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 INDIAN HORROR CINEMA

This book studies the hitherto overlooked genre of horror cinema in India.
It uncovers some unique and diverse themes that these films deal with,
including the fear of the unknown, the supernatural, occult practices,
communication with spirits of the deceased, ghosts, reincarnation, figures
of vampires, zombies, witches and transmutations of human beings into
non-human forms such as werewolves. It focusses on the construction of
feminine and masculine subjectivities in select horror films across seven
major languages – Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Bangla, Marathi and
Malayalam.
The author shows that the alienation of the body and bodily functions
through the medium of the horror film serves to deconstruct stereotypes of
caste, class, gender and anthropocentrism. Some riveting insights emerge
thus, such as the masculinist undertow of the possession narrative and how
complex structures of resistance accompany the anxieties of culture via the
dread of laughter.
This original account of Indian cinematic history is accessible yet
strongly analytical and includes an exhaustive filmography. The book will
interest scholars and researchers in film studies, media and cultural studies,
art, popular culture and performance, literature, gender, sociology, South
Asian studies, practitioners, filmmakers as well as cinephiles.

Mithuraaj Dhusiya teaches English literature in the Department of English

at Hansraj College, University of Delhi, India.
INDIAN HORROR
CINEMA
(En)gendering the Monstrous

Mithuraaj Dhusiya
First published 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 1001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an
informa business
© 2018 Mithuraaj Dhusiya
The right of Mithuraaj Dhusiya to be identified as author
of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be
trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-1-138-69318-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-14417-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Galliard
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
 CONTENTS

Acknowledgementsvi

Introduction: horror in Indian cinema: an afterthought? 1

1 The masculinist economy of possession narratives 35

2 Vampirism as structures of resistance 65

3 The ghastly gendered narrative of animal

transformation92

4 Zombies and witches and the anxieties of culture 119

5 Do we fear laughter? The genre of horror-comedy 141

6 There are no ghosts, only ghostly tales:

Indian horror and the ‘uncanny’ 172

Epilogue: fear, are we there yet? 195

Appendix: annotated filmography of horror films in India209

Glossary269
Bibliography272
Filmography286
Index303

v
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book owes its genesis to the countless ghosts and spirits that have
haunted the fictional world from time immemorial. They have been my pri-
mary source of interest and inspiration much before the thought of framing
my ideas about the supernatural in a book crept into my mind.
This book derives largely from my doctoral work. My supervisor Brinda
Bose has been the warmest, kindest and helpful mentor I have ever known.
I am also grateful to the late P.K. Nair, S. Theodore Baskaran, M.K. Raghav-
endra, Akella, Venkatesh Chakravarthy, S.V. Srinivas, C.S. Venkiteswaran,
Shalini Usha Nair, Udaya Kumar, Moinak Biswas, Ranjani Mazumdar and
Subhajit Chatterjee who have helped me to bring this book to where it
stands now.
I acknowledge with joy a grant from the Indian Council of Historical
Research, which was a great assistance to me during my PhD work in facili-
tating the many journeys to the many places where films and filmmakers
were to be found! I must mention here the enormous contribution of the
National Film Archive of India (NFAI), Kerala Chalachithra Academy, Roja
Muthiah Research Library, National Library of India and Nehru Memorial
Museum and Library without whose archival material this book could not
have been thought of. Equally, I am also indebted to countless shopkeepers
selling VCDs and DVDs across the country who made special efforts to fish
out several obscure films of the horror genre.
I am grateful to my father, my mother and my younger brother for
knocking into me, every now and then, that this book should be a time-
bound exercise. Words are inadequate to describe the unadulterated love
that my fond canine companions – Pinchu, Tau and Kali – have given me
ever since they adopted my family. Their playful distractions have kept me
endlessly refreshed. This book will be incomplete if I do not apologise to
my most loving and most timorous wife, Aneeta, for having introduced her
to this subterranean world of vampires, zombies, monsters, dungeons and
exorcism. Her ability to sleep may have been compromised forever.

vi
 A cknowledgements

I also wish to acknowledge and thank the publishers who brought out
the earlier versions of some of the chapters in this book. Chapter 2 draws
upon ‘The Ramsay Chronicles: Non-normative Sexualities in Purana Man-
dir and Bandh Darwaza’, which appeared in Vikrant Kishore, Amit Sarwal
and Parichay Patra (eds), Bollywood and Its Other(s): Towards New Con-
figurations, pp. 174–185 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). Chapter 3
is partly based on ‘Bestiality, Compassion and Gender Emancipation: The
Snake Woman in Hindi Horror Films’, which appeared in 2012, Cinefo-
rum 15: 105–134, and partly on ‘Shape Shifting Masculinities: Accounts of
Maleness in Indian Man-to-Animal Transformation Horror Films’, which
appeared in 2011, Acta Orientalia Vilnensia 12(2): 61–73. Chapter 5 has
developed partly from ‘The Horrific Laughter in Pachadlela: A Study of
Marathi Horror-Comedy’, which appeared in 2013, Comedy Studies 4(2):
187–194, and partly from ‘Let the Ghost Speak: A Study of Contemporary
Indian Horror Cinema’, which appeared in 2014, The Unseen Century:
Indian Cinema 1913–2013, 5(1): 1–24, http://widescreenjournal.org.

vii
 INTRODUCTION
Horror in Indian cinema:
an afterthought?

I might mention the case, let us say, of what are called

‘horror comics’ and the like. Well, I have read about
them and recently I saw some of these things. In fact,
a very mild – exceedingly mild – type happened to be
sent as a birthday gift to my grandson. I was horrified
looking at it that anyone, much less my grandson should
have that kind of literature to read, and this is literature
and not the comic part. The horror comics undoubtedly
are something which I am absolutely clear in my mind
should be supressed ruthlessly (applause). There is no
question of freedom of the individual. That is something
which is bad, hundred per cent bad – something which
is causing, in some countries all kinds of developments
of all kinds of sadistic impulses, murder – children just
murdering for murder’s sake, to have the pleasure of see-
ing a person killed. All this is through this kind of hor-
ror comic business. Now, obviously, we cannot allow that
kind of thing; no Government or society ought to allow
that kind of thing to flourish. Therefore, it is clear that
the Government must take action to prevent something
which it considers and society considers evil from spread-
ing too much.
(Nehru 2009: 26)

Retrospectively, one can argue that Jawaharlal Nehru’s address to a semi-

nar on Indian Film in 1955 paves the way for what would prove to be a
bumpy ride for Indian horror films thereafter. Nehru was not alone in his
criticism of ‘horror comics’. His apprehensions that ‘all kinds of sadistic
impulses’ generated by these comics would bring about moral and cultural
degradation of the society were shared by an influential section of American

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intelligentsia. Horror comics like Tales from the Crypt (1950–55), The
Vault of Horror (1950–54) and The Haunt of Fear (1950–54) were rising
steadily on popularity charts. By 1953, horror-based comics accounted for
approximately a quarter of the total comics-industry output as more and
more Americans were reading them than were reading Reader’s Digest or
The Saturday Evening Post (Skal 1993: 230). To curb the growing popular-
ity of these comics, the Comics Magazine Association of America intro-
duced the ‘Comics Code Authority’ which banned their production and
distribution. But while socio-cultural associations of horror began to be
manifested through the enduring popularity of horror films in America, the
Indian film industry for a very long time saw no such impact. Horror films
had to battle the successive Indian governments’ negative attitude, per-
haps best explained by Nehru’s own words: careful ‘to prevent something
which it considers and society considers evil from spreading too much’
(Nehru 2009: 26). Whether society considered horror films evil or not is
debatable going by the popular reception of foreign horror films, including
those belonging to Hammer productions, in India. But the stepmotherly
treatment meted out to Indian horror films by successive post-independ-
ence governments is evident from very intermittent productions of horror
films in India and prolonged court cases that producers of films like Jaani
Dushman (dir. Rajkumar Kohli, 1979) had to fight against government
censorship. For the record, box-office reports show that Jaani Dushman
with a gross of Rs 9,00,00,000 was the second highest grossing film of
the year, getting the better of then-reigning superstar Amitabh Bachchan
starrers Mr. Natwarlal (dir. Rakesh Kumar, 1979), Kala Patthar (dir. Yash
Chopra, 1979) and The Great Gambler (dir. Shakti Samanta, 1979). Faced
with a hostile censor board and high costs for making horror films, most
film producers were naturally discouraged and preferred other safer genres.
However, as one explores the archival history of Indian horror films, one
is elated to discover the rich, heterogeneously sourced aesthetic traditions
that these films have managed to achieve despite encountering manifold
obstacles.
The Hindi film Mahal (dir. Kamal Amrohi, 1949), arguably the first
post-independence Indian horror film, foreshadows some basic questions
about thematic and formal elements of horror that would continue to haunt
Indian horror films thereafter. Mahal narrates the story of a young and
handsome lawyer Shankar (Ashok Kumar) who goes to an old palatial man-
sion Shabnam Mahal to claim his inheritance. He is surprised to observe
that a portrait of the former owner closely resembles him. The housekeeper
recounts the sad tale of the owner and his beloved who had to end their
lives under tragic circumstances. He begins seeing a girl singing and swing-
ing in the garden swing during nights. But whenever he tried to approach

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 I ntroduction

her, she would disappear. This pattern continued for some days before
the girl finally disclosed to him that she was the spirit of the dead Kamini
(Madhubala), the former owner’s beloved. She beckons him to either die
or marry her incarnation, a servant’s daughter named Asha (Madhubala)
living in the same palatial premises. Shankar becomes so obsessed with the
ghostly apparition that his friend Srinath (Kanu Roy) deems it wise to for-
cibly marry him off to a lady named Ranjana (Vijayalaxmi). But he keeps
on neglecting his wife, confining her to live in a vermin-infested shack.
Unable to withstand torture, Ranjana commits suicide, accusing Ashok as
she was dying. He is arrested and sent off to jail. Later Asha, now married
to Srinath, confesses that she had been masquerading as Kamini to gain
Ashok’s attention. Meanwhile, a suicide note left by Ranjana is recovered
and as a result Ashok is acquitted of murder charge and released. The story
ends with Ashok, still very obsessed with the apparition, on his way back
to the Mahal. It has several motifs common to horror cinema: an ancient
haunted palatial building, the bat, the snake, an ominous looking black cat
and the suggestion of ‘uncanny’. The audio-visual impact created by the
banging doors and a woman clad in white clothes carrying a lighted candle
with her and singing at night, with frequent references to death, facilitate
the creation of a brooding horrific setting. However, a section of modern
critical studies refuses to see it as a horror film. Rachel Dwyer, for example,
argues that the film should not be seen as belonging to the horror genre:

Yet Mahal is not a horror film; nor it is a ghost film. It is mysteri-

ous, it is haunting, it is eerie but bar a few items . . . there is no
ghost, there is little that is very disturbing apart from Ranjana’s
suicide and the off-screen death of the tribal woman. Neverthe-
less the audience remembers it as a ghost film, as a film about a
haunted house, and a dark and mysterious film.
(Dwyer 2011: 150)

While the film might to other historians be the ‘first’ Indian horror film,
Dwyer’s placement of the film in other genres suggests she is using another
set of generic and historical criteria to arrive at the determinations she does.
This warrants a comparative exploration of the history of genre formation
in both Western and Indian cinematic narratives.

