Amuku Pishsasi or Pei (Crushing Ghost)

Image Courtesy : Google

Few months back in the late afternoon I get a frantic call from my wife saying that she had just come out of the clutches of dark forces and she begged me to come back to home immediately. I rushed back from office and reached home in record 45 minutes weaving through the rush hour traffic from Kathipara Junction (at Chennai). On reaching home I saw my wife sitting forlorn on the sofa and on enquiry she told me that she had gone for afternoon siesta and when she wanted to get up she was unable to do so and she felt paralyzed by an immense weight pressing her down. She said she was a victim of amuku pishsasi ..a term in Tamil which means a pressing or crushing ghost and for a long time she was wide awake but then was not able to move any part of her body or limbs. I rubbished her thoughts of ghost and told her not to worry but then she was not willing to accept my explanation and she kept telling of similar episodes her grandmother had encountered and recounted about the ghostly experience to her and her siblings and warning them of such attacks. I tried my best to calm her down and to remove her fears did a Google research and I found out about “Sleep Paralysis” and the Wikipedia’s explanation is as under

Sleep paralysis is a phenomenon in which people, either when falling asleep or wakening, temporarily experience a sense of inability to move, similar to when an arm or leg goes to sleep, but not associated with numbness. More formally, it is a transition state between wakefulness and rest characterized by complete muscle atonia (muscle weakness). It can occur at sleep onset or when awakening. It is believed a result of disrupted REM sleep, which is normally characterized by complete muscle atonia that prevents individuals from acting out their dreams. Sleep paralysis has been linked to disorders such as narcolepsy, migraines, anxiety disorders, and obstructive sleep apnea; however, it can also occur in isolation.

I was surprised to note that such incidents of sleep paralysis were in folk lore of many countries around the world and was considered to be the work of a demon. British and some parts of America called it “Old Hag”, in Finland and Sweden as “Mare”, in Turkey as “Karabasan”, in Thailand as “Phi Am”, in Hungary as “Boszorkany”,in Nepal as “Khyaak”, in Tamilnadu, India as “Amuku Pei” and the list goes on and on and I can fill the entire page with the names of the demon. Only after reading this article did my wife relax much to the relief of my daughters and me.

Have any of you had this experience ???

Random Click 11 - Sunset at the beach

                      Vividly colorful sunset at a beach in Muscat and it does take your breath away.

Tree with roots on the top !!!

An unusual tree in this part of the world and when it is dry looks as though the roots are on the top ....frankincense trees

Frankincense an aromatic resin is bled out of the these trees and dried and used as incense and also as an ingredient of perfumes used in these parts of the world.

Burnt Fingers - A lesson learnt !!!!

This post is mainly about smoking and hence I need to put up this slogan “Cigarette smoking is injurious to health “. A colleague of mine regularly keeps borrowing cigarettes from all other persons at the smoking zone each time he feels like smoking instead of buying the same on his own..and in spite of subtle suggestion by some to buy his own packets he still continues live of others. The same person in the late evenings keeps popping into my flat for having a free drink and couple of smokes. Now this is quite irritating that each day you have an uninvited guest at home and also intrusion to my privacy and space but then since he is my neighbor and a friend I could not bluntly tell him that he is not welcome each day of the week. Instead another friend of mine jokingly told him that all of us here have come to earn money and there cannot be freebees on a daily basis.  From then on whenever he come home (frequency reduced considerably) he does brings over his own drink and the only thing he still ask is the cigarettes since he cannot have cigarette packet in his home since his wife would crucify him. Now days he maintains a packet of cigarette at the office and he has changed for better. 

