The Wild Women of Desi Halloween

On the run up to Kali Puja or Diwali, Bengalis celebrate Bhoot Chaturdeshi, an indigenous version of Halloween. And like everything else, it also involves food – a dish made of 14 different kinds of greens – and lighting of 14 diyas. Earlier, especially in the countryside, the lamps would be lit under the trees favoured by each kind of ghost – the Bengali pantheon has a surprisingly elaborate system of classification of spirits based on their caste, community, gender, preferences and desire. Yes, you got me right.

The diyas were meant to appease the spirits who were said to be especially active on this night. Children were not allowed to step out after dark, and delicious spooky stories were exchanged at family gatherings.

Besides the Brahmin ghosts (Brahmodatyi), the Mohammedan ghosts (Mamdo Bhoot), no other ghost aroused as much curiosity and sparked as much terror as the Shakchunni – a young, female spook. She was essentially a shape shifter who usually possessed the young bride, wife, the beautiful queen in a palace and tormented the hell out of unsuspecting men. A legend borrowed and bastardised by C-grade Hindi flicks. So what did they want?

Essentially, it was medieval society’s way of dealing with women who wore their sexuality on their sarees. Shakchunnis were supposed to have died with unspent desires. They were beautiful, sexy, young women, who were always on the lookout for good looking men and happy households. They replaced the virtuous wives in some homes – driving the men mad with their lusty moves (these details were obviously edited from the kid’s versions).

Sometimes they managed to hoodwink the men for years, living on in the midst of well-behaved people, sleeping with the man they love and producing bonny babies too. Only, when someone spotted them doing the impossible – like stretching their arms to pluck juicy mangoes from the tallest branches or tiptoeing out of the palace to feast on meat – that they would be caught.

Funny how we have always been uncomfortable with women who lust, who desire, who want. So much so, we devoted an entire legacy to their cult, branding them as witches, shakchunnis and so on. It was also perhaps a way for absolving the men of their adultery – look it’s not me, she tempted me! She is evil!

Perhaps it is time to turn the narrative around. Celebrate the witches, the shakchunnis who dare to love, lust and to express it. Celebrate the temptress, the seductress and the wild. Anything else is not half as exciting.

(Scribbler, scribe, traveller Chandrima Pal takes you through the sexual landscape of today)

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