The politics of genre formation

Fissures riddle the map of Indian horror cinema. Unlike Hollywood cin-
ema, which has a relatively well-defined horror genre, Indian cinema with
its diverse production centres, not to mention linguistic varieties, poses a

3
 I ntroduction

challenge to any homogeneous categorisation of horror cinema. How is

one to categorise a genre that is as diverse as the Bengali new-wave Khu-
dito Pashan (dir. Tapan Sinha, 1960), the Malayalam melodrama Bhargavi
Nilayam (dir. A. Vincent, 1964) or the Marathi horror comic Pachadlela
(dir. Mahesh Kothare, 2004) or the more conventionally horrific run-
of-the-mill Hindi Ramsay films? An exhumation of ‘genre’ itself presents
several questions: Is genre a stable category? Where lies the origin of genre?
Who defines genre industry, audience or the text itself? Why do some gen-
res suddenly disappear? Is genre culture-specific? Is genre period-specific?
What is the nature of relationship between literary and filmic genres? Can
they coexist together? How does one take into account hybridity within
genres? And perhaps, most important of all, how do we define genre? It
is thus imperative to study the conceptualisation of genre in the history of
film scholarship.
To say that genres are vital to films would be an understatement, as
more often than not they are a primary mode of initiation into the filmic
world. In almost every video rental library or store throughout the world,
VCDs and DVDs are arranged according to generic classifications: comedy,
thriller, action, horror, science fiction, gangster films, musicals, blockbust-
ers etc. Broadly speaking, genres can be defined as the structuring princi-
ples of expectation and convention, around which individual films mark
repetitions and differences (Neale 2003: 161). It is widely considered that
genre criticism began in the late 1960s and early 1970s as a response to
auteurism. Though Andre Bazin and Robert Warshow could be seen as
precursors of genre theory with their influential works on the Western and
gangster films in the 1940s and 1950s, yet it was only in the late 1960s that
proper studies on genre formation began to develop. The auteuristic model
of cinematic authorship, while upholding classics as examples of auteur’s
brilliance and charisma in portraying the unfamiliar, looked down upon
genre films as manifestations of clichéd plots depicting the everyday famil-
iar world. This prejudice can be traced back to the late eighteenth century:

The modern prejudice against genre in art can be traced to the

aesthetic theories of the Romantic period . . . Poetic ‘limitation’,
the building of creativity on the achievements of the past, began
to fade as the standard of personal vision became more impor-
tant. . . . The English and German Romantic writers consolidated
this trend by establishing originality not only as a criterion of art,
but, in their crudest statements, the only criterion of art. Art could
owe nothing to tradition or the past because that debt qualified
the power and originality of the individual creator.
(Braudy 2004: 664)

4
 I ntroduction

Genres like the Western have often been read as ‘an art form for connoisseu-
ers, where the spectator derives his pleasure from the appreciation of minor
variations within the working out of a pre-established order’(Warshow
1979: 480).
Contemporary film scholarship has devised a number of approaches to
address Hollywood’s generic structures:

First, the taxonomic view of genre, which attempts to map the

boundaries between generic classes; second, the view of genre as
an economic strategy for organising film production schedules;
and third, the view of genre as cognition, as a contract between
producers and consumers which renders films intelligible on some
level.
(Watson 2003: 154)

The taxonomic approach, according to Paul Watson, could be either theo-

retical, historical or visual. One genre can be differentiated from the other
through visual icons:

Since we are dealing with a visual medium we ought surely to look

for our defining criteria in what we actually see on the screen. It is
immediately apparent that there before our eyes is a whole range
of outer forms.
(Buscombe 2003: 15)

He delineates four outer forms: setting, appearance, tools and other mis-
cellaneous physical objects that keep on recurring. While different forms
of taxonomic approach to genre formation have been very useful for the
reception of films, it is not without its share of problems: ‘if genre criticism
were simply a matter of constructing taxonomies and allocating films to
their places in the system, then the intellectual basis of the exercise would
certainly be open to doubt’ (Ryall 1998: 336). For how would one cat-
egorise animation films? Or what is the role played by the film industry in
generic representations which might be different from the more theory-
oriented taxonomic approach? And what about generic hybridity? The
same visual iconography might be present in more than one genre. Thus,
one can see guns and gun-toting men in Westerns, crime thrillers and gang-
ster films besides film noir. It becomes increasingly difficult to rely solely on
taxonomic generification.
Genre also serves an important role in safeguarding the economics of
the film industry, as the site of ‘crystallization of a negotiated encounter
between film-maker and audience, a way of recording the stability of an

5
 I ntroduction

industry with the excitement of an evolving popular art’ (Stam 2000: 127).
Filmmakers find it convenient to invest in secure genres which have a his-
tory of good box-office collections. It also helps them to advertise their
products in a public-friendly manner, as genres necessitate pre-established
expectations and pleasures in the audience. However, sometimes industrial
definitions of genre – especially in cases of sequels, prequels or seriality –
might be misleading:

Seriality is akin to genre . . . and yet it is subtly different from

it. The serial mode appears to operate and organise – in the first
instance at any rate – at a more general or inclusive level than does
genre, whilst at the same time being more precise and prescrip-
tive in terms of the processes it defines. Lacking the more open
(and involved) character of genre, it appears to be tied as much
to the demarcation and regulation of forms and modes within
material production processes as to the distinguishing of types or
kinds (along with their aesthetic delineation) in aesthetic ones. It
seems thereby, to be more intimately bound to the standardisation
involved in commodification itself.
(Darley 2002: 126)

Apart from taxonomic and economic approaches to genre formation,

Watson asserts that the cognitive assessment of genre has also been a very
useful method in categorising films where genre is to be seen ‘not as a corpus
of approximate films, but as provisional and malleable conceptual environ-
ments: a cognitive repository of images, sounds, characters, events, stories,
scenarios, expectations and so on. Genre can thus be seen as part of a cogni-
tive process which delimits the number of possible meanings of any individual
film by activating certain conceptual constellations while leaving others dor-
mant’ (Watson 2003: 160). However, it has also been pointed out as follows:

If the genre texts of the 1960s are distinguished by their increas-

ing self-reflexivity about their antecedents in the Golden Age of
Hollywood, the genre texts of the late 1980s–early 1990s demon-
strate even more sophisticated hyperconsciousness concerning not
just narrative formulae, but the conditions of their own circulation
and reception in the present, which has a massive impact on the
nature of popular entertainment.
(Collins 1993: 247–8)

This intertextuality has led to the rise of hybrid genres addressing the target
audience rather than the mass audience.

6
 I ntroduction

One of the major contributors to the growing analyses of the Holly-

wood generic system has been semiotic film theory. Film theorists have
applied the principles of semiotics to explore the fluidity and malleability of
genres: ‘If we extend these ideas into genre studies, we might think of the
film genre as a specific grammar or system of rules of expression and con-
struction and the individual genre films as a manifestation of these rules’
(Schaltz 2009: 566). Thomas Schaltz argues that it is the transformative
ability of film conventions that endows genres with both ‘static’ as well as
‘dynamic’ attributes. Another semiotician, Rick Altman, makes a valuable
contribution to our understanding of the growth of genres in films through
his assertion that the formation of genre is essentially a product of the inter-
play of the semantic meaning and syntactic organisation of elements that
contribute towards that meaning: ‘genres arise in one or two fundamental
ways: either a relatively stable set of semantic givens is developed through
syntactic experimentation into a coherent or durable syntax, or an already
existing syntax adopts a new set of semantic elements’ (Altman 2003: 35).
Genre in twenty-first-century Hollywood cinema attains viability by
reinvesting in its metaphorical level as opposed to its more literal level.
Instead of stagnating within the classical paradigm, genre delimits itself
into a potent cultural expression of the time:

For metaphors in themselves do not tell us anything, but rather

draw attention to a relationship between things and prompt us
to start looking for ways of making meaning. Indeed the basis of
metaphor is a process of transference: the transference of aspects
of one object to another object so that the second object has an
implied resemblance to the first object, yet is an original expression.
(Watson 2003: 162)

This ‘transference-implied resemblance’ plays a pivotal role in building

cognitive relationships with the audience as well as acknowledging the
industrial aspects of cinematic conceptions. However, the nature of these
relationships is quite different from what they were in the twentieth cen-
tury: ‘the increasingly transgeneric tendency in twenty-first-century Holly-
wood film may represent not the breakdown of “classical” genre traditions,
but the more visible enactment, in transformed institutional contexts, of
those “post-classica” impulses that have always been present in the system
of genres’ (Langford 2005: 278).
In the context of Indian cinema, genre formation has adopted trajecto-
ries that are vastly different from its Western counterparts. Even when films
made in this part of the world resonate models of Western generification,
they are nevertheless deeply rooted within the socio-cultural diversities of

7
 I ntroduction

India. Genre reformulations and their aesthetic practices irrespective of their

origin are culture-specific: ‘genre terms seem best employed in the analysis
of the relations between groups of films, the cultures in which they are made,
and the cultures in which they are exhibited’ (Tudor 2003: 10). Thus, it is
but natural that what was suggested by the generic label ‘horror’ in the West
would be different from Indian horror cinema, and the same applies to most
other genric productions in India. However, what sounds thus obvious
unfortunately took a long time to permeate into public consciousness, both
inside and outside India. Going by generic expectations from the audience,
this process is far from complete. For example, the instinctive revulsion for
most Indian horror films on the pretext of the superiority of their Western
or even other South Asian counterparts fails to acknowledge the unique
formulations of Indian horror. Admittedly, some horror films have been bad
productions, not fit to stand the test of time. However, films like Mahal,
Bhargavi Nilayam or Bhoot (dir. Ram Gopal Varma, 2003) are of cultural
significance akin to The Exorcist (dir. William Friedkin, 1973), not to men-
tion that they are equally well made, if not better. The critical apparatus of
Indian film scholarship for a long time, just like its other non-Hollywood
counterparts, failed to evolve Indian cinema–specific genres:

As a result, generic characteristics attached to specific Hollywood

genres become normative, universalising and often prescriptive
categories. It is evident that an application of genre criticism for
the study of popular Indian cinema needs to re-define the frame
of reference of such criticism within a specific national context.
(Eleftheriotis 2006: 273)

Film scholarship in the West tends to evaluate Indian cinema in terms of

its otherness to Hollywood films, thereby limiting its multifaceted charac-
teristics. Rather than appreciating the various hybridised film cultures that
country’s many film industries produce, Western media and film circles
have largely ignored the potential in Indian cinema, always presenting it as
an also-ran amongst other cinematic traditions:

However, this is a cinema which, in the Indian context, is an over-

ridingly dominant, mainstream form, and is itself opposed by an
‘Other’: the ‘new’, ‘parallel’, ‘art’ (or often simply ‘other’) cin-
ema which ranges from the works of Satyajit Ray, Shyam Benegal
and various regional filmmakers, to Mani Kaul’s ‘avant-garde’ or
Anand Patwardhan’s ‘agitational’ political practice. In these terms
Indian popular cinema is neither alternative nor a minority form.
(Thomas 2006: 280)

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 I ntroduction

Rosie Thomas also points towards the existence of certain genres specific to
Indian cinema like social, family social, devotional, stunt and multi-starrer
which would hardly make sense to the canonical Hollywood generic for-
mulations. Generic categories can also reveal or encode sociological prac-
tices underlying them: Indian film genres show the propensity to depict
mythological films as ‘Brahmin’ (priest/sage), historical films as ‘Kshatri-
yas’ (warrior/aristocrat) and action-packed stunt films as ‘Shudras’ (serf/
manual labour) (Kakar 1989: 25). Though such broad generalisations
might be anaemic in comparison to more exhaustive analyses of films, yet
the presence of such subtexts can hardly be ignored.
Genre criticism in India took a new turn with Madhava Prasad’s socio-
political readings of genre formation in Hindi films. He notes the dif-
ferences between the industrial organisations of the Hollywood and the
Bombay film industry. While a typical Hollywood film implies an integrated
internal hierarchical set-up with primacy given to the tightly organised nar-
rative among its constituent elements, Bombay films, he argues, have a rela-
tively more autonomous existence with different constitutive elements like
songs, dialogues and the star-image having independent standings. Thus,
Hindi films act as sites of multiple representations of individual skills and
collective socio-economic processes. However, Prasad links these produc-
tion processes to the propagation of the state ideology:

The evidence points to two conflicting answers: on the one hand,

there is the perceived failure of the attempt to gain mastery over
the production process, to make it serve a determinate ideologi-
cal project; on the other hand, the very impediments placed in
the way of such consolidation by the powerful financiers may be
said to have contributed (with whatever degree of ‘intention’) to
the perpetuation of a backward capitalism in production and pre-
capitalist ideologies in which relationships based on loyalty, ser-
vitude, the honour of the khandaan (clan) and institutionalized
Hindu religious practices form the core cultural content. Thus a
state of affairs that appears to be the result of a series of ‘failures’
may well be the one that the particular state form obtaining in
India makes it possible.
(1998: 49)

He attributes the dominance of ‘musical-social’ in the post-mythological

Hindi film industry to such covert mechanisms of the state ideology:

Its function, on the other hand, is to resist genre formation of any

kind, particularly of the type constituted by the segmentation of

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the contemporary. This ideological function is imposed on it by

the nature of political power in the modernizing state. The seg-
mentation or the disaggregation of the ‘social’ is prevented by the
very mode of combination of the aesthetic of the signifier (music,
choreographed fights, parallel narrative tracks, etc) with that of
the signified (or realism, which requires continuity, a serial track
and subordination of music to a narrative function.
(ibid.: 136)

Prasad also brings to attention the genesis of three generic tendencies specific
to Hindi cinema in the India Gandhi era, a very turbulent phase in Indian
politics: the new cinema, the middle-class cinema and the reformed social.
If Prasad sees articulations of socio-political ideologies behind the het-
erogeneous format of popular Hindi films, Ravi Vasudevan persuades us
that this heterogeneity is a marker of the multiple discourses that films have
to offer:

The persistence of the disaggregated, heterogeneous dimensions

of this narrative form, a heterogeneity defined not only by a loose
assemblage of attractions – action, comedy, romance – but also
by the sense that the world of the fiction is not singular and may
be articulated through different sites, styles and discursive forms,
ranging from the comedic to the socially pedagogic or allegorical.
(2010: 39)

Vasudevan is one of the first Indian film scholars to elaborate on the impor-
tance of melodrama in Indian films. Rather than focussing on the influ-
ence of extradiegetic elements in shaping the narrative, he instead explores
the melodrama as a site of transgressive problematisation of socio-political
issues not accessible to the realist genre of filmmaking in India:

Undertake a narrative and performative operation which allows

for forbidden, transgressives spaces to be opened. . . . Often very
important to this operation of transgression and denial is the
manipulation of knowledge within the narrative. . . . These gaps
in knowledge in the fiction (misrecognition, misunderstanding in
the relation between characters) effect vertiginious displacements
in the narrative. Spaces are created – of misrecognition, of dis-
placement of that of which would be if knowledge were full. It
is these spaces that characters enter in order to work out their
transgressive functions.
(Vasudevan 1989: 39)

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This is generally achieved through acts of wish-fulfilment by the character/s

concerned. Thus, while critics of melodrama see it as a loose, fragmented
type of cinema, which more often than not serves as opium for unsuspect-
ing masses, Vasudevan shows that it is a highly organised and intelligible
genre that can sometimes challenge the hegemony of the heteronormative
patriarchal institutions of the establishment. However, it is important to
know that the melodrama produced in Indian cinema is vastly different
from its Western counterparts: ‘Indian film melodramas deploy a creatively
invigorating interplay among western form, classical Indian theatre, folk
plays, and the more modern Parsi theatre . . . one has to understand the
significance of such sedimentations’ (Dissanayake 1993: 5). Lalitha Gopa-
lan locates two major interruptions unique to Indian melodrama – song
and dance sequences within the narrative and the intermission during film
screenings in cinema theatres – as sites of negotiations between the Eastern
and the Western filmic traditions. Terming these interruptions as ‘constel-
lations of interruptions’, she argues:

Both song and dance sequences and the interval attune us to their
structural function in popular Indian films, particularly their play
on spatial and temporal disjunctions. Their articulation in specific
texts highlights how films imbibe both global and local conven-
tions: genre films adjust to song and dance sequences, and the
interval doubles the structuring of anticipation and pleasure found
in genre films.
(Gopalan 2002: 20)

Ashish Rajadhyaksha explores possibilities of synthesising the realist and the

melodrama modes of cinematic productions in India: ‘for a great deal of
narrative cinema, realism is the theory, melodrama the practice’ (2009: 41).
Melodrama examines the existence of what he calls the ‘marginal data’ that
lies on the periphery of realism but remains inaccessible to the critical con-
ventions of realism. This marginal data records multiple histories of subalter-
nity in society – whether this is of refugee narratives or non-heteronormative
sexualities. According to him, ‘All of this collectively contextualizes celluloid
technology’s self-nomination as a full-fledged apparatus for social organisa-
tion’ (ibid.: 43).

Brief overview of academic scholarship

on horror films
A good corpus of academic work on Western horror films generated
by Western writers/theorists exists, and it offers many useful points of

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departure in this project. Studies have largely centred on psychoanalysis,

cognitivism, postmodernism and queer schools of thought.

Psychoanalysis and horror films

Psychoanalysis undoubtedly has been one of the most thriving modes of
exploring horror films. Limiting herself to American horror films from
1970s to mid-1980s, Carol J. Clover produces exhaustive readings of how
the low-budget and yet very popular genre of independent horror films
permit feminist readings in the narrative. Her perspicacious hypothesis of
the ‘final girl’ in most American slasher films of that period posits the figure
of this ‘female victim-hero’ as

boyish, in a word. Just as the killer is not fully masculine, she

is not fully feminine – not, in any case, feminine in the ways of
her friends. Her smartness, gravity, competence in mechanical and
other practical matters, and sexual reluctance set her apart from
the other girls and ally her, ironically, with the very boys she fears
or rejects, not to speak of the killer himself.
(Clover 1992: 40)

Clover argues that an average adolescent male viewer is, perhaps, able to
identify with this character without feeling threatened off with regard to his
own male competence and sexuality. This in turn leads him to emotionally
identify, howsoever temporarily, with the ‘final girl’s’ fear, suffering and
pain, and eventually with her relief in the end when she finally manages to
kill the killer.
Where Clover examines subcategories within the general rubric of hor-
ror, Barbara Creed looks for psychoanalytical explanations for the relevance
of horror films to Western societies. Creed uses Julia Kristeva’s conceptu-
alisation of the ‘abject’ to show why horror films can be seen as examples
of ‘abjection’. Kristeva defines ‘abjection’ as something which does not
‘respect borders, positions, rules’, that which ‘disturbs identity, system,
order’ (Kristeva 1982: 4). Creed theorises the representation of the woman
as monstrous in horror films as a modern defilement rite which ensues the
purification of the abject for both the protagonists on-screen and the audi-
ence watching those films. She presents a detailed analysis of several horror
films tracing the representation of monstrous femininity through five basic
manifestations: the archaic mother, the monstrous womb, the witch, the
vampire and the possessed woman. She argues that whenever women are
represented as monstrous in horror films, it is almost always in relation to
their maternal and reproductive functions (Creed 1993).

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The cognitivist approach to horror films

The cognitivist school of thought furnishes another viable mode of explor-
ing horror films.
Noël Carroll, for example, argues that while people are afraid of natu-
ral horror, they are not averse to the ‘art-horror’ commonly produced
in horror films. At least some people seem to experience profound joy
in watching these films. He describes art-horror as the emotive response
that works of the horror genre are designed to elicit from audiences.
He argues that this emotional state consisting of physical and cognitive
components is occurrent in nature rather than a dispositional one. He
elaborates:

Assume that ‘I-as-audience-member’ am in an analogous emo-

tional state to that which fictional characters beset by monsters
are described to be in, then: I am occurently art-horrified by some
monster X, say Dracula, if and only, if 1) I am in some state of
abnormal physically felt agitation (shuddering, tinkling, scream-
ing, etc.) which 2) has been caused by a) the thought: that Drac-
ula is a possible being; and by the evaluative thoughts: that b) said
Dracula has the property of being physically (and perhaps morally
and socially) threatening in the ways portrayed in the fiction and
that c) said Dracula has the property of being impure, where 3)
such thoughts are usually accompanied by the desire to avoid the
touch of things like Dracula.
(Carroll 1990: 27)

Drawing on the work of anthropologist and cultural theorist Mary

Douglas, who in her highly acclaimed book Purity and Danger shows that
society terms those things interstitial that transgress cultural categorisation –
thus a creature like a lobster would be considered impure since it crawls
even though it resides in the sea, crawling being an attribute generally asso-
ciated with earthbound creatures and so the lobster ‘others’ itself with its
ability to crawl (Douglas 1966) – Carroll notes that most monsters in hor-
ror films like ghosts, zombies and vampires are also categorically impure
because they are both living as well as dead. The horror film audience finds
it thrilling to decode mysteries about these ‘impure’ or ‘interstitial’ mon-
sters along with the other characters within the narrative: herein lies the
source of the paradoxical pleasure of horror films.
Torben Grodal expands Carroll’s prescribed cognitive approach to hor-
ror films from the ‘interstitial’ monster to human autonomy itself. Grodal
argues that the paradoxical enjoyment in watching horror films arises out

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of certain situational insights where the characters within the narrative fight
for their freedom in the face of invading evil forces. This fight mirrors the
viewer’s own struggle to assert his autonomy in the outside world which
might be challenged by repressive forces in different manifestations. Dis-
tinguishing the horror genre from its close cousin, the suspense genre, he
observes:

Often horror fiction also deals with cognitive control, but,

whereas the motivation in detection fiction is primarily cognitive
gratification, in horror fiction the effort to get cognitive control is
mostly derived from a motivation to maintain personal body and
mind autonomy, which is under severe attack from uncontrollable
phenomena.
(Grodal 1999: 236)

This cognitive control is achieved in a high-stakes battle where sev-

eral empirical knowledge-based models clash within the viewer’s mind.
The battle is primarily between rationalist and non-rationalist forces.
The intensity of the battle differs, depending on whether the film is a
thriller or horror, leading to degrees of what Grodal calls as ‘cognitive
dissonance’.
Cynthia A. Freeland adapts the cognitivist approach to horror films to a
feminist point of view. She reads horror films as an assemblage of various
disturbing questions about patriarchal society and the manner in which it
runs its gender hegemony in and through institutions such as religion, sci-
ence, the law and the nuclear family. Sigmund Freud defines ‘uncanny’ as
something familiar yet foreign at the same time: ‘for this uncanny is in reality
nothing new or alien, but something which is familiar and old-established
in the mind and which has become alienated from it only through the pro-
cess of repression’ (Freud 1955: 240). Freeland relates this to the Kantian
notion of the ‘sublime’, finding similarity in the intense inner psychological
conflicts within both. Immanuel Kant describes the sublime as something
so vast and infinite that compels our mental faculties to be divided, on one
hand overwhelmed with awe, and at the same time exalted with the experi-
ence of such vastness:

For the sublime, in the strict sense of the word, cannot be con-
tained in any sensuous form, but rather concerns ideas of reason,
which, although no adequate presentation of them is possible,
may be excited and called into the mind by that very inadequacy
itself which does not admit of sensuous presentation.
(Kant 1957: 41)

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However, she points out the difference between the two: while the sublime
exhilarates, the uncanny threatens. Freeland therefore likens the uncanny
to what she calls the ‘anti-sublime’:

By contrast, the forces of the uncanny dwarf us in a way that sim-

ply threatens a dissolution of the self, meaning and morality. The
uncanny as an antisublime involves the opposite outcome of these
paradoxes or a failure to disarm them: We cannot adequately con-
ceptualize a representation, we lose our sense of self, we are fright-
ened by something unexplained, and we feel the loss of morality
or death of the self in the face of a very great evil.
(Freeland 2000: 37)

She thus explores horror films as sites of the crises (dissolution) of stereo-
typed masculinities.

Postmodernist cultural readings of horror films

Horror films have also been explored in relation to contemporary socio-
political and -cultural events, developments and crises in society. David J.
Skal examines American horror films through the cultural history of Amer-
ica, locating, for example, the origin of 1950s horror films to the different
crises that America was undergoing during that decade. Americans were
still recuperating from the global hazards caused by the Second World War,
including the threats attendant upon nuclear armament and bombings,
besides anxieties related to UFOs. Skal argues that all of these led to the
rise of not only horror films but also horror comics:

Most Americans found it easier not to face invasion/annihilation

anxieties directly; they found indirect expression in McCarthy-
ism, UFO hysteria, and, perhaps most pointedly, in the popular
medium of lurid and sensational comic books that had been grow-
ing steadily in circulation since the end of World War II.
(Skal 1993: 230)

Monsters of the 1950s, he adds, personified the gigantic monstrous nature

of the atomic bomb as well as the Cold War. He also focusses on the role of
television and media in that decade. According to him, the growth of the
media, specifically television, had led to increase in mental trauma among
those exposed to the first commercialised television screenings (in the early
1950s). Skal makes parallels between this trauma and the growing depic-
tion of the bulging eyes and brains in the horror films of those times.

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Isabel Cristina Pinedo explores the contemporary horror film from a

postmodernist perspective. The postmodern world for her is an

unstable one in which traditional (dichotomous) categories break

down, boundaries blur, institutions fall into question, Enlighten-
ment narratives collapse, the inevitability of progress crumbles,
and the master status of the universal (read male, white, moneyed,
heterosexual) subject deteriorates. Consensus in the possibility of
mastery is lost, universalizing grand theory is discredited, and the
stable, unified, coherent self acquires the status of a fiction.
(Pinedo 1997: 11)

She attempts to locate horror films within the social universe of this con-
temporary world. Asking why these films are popular, Pinedo wonders
how, if as correctly pointed out by several critics that horror films are full
of violence, this genre has such a huge fan base. She likens the experience
of watching horror films to that of a roller-coaster ride where the riders are
assured of a safe exit and this permits them to have a simulated experience
of the thrills associated with danger. This according to her is a form of
‘recreational terror’ which

provides the framework that allows viewers to pleasurably submit

to the tension and fear provoked by the highly conventionalized
spectacle of violence . . . fans derive pleasure from the genre’s
rehearsal of the fear of injury and death in a world where safety is,
in every sense of the term, a fiction.
(ibid.: 134)

This recreational terror works through the dialectic of ‘showing’ and ‘not
showing’, ‘seeing’ and ‘not seeing’. For example, the audience has a choice
of seeing or not seeing a dreadful scene. Similarly, through the solitary reac-
tion shot and the unclaimed point-of-view shot, when the scene concentrates
on the victim’s terrified reactions, the terror in the form of the monster/
supernatural is not shown. Instances like these give ample opportunity to
the viewer to claw back into the protection zone of simulated action.