On this note I am reminded of a person with whom I worked at Iraq in 1981 and the incident that took place with him then which I narrate now. I was just 24 years old and I took up an assignment as a junior electrical engineer with an Indian firm that had picked up a largest construction contract awarded to an Indian company at Baghdad. I and eight other persons traveled to Baghdad as one of the initial mobilization teams to set up the construction site and among us there was a senior electrical engineer from Bangalore who was aged between 38-40 and all others were in my age group.  This person whose name I am not able to recollect ( Let me call him “K”) had the same infuriating habit of living on other peoples things in spite of getting much higher salary. Initially all was well since we were just about 15 staff based in unknown land and we used to go around various places of Iraq on weekends without giving many thoughts to K’s habit. The staff strength increased constantly and in few months there were more than 150 staff (engineers and office staff) and yet K’s habit continued unabated and tempers amongst us would flare up  but then since he was our senior and the boss of a division we were never able to tell him bluntly on his face, though we have been giving indications of displeasure in subtle ways…like if he is coming to anyone’s room then that person would hide his cigarettes, drinks or eatables and tell that he does not have any to spare but then K was equally smart and  would somehow ferret out the hidden cigarette and drinks. 

Image courtesy Google Images

Then one day when we all were fed up to the core we decided that we need to teach K a lesson that he would never forgets for ages to come. This task was left to one of my colleague who used to lose the entire packet of cigarette K on many occasions and the plan was quite simple but effective. What we did is that we bought a packet of cigarette and removed the tobacco from few cigarettes and put in match stick head and refilled the same. All the cigarettes were replaced inside the packet and left casually on the table within the room. As usual our bumming friend K dropped into my friend’s room and found the packet of cigarette on the table which he casually pocketed thinking that he has taken it without our knowledge and walked away. Eight of us were now waiting for the inevitable to happen since K’s room was just across our row of room…then we heard a loud shout as the match flared up and burnt his fingers. We guys were stifling our giggles and we did not give much attention to the shout and acted as though nothing has happened and were waiting for fireworks to begin from K but then nothing was forthcoming. Then couple of hours later we saw K with a thick bandage on his fingers trying to avoid looking into our eyes. We learnt later that he tried smoking five more cigarettes from the same packet and three of the cigarettes burnt between his fingers. That was the last time that K ever asked for cigarettes from us and for that matter from that day he totally avoided us till the end of our contract….good riddance.  Indeed a lesson learnt by him. I know what we did was not fair but then we were quite young and this could have been avoided by a firm no in the first place.

Scarab Beetle ...the ones you see in the movie " Mummy"

The movies shows millions of beetle come down in form a flood devouring humans in their way within minutes....fortunately for me i found only one of them in the desert here ;)

It is a myth that these beetle are flesh eating and they are actually dung eating beetles.

Is everything okay?????

This evening after couple of beers i switched on Sony mix channel and the song that was playing on the screen really caught the essence of my mood at this point of time,the song sung by Jagjit  Singh for the movie Aarth is quite emotional and it really touches each on at the  bottom of the heart. A quote by Eric Hoffer comes to my mind  " It is loneliness that makes the loudest noise. This is true of men as of dogs". Hahahahaha

A person who laughs the most is either lonely or are hiding their pains behind the facade of a happy face....so true as in my case for i do state that i am feeling lonely and i do laugh a lot among my colleagues....:(( 

It is not because i am staying alone in the gulf and working my A** off trying to earn for the family but then i  sense that i am emotionally empty . There are so many issues in day to day life that seems to drown you but then the facade i put up is totally untrue and the reason for that is to keep the family in good spirits. Now the critics out there on blog sphere would tell me that what i do is not correct and i need to share my feelings with my wife but then if i do that i think i would slide down even further instead of being comforted. Life is such for me and it need not be the same for the readers...it is my opinion. 

Random Click 10 - Al Nakal Fort, Oman and the colours in it !!

Nakhal Fort is one of the most prominent historical monuments in the Sultanate. It derives its name from the Wilayat itself. The fort lies amidst palm orchards in Wilayt Nakhal in Al Batinah South Governorate. It is an entrenched building that rises above a rocky hill at the base of Mount Nakhal in the northeast of   Al Jabal Al Akhdar ( Green Mountains).

The fort, also called Husn Al Heem, lies 120 kilometres from the capital Muscat and is located at the entrance of Wilayt Nakhal in Wadi Ar Raqeem..This fort’s architecture does not follow a particular pattern, as it was designed around an irregularly shaped rock. You'll find that some rock parts become part of the building. This can be observed in some towers, particularly on the fort’s western side.
The construction of the castle dates back to the pre-Islamic era.

