Mystery shrouds “Friday the 13th”
4 min read
Shimla/ Ritanjali Hastir
The number 13 has been considered unlucky for centuries and to date, there are myths and rumors related to it especially when it falls on Friday as some historians peg the superstition to the 13 people who attended the Last Supper.
It is said that uncertainty and mystery are energies of life and one should not let them scare you unduly, for they keep boredom at bay and spark creativity and so is the case with the famous Friday the 13th which happens to fall in this week rather today itself.
Famous writer Ruskin Bond, who studied in Bishop Cotton School, Shimla; one of the oldest boarding schools in Asia, founded on July 28, 1859 and also titled ‘Eton of the East’ by Life magazine; in one of his stories ‘A face in the Night’ recounted an experience of an Anglo-Indian teacher in the pine forest with a boy without any facial features; causing his death by a heart attack. Few people in the present times hold the belief that the incident took place on Friday the 13th and one may feel the spirit or ghost whatever one likes to call in the dark woods.
Christopher Robinson, the headmaster of BCS says, ‘I have mostly served in the schools that have been more than 100 years old and all the schools have such folklores attached with them without any support of proofs. I have spent quite a long time on this campus and do not remember how many 13th Fridays I have been out late at night but I never experienced anything.’
‘During my school days there used to be such stories shared among the hostlers and as young minds imagination runs wild. We always imagined an image of a man with a white beard which of course none of us ever saw. It was more of a myth and the environment of hills with all the fog and mist around added the X factor to our wild imagination but it has been 10 years for me as a teacher and I will say it is a well-written piece of fiction’, says Parveen Dharma.
Sushma Kaul a very senior teacher of the school says, ‘I joined school in early 80s and many times even I heard the students talk about counseling rock in the pine forest right behind Pine cottage which I used as an accommodation and students use to visit this place and even once I did went to visit the place with students. Honestly, I had goose flesh as a natural human reaction but there was nothing. With the passage of time counseling rock was excavated and the area was marked with a fence so that students would not miss their classes by hiding in the woods. Fear of any flat-faced man has never been the reason as many people say for baring the region’.
Sunita another resident of the campus area says, ‘I have been living in this campus for the past 8 years and the house I live in has been used as dormitory by the Britishers and later many have occupied it as residents. I cannot even tell how many people who occupied this accommodation might have died here too but there has been no such paranormal experience. The belief that doors are kept closed after dark on 13th Friday is all myth. It is like any other ordinary day we go out excluding the time factor.’
‘On every 13th Friday it rains and we do think that it will rain on coming Friday too. Two years back we even saw fire on the hill. We have learned from our seniors that on this day flat flat-faced man visits the spot in the pine forest where Counseling Rock stood but none of them have encountered him. Though we do feel that spirit pays a visit still we do not take any precautions to avoid any encounter with him, says students of the school.
Students also deem that it was not the Anglo – Indian teacher who encountered the flat-faced man but Ruskin Bond himself on the road coming from the main dining hall. Whereas contradicting the students’ Roach says, ‘I have lived for long 63 years on this campus as a student as well as a teacher; I have never heard or experienced anything like this as I am hearing from boys now.’
All the young students have faith in the folklore as called by elders and the myth has been passed on from senior students to their juniors; is it to startle them or there is some truth behind the tale one cannot really comment. The ones who have been both behind and in front of the dice, having spent more than 20 years on the campus call it a myth but on the other hand, each and every student knows the tale by heart which is said to be passed from older student generations to the younger ones. It is rightly said, “Without mysteries, life would be very dull indeed. What would be left to strive for if everything were known?”.
This Story was written in 2011 and got space in a newspaper as well.