Horror films and the critique of heteronormativity

An important, yet often neglected area of scholastic exploration is queer
readings of horror films. Robin Wood was one of the first film scholars
to study horror films as examples of aesthetic presentation of ‘othered’,
often ‘repressed’ sexualities, including LGBT ones. Horror films present

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an alternative to the tightly knit patriarchal ideologue of heterosexuality

through their depiction of variant sexualities. Talking about bisexuality,
Wood observes:

Bisexuality represents the most obvious and direct affront to the

principal of monogamy and its supportive romantic myth of ‘one
right person’; the homosexual impulse in both men and women
represents the most obvious threat to the norm of sexuality as
reproductive and restricted by the ideal of family.
(Wood 2002: 26)

He locates repressed homosexuality overtones behind the construction of

monsters in old horror films and interprets them as potent critiques of the
bourgeois-capitalist ideology of masculinities and femininities based on the
biological sexual differentiation.
Bonnie Zimmerman articulates the first proper analysis of the theme
of lesbianism in vampire films. She constructs a brief filmography of les-
bian vampire films since the release of Carl Dreyer’s Vampyr (1932). She
argues that most of these films project stereotypes about lesbians: ‘lesbian-
ism is sterile and morbid; lesbians are rich, decadent women who seduce
the young and powerless’ (Zimmerman 1996: 381). In fact, so strong has
been the cultural policing that Dreyer’s Vampyr – based on Joseph Sheri-
dan Le Fanu’s Carmilla (2000), a novella which recounts the story of the
countess Milarca Karnstein living eternally by vampirising young girls – has
no traces of lesbianism left in the film’s narrative. Then, some films, which
do explore lesbianism, do so more from the class perspective rather than in
terms of sexual inclination. The post-1970s female vampire film, Zimmer-
man argues, moved beyond the standard treatment of the lesbian theme:
while some stereotypes were still present, newer thematic developments
were streaming out too. She notes that the post-1970s vampire films too
had their share of problems. For example, most of these films, in their own
way, manifest stereotypical notions of lesbians as narcissists captivated in
love with their own image. She also locates a disturbing trend of linking
violence with sex in most lesbian vampire films after the 1970s.
Harry M. Benshoff argues that the horror film is the most fertile ter-
ritory for the development of non-normative queer sexualities. He notes
that there is a tendency to read those films as gay or lesbian that are either
written, produced or directed by gay or lesbian personalities even though
there might not be any overt queer plot in the film. This approach, though
not without its limitations, cannot be underrated as cinematic authorship
forms an integral part of film appreciation. The films of James Whale and
Ed Wood gain importance in this regard. He further points out that ‘a

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variation in the homo-horror auteur approach is that in which a gay or

lesbian film star (whether “actually” homosexual or culturally perceived as
such) brings his/her persona to a horror film’ (Benshoff 1997: 14). Thus,
actors like Eric Blore, Franklin Pangborn, Robert Walker, George Sander,
Judith Anderson and Greta Garbo have often been regarded as cultural
icons of queer sexualities. He also points out that different films over the
ages have portrayed queer sexualities at the subtextual or connotative level.
This has been the most popular presentation of marginalised sexualities in
almost all film genres starting from film noir to action films. The horror film
is no exception. At one level, one can argue that such presentations help in
institutionalising heteronormative hierarchy over subaltern sexualities. But
on the other hand, it becomes the most viable mode of giving voice to the
queer community without inviting state hostility. Benshoff describes it as
the most important exploration of horror films from the LGBT perspective.
This approach moves beyond the canonical straight readings of the horror
film to elicit multiple sites of queerness located within them.

The Indian context

Horror has long been one of the most obscure genres of Indian cinema in
terms of scholarly studies. But happily, this situation is now changing, and
there is a growing body of serious scholarship on horror cinema from India.
And yet, most of these academic works is largely limited to the study of
Hindi horror films. In one of the very early mentions of Indian horror films
in global scholarship, Peter Tombs explores the lack of critical recognition
of Indian horror film:

The problem in many ways lies with the term ‘horror’ itself. In
India the word carries so much baggage. To bring up the subject
in film circles is almost the same as announcing that you are a
half-wit. It just isn’t taken seriously. It conjures up images of bad
acting, lumpy faced monsters, wind machines, and the producer’s
girlfriend in a bikini. It is the equivalent of the term ‘Z movie,’ and
carries all the same negative connotations.
(Tombs 2003: 253–4)

Most of the early scholarship on Indian horror revolved primarily around

Ramsay horror films. Attempts have been made to relate these films to the
existing socio-economic conditions: ‘The political turmoil and the economic
changes at the end of the 1980s created a specific platform for fears and anxi-
eties that were articulated through the deformed monsters of the western
gothic tradition’ (Valanciunas 2011: 47). It has also been shown how

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these horror films can be read as historical material – as a moment

of Indian history when the vacuum left open by the collapse of
the ground upon which the Congress as the ideological core of
modern, secular India had built its legitimacy was being filled by
the certainties of regressive and religious ideologies. The Ramsay’s
films took off, and borrowed unashamedly from these discourses,
as they did from a range of other sources.
(Vitali 2011: 96)

Fighting against the big banner productions throughout the 1970s and
1980s, ‘the Ramsay Brothers were seen as holding out against the industry’s
march to cultural legitimacy, the profane icons of an imagined attack from
below on abstract ideas of white-collar respectability, aesthetic accomplish-
ment, and economic transparency’ (K. Nair 2012: 139). My own research
on Ramsay films explores ‘how these low-budget, intellectually discredited
films depict marginalised and forbidden issues of non-normative sexualities
such as necrophilia and incest’ (Dhusiya 2014b: 175). Interesting research
has emerged with respect to ‘Bollywood’s recent romance with the horror
genre especially in terms of the figuration of nuclear families, children and
teenagers’ (Sen 2011: 197). It has been argued that the ‘centrality of the
couple to the emergence of New Bollywood cinema is perhaps most sharply
illustrated by the way horror films were reinvented at the beginning of the
nineties’ (Gopal 2012: 91). It has also been demonstrated that the Hindi
horror genre ‘reveals three major strands with varying forms of narration
and style: the secular conscious, the traditional-cultural, and the Hindutva
ideologic, each corresponding to the way the nation has been imagined
at various times’ (Mubarki 2016: 44). But while they have offered very
interesting and persuasive accounts of various facets of Hindi horror films, a
serious comparative study of the horror film produced in various Indian lan-
guages has yet to emerge. Indian horror films, with the many unsuspected
transgressive and subversive potentials they carry, however, deserve full-
length study, and this book proposes to take up this task in a concerted way.

Indian horror films

However, for the purposes of my book, I would like to limit myself to
those Indian films which depict exclusively, at length, the fear of unknown,
supernatural elements, occult elements, communication with the spir-
its of the deceased, reincarnation, figures of vampires and zombies and
other similar transmutations of human beings into non-human forms
like werewolves. That is rather than pursue elements of horror in gen-
eral within films, I concentrate on those Indian films that make it their

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primary business to generate horripilation in their audiences. This would

also include such films which portray, to borrow a term from Tzevetan
Todorov, the ‘uncanny’. While elucidating the ‘fantastic’ in some works of
literary fiction, Todorov calls those moments fantastic when character/s
and, thus, the reader are genuinely puzzled about the occurrence of some
events in the narrative that belie the laws of the familiar world, bordering
instead on the supernatural. He describes all such narratives which end
with the acceptance of the supernatural as ‘fantastic-marvellous’. He uses
the term ‘uncanny’ to explain all such narratives which do not end with the
supernatural as a resolution.

[Instead,] events are related which may be readily accounted for by

the laws of reason, but which are, in one way or the another, incred-
ible, extraordinary, shocking, singular, disturbing or unexpected,
and which thereby provoke in the character and in the reader a reac-
tion similar to that which works of the fantastic have made familiar.
(Todorov 1975: 46)

Thus, in some narratives, we see such characters in the end realise that either
they had gone mad or they have just woken up from sleep. Such occur-
rences are also applicable to some of the film narratives which are promoted
as ‘thriller’ or ‘mystery-suspense’ films by the industry. Though Todorov
describes the generic formulations for literary work, yet some of his con-
ceptualisations are also significant for some film narratives which I seek to
employ for a detailed study of such films. The existing body of critical work
both in the Western and the Indian film scholarship would find resonance in
my book. Besides, I of course further my analysis of these primary texts with
any other theoretical or creative output that is relevant or pertinent. This
research balances theoretical generalisations with close readings of films and
discussion of figures associated with the horror genre. I focus on the narra-
tive, point of view, plot construction, setting and other technical and formal
features such as editing, lighting, sound and costumes that play an instru-
mental role in shaping and defining gender within the film.
By Indian cinema, I focus in the main upon films in Hindi, Malayalam,
Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada, in most of which a signifi-
cant corpus worthy of closer analysis exists.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines horror as ‘an intense feeling of
fear, shock or disgust’. Etymologically, the word ‘horror’ can be traced back
to the Middle English horrour or the Latin horrere or the twelfth-century
French word horreur. In Latin, the word horrere means to ‘bristle; shudder;
dread; shrink from’. The French word horreur signifies ‘awful; loathing’. In
Sanskrit, the word harsate meaning ‘bristles’ bears a close resemblance to

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horror, while bhibatsa more generally signified the horrific; while in Hindi,
the corresponding words are darr and vibhishika, in Malayalam bhayankar-
athwam, in Telugu bhayamu and in Bangla atankajanita kampan. The term
‘monstrous’ in the title of this book, The Indian Horror Cinema: (En)gen-
dering the Monstrous, carries with it a host of associations including evil,
ugliness, viciousness, wickedness, hate, the horrible, the dreadful, the brutal
and the cruel, besides dislike, apprehension or even abnormality. The phrase
‘engendering the monstrous’, seen in this light, would signify the creation
of the horrific effects of the monstrous within the horror film. However,
I tap another meaning that engendering suggests by my use of parenthesis:
(en)gendering can work as a mode of interrogation to examine the grammar
of the sexual and gendered politics that the evocation and production of the
monstrous in Indian horror films is underwritten by. The engendering, that
is the production, of the monstrous in the horror film can be interrogated to
better study the potent agential role that (en)gendering, that is the normali-
sation or routinisation of gendered identities, has to impart and impose a set
of values that creates and conditions our perceptions, beliefs and attitudes
towards the target object/s the monstrosities of the films signify. I propose
that in Indian horror films, this normalisation of gender emerges as a major
force to reckon with as the plot gains impetus from the focalisation of this
agency through a monster (actual or psychological). This book explores
how different constitutive processes operating within a community – social,
political, economic, religious, psychological and cultural – act through this
agential monstrosity, so that it manifests itself finally in the construction of
‘normal’ femininities and masculinities. These hegemonic femininities and
masculinities, in turn, resist the growth of alternative gender and sexuality
discourses. In this sense, the adjective monstrous is not passive but active.
It actively genders the sensibilities of the characters within the film, the pro-
duction cast and crew as well as the intended audience.