Colorful cushions in women's Majalis in one of the rooms in the fort

Some of the colorful ceramic plates and cups placed in one of the rooms of the fort preserved from the last inhabitants

Random Click -09

Setting sun at Wahiba Sands...a desert in Oman

Dragon Face

Last year at Salalah took a photograph of the mountain side which looked like a dragon bending down

Don't you agree that it does look like a dragon !!!!

Milestone Achieved

Phew…at last crossed the hundredth blog mark which is a huge milestone for me for I never expected to do so for at least next one year. But then this year did post few photographs that did the trick on the count but then personally I still feel my posts just about mediocre and I am bit surprised with the kind of hit I have got for few of the posts. Like for instance of a post titled “ Howzzz That” about the ban of DSLR cameras by Kuwaiti Government some time last year  has the maximum hits of all my blogs –2338 hits as of yesterday, similarly a post “ Rain god’s Kolevery” had 1148 hit and the reason I feel was due to fact I had used the word Kolevery in the title and at that point of the Dhanush’s song why this Kolevery D was making waves around India and the world and I am sure people who googled  “Kolevery” would have landed on to this post…hahaha. The post that I wrote from my heart was Work life Balance and this also had over 1000 hits and it did please me though I have been stating all along and even now that I am just writing for myself and not for an audience …hypocrite aren’t I one !!! Others in region of over 500 hits are generally about Salalah and the Khareef season here.

Thanks everyone once again and hope to be around and post better blogs/photographs.

Servant Maid problems at Metros

Few days back I get a frantic call from my wife saying that the house maid working in our house has refused to work henceforth and wanted to know if I had the number of the agency we had dealt with earlier for getting a new servant maid since it is next to impossible to get a maid within the locality in a day or two. Advent of IT companies nearby has taken a toll on the house owners with respect to getting a reliable and a good maid with a reasonable salary. Thereby most house owners have to bow down to the unreasonable demands of these servant maids in the event they work at your place. This incident took place at my home in Chennai few months back and I was surprised with the kind of demands and conditions being put forth by the maid who had come for the job. Some of the demands were never heard off in earlier days such as, the moment she comes home she should be provided with a glass of milk and during the lunch time she would have the same food being eaten by us …not the leftover of the earlier meal and so forth. In the present times of raising cost each family tries to curtail additional expenses but just imagine the amount being spent on the servant in addition to her salary which is not cheap. On an average for a two bedroom house a servant these days charge over Rs 3000 for doing all the work such as dusting for name sake, sweeping, mopping, cleaning utensil and washing clothes and adding to the milk and food it easily drains Rs 4000 per month. This does not end here for they require a bonus during the festival such as Diwali or Pongal and when you question them why then they immediately tell you that I get a bonus from the company I work for and similarly they need to also get paid.

Well my wife was desperate for a maid as she was feeling the strain of doing the entire house work and especially with ground floor and first floor to be cleaned each day hence she agreed to most of the terms put forth by the maid and also a salary of Rs 5500 because of a larger house. All seemed well for few days and then starts the bickering for more salary as the work load is high and so forth and to force the issue take few days off from work till the housewife is at end of her wits and agree for a raise of minimum Rs 250. Few days later similar story occurs just prior to the day of the salary but when my wife refused then servant maid stated that she is not willing to work from the next day and she wants her settlement.

The process of looking out for a reliable servant again starts and after considerable time she get one servant who now demands Rs 6000 as starting salary….and she get its as my wife is unable to manage on her own. The demand for a reliable servant is immense but then you are hardly able to find one since most of these servants have taken up jobs in housekeeping companies because of easy work, good salary and other perks there and are usual assigned to work in the IT industry that has bloomed in last few years in the vicinity.

This phenomenon is quite common in most Metros these days and it is very difficult to get a good and an honest servant maid. I remember of the times when servant maids used to come home twice a day, never demand for any additional drinks or food and would be happy to take the leftover food to their home and also work in the same house hold for ages but then such maid are few in these times and their number is dwindling fast. 

Do you all face similar issues??