SPOOKS 1: COME TOMORROW

A knock on the door in the middle of the night. A voice, sounding suspiciously like someone you know, calls out your name. And if you open the door, that’s the end of you. This is how the ‘Nale Baa’ lore from Karnataka plays out. Who is this female spirit that hunts men? How did the ‘Nale Baa’ legend originate? 

One strange story. One disturbed place. Many unsolved questions. This is Spooks, a new miniseries in the world of ‘Rumors’. 

Just like Rumors, Bound helps brands and storytellers create high-quality, knowledgeable, and stellar podcasts with our end-to-end podcast and video production services. Reach out to our producer, Aishwarya Javalgekar, at aishwarya@boundindia.com to get started on your podcasting journey or analyze if a podcast is right for you.

‘Rumors’ shines a light on the darkest corners of India, where fact and fiction combine into magical and haunting stories.

Brought to you by Bound, a company that helps you grow through stories. Follow us @boundindia on all social platforms.

Written and voiced by Chandrima Das, a best-selling author, storyteller and an avid collector of dark tales. Follow her @hackiechan on all social media platforms.

Produced by Aishwarya Javalgekar
Sound design by Aditya Arya
Artwork by Artisto Designz

Disclaimer: This show is for entertainment purposes only and is not intended to outrage, insult, defame, or hurt any religion or religious sentiments, beliefs, feelings of any person, entity, class or community and does not encourage or propagate any superstition, black magic and/ or witchcraft. While every effort has been made in research, we do not make any representation or warranties with respect to the accuracy, applicability or completeness of the content.