The Indian horror film industries

Hindi horror
The late 1940s–1960s, often considered as the golden period of Hindi
cinematic history, saw the release of some unforgettable horror films like
Mahal, Bees Saal Baad (dir. Biren Nag, 1962) and Gumnaam (dir. Raja
Nawathe, 1965). While Bees Saal Baad portrays the uncanny, Gumnaam
was the first instance of slasher films in Indian cinema. The next wave
of Hindi horror films surfaced in the mid-1970s with Rajkumar Kohli’s
Nagin (1976) and Jaani Dushman based on human-to-animal transforma-
tion themes. This decade, along with the next, records a prolific number

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of horror films produced in Hindi. This was the time when foreign horror
films started circulating in the Indian market. Films like Jadu Tona (dir.
Ravikant Nagaich, 1977) and Gehrayee (dir. Vikas Desai and Aruna Raje,
1980) were heavily inspired from The Exorcist and other possession films.
It was also the time of the Ramsay Brothers productions which so strongly
dominated Hindi horror industry that most people even today identify
Indian horror films through Ramsay films. They defined the Bollywood B
movie genre with films like Sannata (dir. Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ram-
say, 1981), Purana Mandir (dir. Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay, 1984)
and Veerana (dir. Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay, 1988). A typical Ram-
say film would be a low-budget, mediocre star-cast vampire/monster fare
drawing heavily upon Hollywood and other European horror film conven-
tions, with the rural hinterland of India as its target audience. Due to rela-
tively low cost of productions, these films would not only be able to recover
their expenditure quickly, but also make profit at the same time. They were
never a part of mainstream Hindi cinema, with their focus primarily on the
B-category audience. Mohan Bhakri and Kanti Shah directed C-grade hor-
ror films also flooded the market during the 1980s and 1990s. These films
dished out a mix of horror and soft-core porn films.
The 1990s witnessed efforts made by the film industry to make horror
a part of mainstream Hindi cinema. Ram Gopal Varma’s Raat (1992) and
Mahesh Bhatt’s Junoon (1992) point towards this direction. While Raat
was a possession film, Junoon belonged to the category of werewolf films.
Unfortunately, horror films could not make sufficient inroads in the decade
that was dominated by family-centric romantic films like Hum Aapke Hain
Kaun. . . ! (dir. Sooraj R. Barjatya, 1994) and Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge
(dir. Aditya Chopra, 1995) in the early half and gangster films like Satya
(dir. Ram Gopal Varma, 1998) in the later half. The 2000s brought joy to
horror film lovers, as many films like Raaz (dir. Vikram Bhatt, 2002), Bhoot
(dir. Ram Gopal Varma, 2003), Darna Mana Hai (dir. Prawaal Raman,
2003) and Darna Zaroori Hai (dir. Ram Gopal Varma, Sajid Khan, Prawaal
Raman, Jiji Philip, Manish Gupta and J.D. Chakravarthy, 2006) made good
profits in the mainstream Hindi film market. Of late, with films like Go Goa
Gone (dir. Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K., 2013), Ragini MMS 2 (dir.
Bhushan Patel, 2014) and 1920 London (dir. Tinu Suresh Desai, 2016),
Hindi horror films are perhaps enjoying their best phase with a prolific
number flooding the market each year.

Malayalam horror
The Malayalam film industry is the second largest horror film producing
market in India after the Hindi film industry. Ranging from moderate

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to big productions, Malayalam horror films have managed to attract big

names like Prem Nazir, Madhu, Kamal Hassan, Mohanlal, Mammootty,
Suresh Gopi and Jayaram over the years. Bhargavi Nilayam is generally
regarded as the first Malayalam horror film. The film starred Prem Nazir
and Madhu, two all-time big stars of Malayalam cinema. It was also the
debut film of A. Vincent, who was to become one of the most popular
cinematographers and directors of both Malayalam and Hindi films. Lit-
erature played a major role in the evolution of Malayalam cinema in the
1950s and 1960s. Bhargavi Nilayam was adapted from a collage of Vai-
kom Muhammed Basheer’s writings, primarily his short story ‘Neela Veli-
cham’. The film depicts a compassionate relationship between a talented
novelist and the spirit of a beautiful lady who had been murdered. The
novelist is writing the story of this lady, into whose house he has moved
in as tenant. The film mirrors in a meta-cinematic fashion the close and
often symbiotic relationships between Malayalam filmmakers and writers
in depicting a writer at work, collaborating with an intangible agency in
the form of the eponymous Bhargavi.
The late 1970s saw the rise of horror films like Lisa (dir. Baby, 1978),
Vayanadan Thampan (dir. A. Vincent, 1978) and Kalliyankattu Neeli
(dir. M. Krishnan Nair, 1979), which were based on ancient myths and
folklores of Kerala. The decade of the 1970s is considered to be the dec-
ade of modernity in Malayalam cinema with the division between the ‘art’
(kala) and the ‘popular’ (kachavada) cinema, conveniently the binary of
‘high’ and ‘low’ films, becoming explicit in market terms. Horror films
like Vayanadan Thampan and Kalliyankattu Neeli cut across these dif-
ferent categorisations as they utilise the vast richness of Malayali folklores
and myths to interpret the workings of the modern mind. Taking several
contemporary European and American treatments of the horror genre as
precedent, these films combine horror and melodrama to explore the sub-
terranean desires of human psyche. In the 1980s, Malayalam horror films
began exploring the occult and tantric practices of Kerala. Thus, Mohan-
lal in Sreekrishna Parunthu (dir. A. Vincent, 1984) and Mammootty in
Adharvam (dir. Dennis Joseph, 1989) lent their superstar charm to cin-
ematic explorations of these mystic tantric rituals. The focus of these films
would inevitably be the male protagonist. But this was nothing new in
the history of Malayalam films as P.K. Nair rightly questions the paucity
of women-oriented films in Malayalam cinema: ‘Where are the women’s
films?’ (Nair 2010: 36). It has been pointed out that

Femininity is also marked by its isolation from its own gender,

especially in the last three decades of Malayalam cinema, which
has seen a gradual diminishment in the roles given to female

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protagonists, a diminishment that may be said to have begun in

the 1970s. Through the last three decades in particular, Malay-
alam cinema has proved to be stringently conservative in its rep-
resentations of femininity, belying its reputation for radicalism
among regional cinemas.
(Rajendran 2015: 23)

Jenny Rowena observes that these films are very much steeped in norma-
tive enough masculinities in their denial of space for the representation of
femininities:

The non-hegemonic male grouping avoided the path to real and

radical change, choosing instead to create a cinema to play out
their own masculinities – to become kings without crowns. Thus
was born a cinema saturated with aggressive masculine values,
inspiring non-hegemonic male locations to obsessively seek the
same male identities that culture denied them.
(2010: 148)

In contrast, horror films of the 1990s like Manichitrathazhu (dir. Fazil,

1993) and Ennu Swantham Janakikutty (dir. T. Hariharan, 1998) pro-
vide ample scope for wider representations of feminine subjectivities. These
films depict a sensitive portrayal of feminine protagonists – a trend that
continues even in the 2000s with the exploration of female adolescence in
films like Kana Kanmani (dir. Akku Akbar, 2009) and Winter (dir. Deepu
Karunakaran, 2009). ‘Horror narratives can expose the patriarchal male
hegemonic discourse of demonising female sexuality’ (Nair 2013). Recent
horror film made in Malayalam has tended to experiment with its form –
the portmanteau film in Kerala Cafe (dir. Lal Jose, 2009), comedy in In
Ghost House Inn (dir. Lal, 2010) or the 3D digital technology in Dracula
3D (dir. Vinayan, 2012) – hitherto unseen in the history of Malayalam
horror cinema.

Bangla horror
Horror films have never been a very popular genre with the Bengali film
industry. But what makes the exploration of these films such a rewarding
experience is the fact that some of the best brains behind the rise of the
modern Bengali literature and films like Premendra Mitra, Satyajit Ray and
Tapan Sinha were involved in the making of these films. Mitra wrote and
directed Hanabari (1952), Ray directed Teen Kanya (1961; a collection
of three short films, one of which, Monihara, has elements of horror) and

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Sinha directed Khudito Pashan (1960). It is significant to note however

that none of these films were promoted as horror films. Yet, it would be
very unfair not to read these films as examples of the horror genre as they
incorporate legibly the components of a typical horror film. Then Bengali
horror films also help in identifying certain key phases that define the meta-
history of Bengali cinema. One such phase is the time when Kankal (dir.
Naresh Mitra, 1950) was released. It was the first horror film released in the
Bengali language. It was also the first time in the history of Indian cinema
that one saw the skeleton of a dead woman in a non-mythological setting
coming to life and killing a human protagonist. This was a difficult period
for the Bengali film industry. The advent of talkie cinema had proved to be
more of a bane than boon for Bengali films as they started losing out on the
pan-Indian audience. For some years, the industry kept churning out films
in both Bengali and Hindi, and sometimes also in Tamil and Telugu. But
the 1940s proved to be a very turbulent phase with mass exodus of skilled
artists and technicians to the more lucrative offers of the rapidly prospering
Bombay. In fact, this trend started in the 1930s itself:

Thus in this race of business superiority, Bombay may maintain its

lead over Bengal for some time to come, unless Bengal is up and
doing to keep its best artists and talented technicians from off the
grip of the Bombay producers . . . Bombay studios know the mar-
keting of the films all over India, much better than the Calcutta
studios. Excepting the New Theatres, whose publicity organisa-
tion is much more perfect than any other studio of India, all the
other Calcutta studios suffer very seriously from improper public-
ity organisation and the exploitation side of the films is practically
at nil compared to the Bombay studios.
(Ghose 1993: 41)

Kankal was the product of experimentation with the contemporary form of

the film by an industry that was eager to come out of this troubled phase.
This film moves beyond the rigid generic classifications as it combines mel-
odrama with horror. Another film which reflects this experimentation is
Mitra’s Hanabari. Originally written as a crime-suspense detective thriller,
the film can arguably be seen as the precursor of the werewolf-themed hor-
ror film in India.
The period stretching from the mid-1950s to mid-1970s is generally
considered to be the golden period in the history of Bengali cinema. Suchi-
tra Sen and Uttam Kumar were undoubtedly one of the most successful
leading couples in the history of Indian cinema. In film after film, this
iconic film duo took Bengali melodrama to newer heights altogether. In

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fact, they ceased to be mere on-screen performers and instead became cul-
tural icons of the Bengali society:

In its historical context, the romantic mystery of the Suchitra-

Uttam starrers presented a fictional resolution to the crisis of the
Bengali striving to be a middle class, i.e., trying to survive in an
urban context with a rural past still alive in memory and in a net-
work of social relations.
(Nag 1998: 780)

This was also the time when people like Ray and Sinha established newer
paradigms for Bengali as well as pan-Indian cinema aesthetics. This rural–
urban interconnection that Dulali Nag talks about is also explored through
the realist non-melodrama modes of Ray and Sinha films. For example,
Sinha’s Khudito Pashan depicts the story of a city-bred tax collector who is
shifted to a rural area where he encounters the ghost of a beautiful lady in
a haunted mansion. Horror in this case becomes the focal point of interac-
tion between rural and urban discourses of habitation. Ray’s Teen Kanya
examines the gender equations of those times in a way that is very different
from the mainstream portrayal of love in Suchitra–Uttam starrers. Horror
becomes the centre of attention as Monihara oscillates between assertion
of feminine independence and crises of masculinities. Tarun Majumdar’s
Kuheli (1971) foregrounds the role of the female protagonist who uncov-
ers the murder mystery in the film through the presentation of the uncanny.
Bengali films in the 1980s and 1990s, with few exceptions here and
there, plunged into an all-time low with considerable degradation of cin-
ematic aesthetics.

Most of the big stars and performers of yesteryear had either died
or retired from active participation in the industry. The new up-
coming stars were no match for their illustrious predecessors.
Some very able film personalities like Goutam Ghosh, Rituparno
Ghosh and Aparna Sen were making meaningful cinema but had
to contend with the deluge of Bengali films modelling themselves
on the styles of Bombay films.
(Biswas 2013)

In fact, so fierce was the competition from Bombay that Bengali cinema
had to find newer territories:

With Calcutta’s middle-class favouring hindi films, or turning away

from the film theatres to television, the industry was beginning to

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look at other audiences for its primary viewership. In this period,

therefore, the industry reached out to the lesser sectors of the film
market, and aggressively targeted the rural hinterland.
(Gooptu 2010: 265)

Horror films like Karoti (dir. Ajoy Banerjee, 1988) and Nishi Trishna (dir.
Parimal Bhattacharya, 1989) produced during these turbulent types were
overtly sexualised in their depiction of horrific themes and styles. Nishi
Trishna, for example, introduces the figure of Dracula to Bengali cinema.
One can see Bengali horror films now beginning to be heavily influenced
with Hindi and foreign horror productions – a trend that continues even
in the 2000s. Films like Raat Barota Paanch (dir. Saran Dutta, 2005)
continue with this aesthetic commoditisation of sex and horror. Of late,
Bengali theatres have seen some aesthetically pleasing and commercially
successful horror films like Bhooter Bhabishyat (dir. Anik Dutta, 2012) and
Goynar Baksho (dir. Aparna Sen, 2013).

