This inexplicable incident happened many years ago, but its sheer improbability still persists in my memory.

Before migrating to Bangalore, I was staying in the famous temple town of Nanjangud. I was pursuing my college studies and my classmate and close friend’s name was Suma.

Her father, though in poor circumstances, owned a sprawling row house near the temple. Good sanitation being practically non-existent in those days, they had the inevitable ‘outhouse’ set in a remote corner of the backyard.

Suma’s brother was a government official and he had recently got married. His wife was a simple and friendly soul from a nearby village. Suma introduced me to her and I got to know her fairly well.

One morning, a neighbour rushed in to tell me that she had seen a fire burning in front of Suma’s house— the unmistakable indication in Hindu tradition that the grim reaper had decided to visit.

Unbelieving, I rushed to Suma’s house only to find her sister-in-law lying dead on the floor. Suma was inconsolable and with a quick word of condolence, I returned home. I could not comprehend what I had just seen because only the previous evening, I had spoken to Suma’s sister-in-law and she seemed cheerful and in the pink of health.

After about a fortnight, Suma returned to college and I asked her about the tragedy that had befallen her family.

She told me that her sister-in-law, who was shortly expecting her first baby, had woken up as usual around 5.30 in the morning and had gone towards the ‘outhouse’.

She seemed perfectly normal and healthy but when she returned, she appeared in a state of semi-consciousness and on the verge of collapse. Her husband had enquired anxiously what had happened and she had explained haltingly that as she was returning from the outhouse, she had felt someone slapping tremendously hard on her cheeks.

It was so hard that she had almost fallen down but somehow managed to make it back to the house. She then quietly slipped into the cold embrace of death. Suma’s family was absolutely sure that there was no one in the backyard in such early hours of the morning and yet someone had slapped her to death.

Temple and temple towns are popularly supposed to abound in ghosts and ghostly forces— the reason why people are discouraged from sleeping within temple precincts at night.

That inexplicable hard slap from an unseen hand that snatched Suma’s sister-in-law’s life— was it from some such force? Your guess is as good as mine.