Always felt ghosts not out to scare, harm us: Ruskin Bond

Ruskin Bond, whose supernatural stories have been made into a web series, says he always feels that ghosts are not out to scare or harm people and one gets frightened by them because they are not like us.

The 84-year-old writer says he is not someone who dabbles in the supernatural a great deal but has grown up reading books on ghosts. Works of the early writers of ghost stories such as MR James and Algernon Blackwood have always interested him.

Bond's stories have been adapted for films but for the first time his works are being made into a web series.

The first episode of "Parchayee: Ghost Stories by Ruskin Bond" premiered on ZEE5 on January 15 and the subsequent stories will unfold till June.

Bond has always been inspired by Indian folktales.

"In our folklore, there are various types of ghosts. There's the 'pret', the 'bhoot' and the 'pishach'. And they very often live in Peepul and other kinds of trees. Some years back, an old lady from a village near Agra would tell me stories about 'pret' and village ghosts. These stories would have elements of reincarnation. Religious beliefs too would make it into these stories," he says.

"The ghosts that we otherwise read about in literature, Western ghosts or British ghosts, who the British brought to India and left behind in our hill stations and dak bungalows, they are what you'd call revenants. Someone from the dead reappearing physically, but not quite physically," he goes on to add.

Somehow, the ghosts in Bond's stories are usually not very scary.

"I have always felt that the ghosts are not out to scare us or harm us. They are revisiting old haunts or places that were connected with them. Maybe, for some particular reasons or maybe simply because they are wandering around," Bond told PTI.

But people do get frightened by them because they are not like us, he says.

"They can pass through walls. They don't depend on transport like we do. They are supernatural beings, so we the living feel a bit uneasy about them."
Asked whether his place of residence provides the perfect setting for supernatural stories, he says, "You could say that. Hill stations were more or less British creations. After some of them - usually the more interesting members of the community - had died or had done something, dramatic legends and stories would be heard about them reappearing. This is very much the British type of ghost."