Marathi horror
Marathi cinema had pioneered the art of filmmaking and film production
in the pre-independent India. However, the Marathi film industry arguably
took a beating with the emergence of films produced in Hindi/Urdu dia-
lects post-independence. This resulted into many filmmakers leaving Mar-
athi films to make Hindi films. Marathi film industry never recovered after
that. Further, in the 1960s, the Maharashtra government exempted stage
plays from entertainment tax: ‘With the tax-exemptions on stage shows,
the Marathi films lost the patronage of the educated middle class, which
thronged to see new plays while the urban mass audience preferred East-
mancolor Hindi films to black and white Marathi films’ (Sathe 1985: 432).
Erosion in the numbers of films produced in Marathi had a direct adverse
impact in the development of Marathi horror. The producers, actors and
everybody else associated with Marathi filmmaking did not want to take
undue risk with the horror genre. Instead, they kept on churning films in
the tried-and-tested formulae of the social and the mythological. Thus, it
is no surprise that when we explore the early years of Marathi cinematic
history after the independence, only two horror films come to mind: Vahi-
ninchya Bangdya (dir. Shantaram Athavle, 1953) and Pathlag (dir. Raja Par-
anjpe, 1964). Rural Maharashtra emerged as the primary target audience of
the post-independence Marathi cinema (P. Nair 2012). The films began to
idealise rural life and focussed on the recreational aspects of the villagers.
One of the offshoots of such a phenomenon was the development of the
sub-genre of horror-comedy. Horror films like Ha Khel Savalyancha (dir.

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Vasant Joglekar, 1976) are deeply rooted in the village life of Maharashtra.
As a result of the development of the new-wave cinema, one sees Mani Kaul
experimenting with horror in Duvidha (1973), which later inspired Amol
Palekar with his Hindi production Paheli (2005). A series of horror films
in 1980s onwards like Ek Daav Bhutacha (dir. Ravi Namade, 1982) and
Bhutacha Bhau (dir. Sachin, 1989) articulate their socio-political critique of
contemporary Maharashtrian life through comedy sometimes bordering on
the slapstick. Most of these films replicate on-screen the dramatic conven-
tions of tamasha theatre with the compulsory lavani songs providing the
erotic component. Lavani is a traditional folk dance and song performed by
women to the enchanting beats of a dholak. It originated in Maharashtra
and southern Madhya Pradesh in the mid-sixteenth century. The erotic
element in lavani besides being a socio-political critique is also meant to
empower voices of femininity as G.M. Pawar observes:

The main subject matter of the Lavani is the love between man
and woman in various forms. Married wife’s menstruation, sexual
union between husband and wife, their love, soldier’s amorous
exploits, the wife’s bidding farewell to the husband who is going
to join the war, pangs of separation, adulterous love – the intensity
of adulterous passion, childbirth: these are all different themes
of the Lavani (sic). The Lavani poet out-steps the limits of social
decency and control when it comes to the depiction of sexual
passion.
(1997: 375)

Films like Pachadlela facilitate new dimensions to lavani singers who are
given prominent space in the narratives. Soundarya Jawalkar (Megha
Ghatge), the main actress in the tamasha troupe in the film, plays the love
interest of Bharat (Bharat Jadhav), one of the chief protagonists, who is
prone to being possessed.

Tamil horror
As with some film cultures in India, horror films are not self-evident
categories in Tamil cinema. While Hindi, Malayalam and Marathi film
industries have at least engaged with horror at some level in the early
post-independence period, Tamil cinema does not have a long history of
producing horror films. Though early folkloric films like Vedala Ulagam
(dir. A.V. Meiyappan, 1948) can be considered to be precursors of the
genre of horror, there were hardly any films till the late 1980s that could
be classified as straight horror cinema. A few odd exceptions like Nenjam

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Marappathillai (dir. Sridhar, 1963) dealt with the theme of reincarnation,

while films like Neeya (dir. Durai, 1979) were Tamil remakes of the Hindi
films like Nagin. Several reasons could be attributed to this lack of horror
production. According to Theodore Baskaran (2012), the horror genre
works best when fear, the dominant emotion in most horror films, is main-
tained till the very end without the digression into the song-and-dance
tropes that so strongly characterise Tamil cinema right from its inception.
This is one reason why the Tamil film fraternity has generally been sceptical
of this genre and avoided it. The Tamil film industry, unlike others, had
always witnessed a heavy influx of direct participation of political ideas,
political parties and political stars: ‘This melding of capital, artistry, ideol-
ogy, technical expertise, and ethnic identity produced a powerful political
product, one more specific and personal than its Bombay Hindi language
counterpart could have afforded to make’ (Jacob 2010: 91). Since horror
has always been an unpredictable genre in terms of popularity and commer-
cial success, the Tamil film producers had traditionally been averse to make
such risky ventures. More often than not, film stars who also had simultane-
ously flourishing political careers would also decline acting in horror films.
A very crucial element in most Tamil films is the emphasis on the depiction
of a particular type of masculinity:

As for demonstrations of physical strength, the cinema permits

and extols the strong. The powerful hero, single-handedly defeat-
ing numerous people, is again not an uncommon sequence to
behold in Tamil cinema. . . . Physical prowess is intrinsically lined
with masculinity.
(Kalyanaraman 2010: 101)

Further, this type of masculinity becomes a natural ally of the inexhaustible

patriarchal dominion and patronage of the female characters in the narra-
tive: ‘these stars cannot indulge in romance without maintaining, as a sup-
plementary feature of their subjectivity, a paternal function which extends
to all characters in the film, including the heroine’ (Prasad 2004: 108).
Horror films, as this book shows, deconstruct the normative masculinity
and in the process generates spaces for female autonomy, though not com-
pletely non-negotiated. Thus, most big male film stars, conscious of their
appeal, would largely avoid doing horror films. However, things changed
in the late 1980s–2000s when certain films like My Dear Lisa (dir. Baby,
1987), Uruvam (dir. G.M. Kumar, 1991), Sivi (dir. K.R. Senthil Nathan,
2007) and Eeram (dir. Arivazhagan Venkatachalam, 2009), more faith-
ful to the genre, began addressing B-movie audiences. This seems to be
very much a post-globalisation phenomenon: ‘Since the 1990s, with the

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liberalisation of the Indian economy and the rise of an Indian middle class,
Tamil cinema has shifted its orientation towards tapping into the sensi-
bilities and taste cultures of this new film audience’ (Velayutham 2008: 4).
This explains to a large extent emergence and success of films like Yavarum
Nalam (dir. Vikram Kumar, 2009). Some films were commercially very
successful, while others sank without a trace.

Telugu horror
Like Tamil cinema, Telugu cinema too does not boast of a long history of
horror films though filmmakers like B. Vittalacharya and Yandamuri Veer-
endranath were dedicated to making fantasy, folkloric, mystical and hor-
ror films. Telugu cinema also has been dominated by political parties and
political stars. As discussed above in the context of Tamil cinema, political
stars would seldom take the risk of alienating public appeal and thus would
largely steer away from horror films. In the 1960s and 1970s, Vittalacharya
made films like Lakshmi Kataksham (1970) and Jaganmohini (1978) which
were very popular especially with B-movie audiences, inaugurating a new
trend in the Telugu film industry which up to that point had consistently
churned out socials (Kanala 1986). In the 1980s and 1990s, Veerendranath
wrote films like Kashmora (1986) as well as directed films such as Tulasi
Dalam (1995) that revolved around the occult and the supernatural. These
again were a hit with B-movie audiences: ‘Veerendranath was a prolific
suspense and horror novel writer and had a mass following. This popularity
and mass following readily translated into commercial success when films
based on his writings were released’ (Akella 2012). But it will be useful to
note over here that the big Telugu film stars still shied away from horror.
The situation changed, not only for horror but also for the entire Telugu
film industry, with the arrival of Ram Gopal Varma and Mani Rathnam.
‘Post-Varma and Mani Rathnam, we notice a more or less complete transi-
tion into genre films, even if these films display interesting degrees of differ-
ence from their equivalents in non-Indian Industries’ (Srinivas 2009: 191).
Horror films benefitted greatly from this trend. The twenty-first century
saw a flurry of commercially successful horror films like A Film by Ara-
vind (dir. Shekhar Suri, 2005), Mantra (dir. Osho Tulasi Ram, 2007) and
Arundhati (dir. Kodi Ramakrishnan, 2009). Telugu cinema can now boast
of some serious production of films based on horror and suspense.

Kannada horror
Kannada cinematic history has even more limited productions of horror
films. The surviving records show that Kannada horror films can best be

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described as one-popular-film-each-decade phenomenon. If Naa Ninna

Bidalaare (dir. Vijay, 1979) captured popular imagination at the very fag
end of the 1970s, Tulasi Dala (dir. Vemagal Jagannath Rao, 1985) became
the talk of the town in the mid-1980s. The Upendra Rao directed Shhh!
(1993) was critically acclaimed in the 1990s and it started the trend of
the suspense-thriller films in Kannada. The 2000s saw productions of hor-
ror films like Apthamitra (dir. P. Vasu, 2004) and Aptharakshaka (dir. P.
Vasu, 2010) that won several Filmfare awards at the national level. M.K.
Raghavendra (2011: 155–156) argues that most horror films in Kannada
cinema focalise horror around issues of marriage and region. Thus, Naa
Ninna Bidalaare depicts ‘threat to endogamy from the cosmopolitan city’.
In Apthamitra, he continues, ‘there is an attempt to turn Telugu into an
exotic yet threatening cultural object’. There have been more prolific pro-
ductions of horror films in Kannada language in the 2010s as is evident with
the release of films like Yaaradu? (dir. Srinivas Kaushik, 2012), Charulatha
(dir. Pon Kumaran, 2012), 12 AM Madhyarathri (dir. Karthik, 2013) and
6–5=2 (dir. K.S. Ashoka and Swarna Latha, 2013). Though the number of
horror films produced annually are few, it is to be seen relatively as Kan-
nada film industry itself is quite small compared to the Hindi, Malayalam
or Tamil film industries.

Typologies for Indian horror films

This book classifies horror films in India into the following sub-genres:

Possession/occult films: I use this term to include those horror films

that depict the possession of protagonist/s by malevolent supernatu-
ral beings. Under their spell, the victim gains superhuman strength
while showing distortions of facial structure and drastic changes
in vocal intonation. The victim loses control over his/herself and
starts wreaking havoc on people around. The victim is finally cured
through elaborate rites of exorcism. Films like the Hindi Gehrayee
and the Malayalam Veendum Lisa (dir. Baby, 1987) exemplify these
characteristics. Sometimes, the supernatural being might not be
malevolent at all, but merely uses the human body as a medium
to extract revenge from its rapists/killers. Such films can also be
regarded as rape-revenge horror films. Films like the Marathi Akal-
pit (dir. Sanjay Surkar, 2004) typify such a category. Then in some
films like the Malayalam Tanthra (dir. K.J. Bose, 2006), different
occult-related ritual practices and tantric mysteries are explored. The
conflict between ‘white’ and ‘black’ magic becomes the focal point
of such films. In Chapter 1, I argue that possession/occult horror

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films reveal how narratives of the exploitation of the body are fun-
damentally linked to the socio-political and -cultural structures of
exploitation. In my exploration of the Hindi Gehrayee and Bhoot, the
Malayalam Chemistry (dir. Viji Thampi, 2009), the Tamil Pillai Nila
(dir. Manobala, 1985) and the Telugu Arundhati, I show how the
masculinist economy of possession narratives violate the autonomy of
both the female and ‘less’ normative masculinities.
Vampire films: By ‘vampire films’, I mean those Indian films that bor-
row heavily from Western discourses of vampires, such as those
embedded in the ‘Dracula’ story. Typically, the story in such films
begins in an ancient mansion which is shown to be haunted by a
vampire. As is usual with all vampire narratives, the vampire is asleep
during the day and wakes up only at night. Basically, it is portrayed
as a blood-thirsty monster that craves for the blood of young nubile
girls and kills any male figures that try to pose obstacles. Films like
the Bengali Nishi Trishna and the Hindi Purani Haveli (dir. Shyam
Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay, 1989) fit this category. It is important
to note that although heavily influenced by Western vampire films,
such films are nevertheless suitably wedded to Indian culture. In
Chapter 2, I discuss the development of this sub-genre and study
the Hindi Purana Mandir and Bandh Darwaza (dir. Shyam Ramsay
and Tulsi Ramsay, 1990), the Malayalam Vayanadan Thampan and
Dracula 3D, and the Bangla Nishi Trishna. In the chapter, I show
how the figure of the vampire can be read as signifiers of sociological
and non-normative sexual anxieties.
Animal transformation horror films: Unlike Western werewolf hor-
ror films which limit themselves to humans transforming into wolves
and vice versa, Indian werewolf films incorporate transformation of
human beings into other animal forms. Thus, Jaani Dushman shows
the human protagonist getting transformed into a Godzilla-like fig-
ure. In the Telugu film Punnami Naagu (dir. Rajasekhar, 1980),
Naagalu (Chiranjeevi) gets transformed into a snake every Punnami
(i.e. full moon night). Mahesh Bhatt directed Junoon (1992) depicts
the transformation of a human being into a tiger. This category of
horror films draws its source from Indian folktales and folklores quite
apart from the Western werewolf conventions. I organise the con-
stituents of this sub-genre in Chapter 3 where I have made detailed
discussion on Nagin, Nagina (dir. Harmesh Malhotra, 1986), Hisss
(dir. Jennifer Lynch, 2010), Punnami Naagu, Jaani Dushman and
Junoon. In the chapter, I have shown how human-to-animal trans-
formation films can be categorised into man-to-animal and woman-
to-animal transformation films. I argue that while woman-to-animal

