee) have been on an anti-superstition drive at prisons across Maharashtra. “At the Yerwada jail a few years ago I met a villager on life sentence for smashing his neighbour’s head because he believed the man had done black magic on his family,” recalls Pimenta. “A lot of crimes are rooted in superstitious beliefs.”

What started as sporadic attempts to bust paranormal myths is now a routine at the Arthur Road, Byculla, Taloja, Kalyan, Thane, Pune, Alibaug and Nashik jails, that have clocked in 30 such workshops in the past one year. “Spirits and superstitions flourish between imagination and information,” adds Shinde, a stickler for the scientific method. “These prisoners mostly come from marginalised sections and never learnt to think critically. What they see and hear are often an effect of old wives’ tales and traditions,” she explains.

Her grandmotherly charm turns formidable as she takes centrestage at the District Probation & Aftercare Association, a children’s remand home in Bhiwandi. The paraphernalia that tumbles out of her handbag form the repertoire of various godmen. It includes a rice-filled copper kalash that she magically lifts with a trishul, a ribbon spewing coconut, a water-lit lamp, and flaming camphor that she swallows. “I demonstrate the science behind tricks on which mumbo jumbo specialists ply their trade,” says Shinde inviting remandees to stand on top of her as she lies sandwiched within beds of nails. It doesn’t take long for her to convince a nodding young audience as she frees her knee-length hair to feign possession, another paranormal act common among the incarcerated.

Possession can be simple to fake and someone flailing their arms, speaking in a bizarre tongue and ordering fellow-inmates in an odd voice are often ways of securing a better place in the barrack or keeping people out of their hair. “They think gesticulating like God or the devil would fetch them attention, respect and cronies by their side,” says Pimenta. Unsurprising that two male prisoners in their twenties went around rolling their eyes and throwing fits as if a demon had taken over their body, a month ago. However, to the jailors their alleged possession was indistinguishable from poor acting. So, Shinde arrived, donned the actor’s robe and tamed the so-called spirit.

Pimenta says, this impulse to feign diabolic possession or hallucination, isn’t always under conscious control and can indeed be a case of mental disturbance at times. “There’s a thin line between psychosomatic disorder and paranormal behaviour,” says corrections counsellor Arti Kedia. “A lot of women prisoners have led repressed lives. Their need for attention finds validation when they act hysterically. Minors often suffer from a fear of the unknown and in teenagers it maybe drug withdrawal symptoms. For grown up men, it’s a power trip.”

The rational cure is followed by psychotherapy. And if that doesn’t work? “We simply confront and rubbish their claims. They usually chicken out,” smiles Kedia.

(Inputs by Mateen Hafeez)