Transcript

Chandrima Das  00:00

This show was made for entertainment purposes only. It is not intended to outrage insult, defame or hurt any religion or religious sentiments, beliefs feelings of any person, entity, class or community and does not encourage or propagate any superstition black magic and or witchcraft. listeners should exercise their discretion. 600 kilometers from Bengaluru, lies the town of Rameshwaram. Unlike the rest of the world, here first April is not celebrated as April Fool's Day. in Rameshwaram, first April is celebrated as Nadi body. Now, the term naraba sounds familiar, because some of you have seen the popular Hindi film Three. In the movie, men of the fictional town of Chanderi live in perpetual fear of being abducted in the middle of the night by an evil female spirit. And this story, of course, is based on the novel lore from Karnataka Who is this female spirit that takes away men in the middle of the night? How did the Naropa legend originate? Is it just a random coincidence that the people of Rameshwaram Mark April Fool's and Nadi body or are they making a deliberate connection? One strange story. One disturbed place and many unanswered questions. This is spokes, a miniseries From the world of romance. Night descends upon a small village in Karnataka. The only sound that breaks the silence is the chirping of crickets. Little House purchase on the edge of agricultural fields overflowing with unharvested crops. The soft glow of lights escapes through the cracks of closed window panes. A close knit family of three have sat down for dinner. The man of the house and his young son are on the floor, plates full of food before them. The wife serves them lovingly, making sure their plates don't go empty. Before their bellies are full. She will eat last of course, because apparently, women of the house deal with hunger better than everyone else. In the middle of dinner, the wife notices that her vessel of rice is running empty. There won't be enough left for her when she finally gets to her meal. She excuses herself and takes the vessel into the kitchen. There she gets busy lighting the tool and putting some rice in the pot to cook. Her husband continues his dinner, only stopping to admonish the child when he speaks with his mouth full. Suddenly, a voice interrupts come out and help me. It's the wife. Strangely enough, her voice doesn't come from the kitchen. It comes from the front door What the hell are you doing outside? The husband demands she calls out once more. Three helped me please. I went to fetch some water and accidentally locked myself out. Dammit, he matters. You can be such an idiot. Please come no cheap leads. I'm sorry. The exasperated man gets up and walks to the door. As the child looks on, confused. The child continues his dinner. Sometime later, the wife returns from the kitchen only to find her husband's Plato. Food abandoned on the floor and her husband missing. A welded up ago. The puzzle child points to the front door annoyed the wife saunters over only to find the door wide open and there on the doorstep. A horrifying sight awaits her husband's dead body, lice crawled across the doorstep. Eyes wide open in sheer terror if you're from Karnataka, you've heard this story. It's widely known as the standard version of the gnarly Bell lower. This along with several other versions of the tale. Were making the rounds in parts of the state back in the 90s. Despite the absence of WhatsApp, the power of this rumor was so strong, that word of mouth was more than enough to prepare it. The Nerima law goes broadly like this. In the dead of the night, comes a knock on the door. Avoid sounding suspiciously like someone you know, calls out your name. And if you open the door that is the end of you. A friend or family member will eventually find your body on the doorstep the cause of your death a complete mystery. Another version of the legend gives more detail to the identity of the voice. It says the voice belongs to a witch who roams the streets of Bengaluru, knocking on doors at night, hunting for prey her target men she loves them outside by calling their names in a voice that mimics the women they love. Mother, Wife or sister. On hearing this familiar voice. Any man unaware of the Lord will naturally open the door. And when he does, he dies within the next 24 hours was there no escaping this hungry predator? No exit clause. Oh, but there was. To combat the supernatural predator of men, the people of Karnataka began writing the words, gnarly bas on their doors. And if they couldn't find any paint handy, they would simply utter the woods from inside the house. Oddly enough, this tactic proved effective. houses that had nearly been written outside never experienced a visit from the legendary which some even say that if you left naraba scribbled on the door for three days, the wage would never return. The rumor mill began working overtime. And soon narangba was found written on the doors of many houses. So what does not ABA mean? Is it a prayer or a mantra? Not a BA simply means come tomorrow in Canada. Apparently, whenever the witch saw naliboki written outside her home, she obediently left the family alone. So not only is this witch literate, she also strongly believes in consent. But it the rumor only began in the 1990s it seems not all the Kinetica say that the story also existed in the late 60s and early 70s. In these older versions, the villain wasn't some man eating which, but just regular old Coast's village folk believed that these costs lived in the tamarind trees of the village. And every night, they'd get lonely. So they would descend to Earth at night and call villagers out of their homes. It seems the course would mimic the voices of family and friends to call the living because they got very little response when using the normal, costly voices. Trust tech struggle to keep seeking companionship, even after death. There's no end to the origin stories of Nava. Here's one more rooted not in my theology, but in history. In 1918, an influenza pandemic struck India. We've forgotten all about it. But that pandemic from 100 years ago, is widely believed to have killed between 17 to 18 million people in the country. People in Bengaluru believed quite correctly, that this influenza was spreading through contact. And so to isolate themselves, they wrote naraba oh come tomorrow on their doors. There are other versions that say that the instruction was not for humans, but for rats, as they believed that it was rats that spread the plague. Others say that the gnarly bar legend has its origins in my theological stories meant for children, also known as Desi fairy tales. old timey children's books in Canada, reference a story in which Shani, the malevolent planet Saturn wanted to trouble Lord Ganesh, but Ganesh was smart. He devised a little trick to keep Shani away. Ganesh wrote gnarly bow on his door, and poor Shani had to obey and leave him alone. Another children's story tells of two friends walking through a dark enchanted forest. There, they ran into a hungry spirit. Since this was before swiggy did food deliveries, the only way the Spirit could satisfy its hunger was by killing and eating the two friends. The friends pleaded with the Spirit. Please let us go. We are clever and ambitious, and our debts will be a loss for humanity. They said the spirit scratched its non existent chin and considered the request. It proposed a test to prove their mettle. I will pose three questions. And if you cannot answer all three, then it's proved that you're too stupid to live. So I'll eat you up. The friends listen to the spirits three questions. These riddles were solvable. But they didn't quite have the answers just then. They needed time. Come to a house tomorrow, and we'll give you the answers. After all, even learned Ben need time to think the exasperated spirit relented again and agreed to the terms. Just like non ABA, this guy also believed in consent. The moment they got home, the two friends got to work. They took a can of paint and wrote naraba across their doors. And that was the last because of this hungry, but strangely obedient spirit. It is this funnier underbelly of the Gnarly biolegend That might point us to the insight that lies at the core of this lore Narissa is a representation of the Trickster archetype. tricksters often appear in folklore and myths from across the world. They hold some special skill or secret knowledge and they use it to play tricks on the unwitting or even defy conventional behavior. With her seduction tactics and enviable voice acting abilities, then Alibaba which certainly likes to pull a neat trick to reel in her prey. The thing with tricksters is that they are just as vulnerable to tricks as they are potential victims. So if there's one lesson you should take away from the gnarly bar lore, it is this new predators may try to trick us into danger. We humans can always trick them right back and ask them to come tomorrow. Thank you for listening to spooks, meaning series from the world of rumors. I'm Chandra Madonna's collector and Teller of dark tales. And the creator of this podcast in collaboration with bound a company that helps you grow through stories produced by Aishwarya as our Baker and sound designed by other Aria. Join me every Friday on this quest into the lesser known side of the subcontinent. Subscribe rate and review for new episodes every week. Sleep safe tonight. Who knows what awaits in the dark?