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transformation horror films articulate narratives of reciprocal gender

negotiations, man-to-animal transformation horror films express cri-
ses of masculinities.
Zombies and witches horror films: As the title suggests, this category
belongs exclusively to witches and zombies. Of late, some Hindi
films like Kaalo (dir. Wilson Louis, 2010) and Ragini MMS 2 have
been portraying witches as supernatural agencies disrupting the nor-
mal existence of human beings. Though witches in minor roles have
always been present in Indian horror films, their metamorphosis
into central characters is something very new. Zombies too, hith-
erto unknown to Indian cinemas, play a major part in films like the
Telugu Deyyam (dir. Ram Gopal Varma, 1996) and Go Goa Gone.
In Chapter 4, I discuss the evolution of this sub-genre as I exam-
ine the Hindi Ragini MMS 2, Rise of the Zombie (dir. Luke Kenny
and Devaki Singh, 2013), Go Goa Gone and Kaalo. In the chapter,
I have shown how zombies and witches articulate the ‘excesses’ of
the globalised modernity and these films very consciously critique the
gendered stereotypes associated with these archetypal horror figures.
Horror-comedy: This sub-genre of horror films belongs primarily to
the Marathi film industry. Since the 1980s, Marathi cinema has been
churning out this unique combination of comedy and horror. Films
like Bhutacha Bhau and Pachadlela portray a good ghost trying to
save a naive and honest protagonist from the clutches of worldly
tyrants. Zapatlela (dir. Mahesh Kothare, 1993) inspired by the Hol-
lywood ‘Chucky’ series shows the spirit of a notorious smuggler
entering into a doll and causing mayhem around. Of late, Malay-
alam cinema has also produced its version of horror-comedy in the
form of In Ghost House Inn. Chapter 5 elaborates on the develop-
ment of this sub-genre through a discussion of Pachadlela, Zapa-
tlela, the Tamil Kanchana: Muni 2 (dir. Raghava Lawrence, 2011),
the Bangla Bhooter Bhabishyat and the Hindi Chamatkar (dir. Rajiv
Mehra, 1992). The chapter establishes how horror and comedy align
together to produce narratives of dissidence at the level of the indi-
vidual and the society.
Psychological/uncanny/slasher films: Borrowing from Todorov’s
definition of ‘uncanny’, I have included in this category certain films
which in the beginning arouses the ‘fantastic’ within the viewer’s
mind only to negate the existence of any horror component towards
the end of the film. Thus, the Malayalam Manichitrathazhu first
shows a woman who is supposedly possessed by a spirit but in the end
she is diagnosed with a psychological illness. Similarly, Biren Nag’s
Hindi film Bees Saal Baad (1962) shows the male protagonist being

33
 I ntroduction

haunted by an apparition for a major part of the film only to resolve

as murder-intrigue in the end. This category of films would also
include slasher films like Sssshhh . . . (dir. Pawan Kaul, 2003) show-
ing a murderer on a killing spree. In all these films, the plot gains
impetus from the supposed existence of supernatural elements. Take
away these elements and the film does not exist. The last sub-genre
is examined in Chapter 6 through a detailed exploration of Man-
ichitrathazhu, Akam (dir. Shalini Usha Nair, 2013), Woh Kaun Thi?
(dir. Raj Khosla, 1964) and Hanabari. The use of the ‘uncanny’,
I argue, creates spaces for articulating masculine anxieties and unful-
filled female desires.

34
 1
THE MASCULINIST
ECONOMY OF POSSESSION
NARRATIVES

When one comes across any mention of horror cinema, a series of images
usually cluster in the mind – ghost, young female, possession, exorcist,
occult rituals, eerie sounds like the creaking door and banging window
panes, dark images like dark stormy nights and dead girl’s spirit in the mir-
ror. Contextualising horror in Indian cinema, perhaps the most daunting as
well as enduring horror image, is that of the central protagonist, usually a
young girl, possessed by an evil spirit. While horror films produced in India
exhibit several sub-genres, the focus of this chapter is the ‘possession/
occult’ films which undoubtedly are the most popular and in some quarters
considered to be the more ‘authentic’ horror cinema. I use the term ‘pos-
session/occult’ to include those horror films that depict the possession of
central protagonist/s by supernatural beings. Such films typically depict
the victim, under the spell of possession, gaining superhuman strength
and undergoing distortions of facial structure and drastic changes in vocal
intonation. The victim loses control over his/herself and starts wreaking
havoc on people around. Finally, the victim is cured through the elaborate
rites of occult exorcism. Sometimes, the supernatural being might not be
malevolent at all, but merely uses the human body as a medium to extract
revenge from its rapists/killers. Then in some films, the site of possession
is not the human body but a puppet/doll. In most of these films, differ-
ent occult-related ritual practices and tantric mysteries are explored. The
conflict between ‘white’ and ‘black’ magic becomes the focal point of such
films. There has been prolific production of possession/occult horror films
in Indian film industries. Hindi films like Jadu Tona (dir. Ravikant Nagaich,
1977), Gehrayee (dir. Vikas Desai and Aruna Raje, 1980), Mangalsutra
(dir. Vijay B., 1981), Raat (dir. Ram Gopal Varma, 1992), Papi Gudia (dir.
Lawrence D’Souza, 1996), Aks (dir. Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, 2001),
Raaz (dir. Vikram Bhatt, 2002), Bhoot (dir. Ram Gopal Varma, 2003),
1920 (dir. Vikram Bhatt, 2008), Phoonk (dir. Ram Gopal Varma, 2008)
and Raaz: The Mystery Continues (dir. Mohit Suri, 2009) have dominated

35
M asculinist economy of possession narratives

the landscape of Hindi horror cinema. This sub-genre is equally popular

in Malayalam cinema with productions like Lisa (dir. Baby, 1978), Veen-
dum Lisa (dir. Baby, 1987), Akash Ganga (dir. Vinayan, 1999), Vellinnak-
shatram (dir. Vinayan, 2004), Moonnamathoral (dir. V.K. Prakash, 2006),
Kana Kanmani (dir. Akku Akbar, 2009), Chemistry (dir. Viji Thampi,
2009) and Manthrikan (dir. Anil, 2012). Possession/occult horror films
are also produced in other film industries like the Bangla Putuler Protishodh
(dir. Rabi Kinagi, 1998) and Mantra (dir. Rabiranjan Maitra, 2005), Kan-
nada Naa Ninna Bidalaare (dir. Vijay, 1979) and Yaaradu? (dir. Srini-
vasa Kaushik, 2009), Telugu Kashmora (dir. S.B. Chakravarthy, 1986) and
Aa Intlo (dir. Chinna, 2009) and the Marathi Akalpit (dir. Sanjay Surkar,
2004). This chapter focusses mainly on Gehrayee, Bhoot, Chemistry, Pillai
Nila (dir. Manobala, 1985) and Yaaradu?.
Possession/occult horror films are a very distinctive category amongst
several sub-genres of Indian horror cinema. Unlike the ‘vampire’ sub-genre,
the spirits occupying the human/inanimate object are not eternally undead
who subsist by feeding on the blood of the living. The spirits in these films
are here for a limited duration and for a specific purpose. Either they want
to extract revenge from their killer/s or they are sent by an evil exorcist
to cause mayhem in the lives of their intended target/s. Usually, vampires
are evil entities by themselves who do not need to possess any target body.
Unlike vampires who sleep during the day and wake up only at night to ter-
rorise their human counterparts, the spirits in the possession/occult horror
films can operate at any point of the day and as such are not afraid of the
sunlight. Spirit/occult possession horror films are also very different from
the werewolf or any such animal transformation films for the obvious reason
that there is no animal–human or human–animal transformation in these
films. Therianthropy via shape-shifting is a different phenomenon when
compared to the act of possession. Shape-shifting involves a sense of decep-
tion as the observer is hardly aware of the personality of the experiencer till
the physiological or psychological mask falls off. But in the act of possession,
there is a real, if temporary, change in the identity and the personality of the
experiencer, which is immediately revealed to the observer (Smith 2009:
199). In most animal transformation films, if not all, the setting is either
rural or forest landscape. However, the setting in possession/occult horror
films can be rural, urban, forest or all the three too. Most possession/occult
horror films also differ greatly from the ones centring on non-vampire
monsters, ghosts, demons, witches and zombies. Non-vampire monsters,
ghosts, demons, witches and zombies do not require a host body to inhabit
unlike the spirits in possession/occult horror films. These monsters, ghosts,
demons and witches are not always immortal like the vampires, but never-
theless essentially qualify as negative categories. Spirits in possession/occult

36
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The only drawback to Beryl's happiness at this time was the thought of the governess, of
whom mention had been made. Beryl fancied that a governess must of necessity be a
disagreeable, cross-looking individual, who would feel it to be her duty to restrict their
pleasures, and scold and punish them as much as possible. She disliked the thought of her
coming. Beryl was beginning to be sensible of her need of instruction, for she had
discovered that Coral, though two years younger, could read and write better, and knew a
great deal more than herself; but she could not regard a governess otherwise than as a
necessary evil.

It was a relief to her to find that her father's letters contained no allusion to his purpose of
seeking a governess, and she began to hope that he had forgotten all about it, and for the
present, they might enjoy unrestrainedly the delights of life at Egloshayle.

CHAPTER IX
A STRANGE SUNDAY SCHOOL

THE children were very sorry when their friend David Gilbank quitted Egloshayle. He had
made a longer stay than he had intended at the Cornish village, and he carried away with
him many beautiful sketches, to be worked up to perfection in his London studio. Not the
least excellent of these was a water-colour sketch of Coral and Beryl, seated side by side in
the shelter of a fisherman's boat, turned keel upwards on the beach. Mr. Gilbank hoped in
time to finish this picture, and make it a worthy memorial of the little friends in whom he
took such interest.

The children missed him sadly when he had gone away. There were no nice talks on the
beach now, no preaching on Sunday afternoons, no friend who could tell them what they
wanted to know. They wandered about listlessly on the Sunday afternoon following his
departure, and found the time long and dull.

Beryl had been unusually silent for some time, and Coral, finding her remarks unheeded,
had also grown thoughtful, when suddenly Beryl exclaimed, "Oh, Coral, I've thought of
such a splendid thing!"

"What is it?" asked Coral, eager to hear any new idea which might brighten the dulness of
their day.

"You know what Mr. Gilbank was saying last Sunday, how we might all help to make the
kingdom grow and spread in the world? You remember that, don't you, Coral?"

"No," said Coral, shaking her head, and speaking in a tone of indifference, as she began to
think that Beryl's grand idea was, after all, nothing very delightful. "No, I don't remember
nothing about it."

"Oh, Coral, and it was so plain!" said Beryl. "Don't you recollect that he said we could be
workers with God, and that even a child could do something for the kingdom?"

"No, I don't," said Coral decidedly. "Is that all you have to tell me?"
"Of course not; but that was what made me think of it. Coral, I've been thinking how nice
it would be if we could keep a little Sunday school."

"Oh, Beryl, a Sunday school! What do you mean?"

"Why, don't you know that Mr. Gilbank said, what a pity it was that there was no Sunday
school at Egloshayle, and the children were left to play about on the beach all Sunday
afternoon? Now, I think you and I might keep a sort of school, just for the very little ones,
you know."

"Oh, Beryl, do you really think we could?" exclaimed Coral, delighted, as all children are,
with the idea of keeping school. "But do you think we are big enough? What could we
teach them?"

"Oh, we could teach them something," said Beryl, confidently. "We must know more than
they do;—at least we ought to," she added, with a momentary sense of her own mental
poverty. "Anyhow, we could read to them, and teach them hymns. There's—'Around the
throne of God in heaven,' and 'When mothers of Salem';—I could ask Lucy to lend us her
hymn-book, which has them in."

"Oh yes, that would be very nice," said Coral; "but where could we have the school?"

"We must have it somewhere on the beach," said Beryl; "it would never do to bring the
children into the house. Aunt Cecilia would be in a rage. Oh, I know what, Coral. There's
that cave which runs such a long way back, that would do splendidly. The rock at the
entrance would do nicely to put our books on, and the children could sit on the ground, or
stand. Yes, that is the very thing."

"But the cave is sometimes full of water," suggested Coral.

"Yes, when the tide is high," said Beryl; "but it is very often empty, and when it is high
water we must go somewhere else. Come, Coral, let us run and have a look at it, and then
we will try and find some nice little children, and ask them to come to us there next
Sunday afternoon."

The appearance of the cave was considered to be satisfactory, on the whole, for though its
walls were damp and slimy with seaweed, Beryl declared that no one need sit close to
them, and the rock in the middle would do equally well for a table or a seat.

Having decided on the place of meeting, Beryl set to work to form a class. There were a
number of children playing rather noisily at the further end of the beach. She walked
towards them, followed by Coral, and as the young ladies drew near, the rougher children
ceased their play, and stared wonderingly at them. Beryl was always very dignified in her
approaches to the fisher-folk and their children, but at the same time, she was gracious,
and the young people of Egloshayle admired the young lady greatly, though they stood
rather in awe of her.

When Beryl, addressing one of the little ones, began to explain her scheme for a Sunday
class, the child shrank away frightened, and would say nothing but "No" in reply to her
invitation. The others to whom she spoke were just as unresponsive. This was
discouraging, but Beryl, undaunted, proceeded to take the elder sisters into her
confidence, and got them to promise to bring the little ones to the cave on the following
Sunday afternoon. Then, contented with the arrangement they had made, she and Coral
went home.
During the rest of the week, Coral and Beryl talked and thought of little else but the
Sunday class. They did not say a word about it to Lucy, for fear she should oppose their
plans; but whenever they were alone they discussed the matter at great length. They
hunted through the house for books suitable to read to their Sunday scholars, but could
find hardly any that seemed of the right kind. Many a book was thrown aside, because the
words were too long and difficult, and the matter they expressed was often quite beyond
the comprehension of those who were taking upon themselves the work of teachers. At
last, Beryl decided that it would be best to dispense with all books except the Bible and
Lucy's hymn-book, which she lent them readily enough, without asking any questions as to
the purpose for which it was required.

The children watched the sky with some anxiety on Saturday afternoon. How annoying it
would be if rain came and spoiled all!

But Sunday dawned fair and bright, and the children's hearts beat high at the thought of
their grand undertaking. Lucy took them to church in the morning, and she thought she
had never known them so restless and fidgety. Miss Beryl, who had so improved of late,
seemed suddenly to have returned to all her tiresome ways. The fact was the children
were impatient for the long service to be over, and the afternoon to come.

As soon as they could, after dinner, Coral and Beryl escaped from Lucy's care, and went
into the garden. From the garden, they soon made their way to the beach, and hurried
along in the direction of the cave.

Early though they were, their scholars were earlier. There was quite a crowd of children
gathered about the cave. And now Beryl began to feel nervous and doubtful of what she
was going to do, though she would not allow Coral to suspect the least failure of self-
confidence. She was dismayed to see so many great boys and girls in the party.
Summoning her courage, she addressed herself to the little ones, and tried to coax them
to sit down within the cave. This was a difficult matter, for they were shy and frightened,
and seemed to have no notion of sitting still and keeping quiet. If one child was settled for
a minute, another would start up and run away, and as soon as that one was brought back
there would be a fresh defaulter. Beryl grew hot and cross in her endeavours to reduce to
order this unruly school.

To add to her embarrassment, the elder boys and girls hung about the place, and seemed
to derive great amusement from observing what was going on. In vain Beryl told them to
go away. They moved off a few yards in obedience to her command, but had evidently no
intention of going out of sight and hearing of what passed between her and her little
scholars.

At last, after a great deal of trouble, Beryl managed to get the little ones seated in a row
on the ground, with Coral closely guarding them to prevent their escape. Then Beryl began
to read to them out of the Bible the story of Joseph. But Beryl's reading, as she stumbled
over the long words, and paid not the least heed to punctuation, could not attract her
audience.

The ignorant young scholars did not attend to her for a moment; they kicked and writhed,
played the queerest pranks, pinched each other, and laughed and talked as if they had not
the least idea of the purpose for which they were assembled.

At last Beryl closed her Bible in despair.

"It is of no use, Coral," she said; "we had better try to teach them a hymn."
This attempt was no more successful than former ones. But one child could Beryl persuade
to repeat the words after her, and she only managed to imitate the sounds, and had clearly
not the least notion of the meaning of what she said.

Beryl persevered as long as she could, in spite of a dreary sense of the futility of her
efforts; but at last the attention of her brightest scholar was attracted by the sight of a
sailing boat nearing the shore.

She started up, and, clapping her hands with delight, exclaimed, "Daddy's boat! Daddy's
boat!"

Then darting out of the cave before Coral could stop her, she ran at full speed across the
beach. The children outside also scampered off to meet the incoming boat, and this was
the signal for the sudden break-up of the school.

In a moment, the class was in utter confusion, each child struggling to escape.

"Never mind, Coral; let them go!" exclaimed Beryl, in a tone of disgust, as Coral attempted
to hold back the runaways. "It is of no use trying to teach them anything; they are the
stupidest little things I ever saw."

"Oh, what a pity!" said Coral regretfully. "And I thought that biggest one was just
beginning to learn something."

"I wish I had not tried to keep school," said Beryl, tears of disappointment in her eyes. "I
could not have believed they would be so tiresome. And I did so want to do something for
the kingdom."

"Perhaps they will behave better next Sunday," suggested Coral.

Beryl shook her head despondingly. She could not trust herself to speak, for she felt so
inclined to cry, and she could not bear that even Coral should know how keenly wounded
she was.

Without another word she quitted the cave, and with grave, downcast face marched
homewards. Coral, taking up the Bible and hymn-book, which Beryl had forgotten in her
despair, followed at a little distance.

Beryl strode on in silence till she reached the steps leading to the garden. There she
paused, and waited for Coral to come up.

"Well, no one can say that I have not tried to do something for the kingdom," was Beryl's
remark as Coral gained her side.

"I expect we are not big enough," said Coral.

"We don't know enough, perhaps," returned Beryl.

When they went into the house, Beryl slipped away from Coral and shut herself into their
bedroom. She was there for a long time alone, and when she came down again she looked
brighter and happier, though her eyes were very red, as though she had shed many tears
in the solitude of her room.

"Coral," she said, "I have thought of what I will do."

"What?" asked Coral, eagerly.

"It is plain that those children will not listen to reading," said Beryl, in a tone of grave
deliberation, "so I think I must try to tell them the Bible stories in my own words, and I've
been thinking that if I could get some pictures, pretty coloured ones, you know, like those
that I have in my scrapbook, it would make it easier for them to understand."

"What will the pictures be about?" asked Coral, full of wonder.

"Why, Bible pictures of course," replied Beryl. "We might be able to get one of Joseph in
the coat of many colours, perhaps."

"But where will you get them?" asked Coral.

"Oh, I shall write and ask papa to send them to me," was Beryl's ready reply.

On the following day Beryl devoted much time to manufacturing a letter to her father, in
which she begged him to procure her some beautiful coloured Bible pictures, the largest he
could get, and to send them as quickly as possible. The letter, at which she toiled
laboriously, was, when finished, a blurred, ill-written, and atrociously spelled epistle; but
Beryl despatched it with but slight sense of shame. Her father would know what she
meant, and that was enough, she thought.

Mr. Hollys, however, read his daughter's letter with considerable dismay. He forgot to
wonder what had prompted her request in his horror at Beryl's peculiarities of orthography
and penmanship.

"Dear, dear!" he said to himself, "This is a shocking production for a girl of eleven. Cecilia
might have taught her to write and spell. But I must lose no time in finding a governess for
her. I will call on Mrs. Everard to-morrow, and ask her advice on the subject. I dare say
she can tell me how to secure the right person."

CHAPTER X
OVERTAKEN BY THE TIDE

WHEN the next day came, Mr. Hollys was prevented from carrying out his intention of
calling on his old friend Mrs. Everard, and asking her to aid him to find a governess for
Beryl. But he did not forget the request which Beryl's ill-written letter had conveyed to
him, and being in the city that day, he made his way to Paternoster Row, and there
purchased some of the best Scripture pictures that he could see amongst the many
tempting publications displayed in the windows of that narrow but important street. He
ordered the pictures to be sent direct to his home at Egloshayle, and to the children's
delight the packet arrived there by post the very next day.

With the greatest satisfaction, Coral and Beryl unrolled the pretty coloured prints.

They suited Beryl's purpose admirably, and were far larger and prettier ones than she had
expected to get. There was a beautiful picture of the Good Shepherd carrying a lamb in His
arms; a picture of the child Jesus talking to the doctors in the temple; another showing the
tender Saviour taking the little ones in His arms, whilst their mothers stood watching Him
with looks of eager love; and many others, all representing incidents of our Lord's life.

"There is no picture of Joseph after all," said Beryl, when she had examined the whole
collection. "I wish there had been; but these all seem to be taken from the New
Testament."

"I should think they would rather see pictures about Jesus than about Joseph," said Coral.

"Why?" asked Beryl quickly.

"I don't know; but I think I would rather," said Coral. "Don't you like that picture of the
Good Shepherd, Beryl? He looks so kind and good."

"Yes, it is a beautiful face," said Beryl. "But I suppose the face of Jesus was really much
more beautiful than that."

"But is not this just like it?" asked Coral in surprise.

"Why, no, Coral, you must know better than that. Don't you remember that Mr. Gilbank
said it was impossible for any one to make a true likeness of the Lord Jesus? He said he
had seen many lovely pictures of Christ, but never one in which he did not feel that there
was something wanting."

Coral shook her head. She did not remember it. Mr. Gilbank's words had not made so deep
an impression on her mind as on Beryl's.

"Perhaps it is better the pictures should be all about Jesus," said Beryl, thoughtfully. "The
children ought to learn about Jesus rather than Joseph; for Jesus is their Saviour, not
Joseph. Still it is very nice about the coat of many colours, and I should like to have seen a
picture of it. I like that picture of Jesus saying, 'Suffer little children to come unto Me, and
forbid them not.' We must tell them about that, Coral. And Mr. Gilbank said that Jesus was
just the same still. Though we cannot see Him, nor hear Him, His arms are opened wide to
receive little children, and He says to them, 'Come unto Me.' Oh, I wish I could tell them
just what Mr. Gilbank said. I do hope they will be quiet and good next Sunday."

"They will be sure to like the pictures," said Cora hopefully.

Beryl was looking forward with some tremor to her next attempt at keeping a Sunday
school. She had so set her heart upon success, that the thought of disappointment was
most painful to her. Many a childish petition for Divine help went up from the depths of her
heart. She prayed that the weather might be fine, that the children might be good and
orderly, and that she might be able to tell them in words they could understand about the
loving Saviour whose arms were opened to receive them.

When Sunday afternoon came, it was in a very humble mood that Beryl went down to the
beach to meet the children she had undertaken to teach.

The day was fine, and there was no falling off in the attendance of the scholars. Indeed, it
seemed to Beryl that there were more present than on the previous Sunday. Beryl had
very wisely decided to show them only one picture on each occasion, for she judged that
the sight of many at a time might distract their attention from her words, and make them
more unruly than ever. The picture she had chosen to show them to-day was that of Christ
blessing the children.
There was much confusion and jostling in the class when Beryl unrolled the picture and
laid it upon the flat rock. The little ones pressed round her, eager for the pretty sight; and
the elder ones pushed their way into the cave, determined to see the object which was
exciting such cries of admiration.

For a few moments, Beryl found it impossible to preserve order. She was obliged to rescue
the picture from the rude and dirty hands that were laid upon it, and, holding it high above
her head, declare that if they did not instantly sit down, and become quiet, no one should
look at it again. The elder children, quite as eager as the little ones to see the picture,
supported the teacher's authority, and by shakes, and pushes, and many an angry word,
reduced their young brothers and sisters to submission.

Then Beryl arranged that only three children at a time should enter the cave and look at
the picture. This plan answered admirably, and each child had a good look at the picture
without any confusion or uproar. The exhibition of the picture occupied some time. When
they had thus examined it, Beryl contrived by means of some pebbles to prop the picture
up against the wall of the cave, so that all could glance at it.

Then, sitting down, she began to tell the children in simple, childish words, how the Jewish
mothers had ventured to bring their little ones to Jesus, and how the disciples had tried to
drive them back, but Jesus had stretched forth His arms to them in love, and said, "'Suffer
little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of
heaven.'"

Beryl's simple talk was far more effectual than her reading had been. Her quick
imagination gave many a graphic touch to the narrative, and as she pointed every now and
then to the picture, and drew her listeners' attention to its various details, there was
quietness and order in the class.

After awhile, of course, they grew restless and began to fidget, and then Beryl knew that
she had said enough. She now tried to teach the children the first verse of "When mothers
of Salem," and actually a few little ears caught the words and remembered them, and, led
by Coral and Beryl, the scholars sang the verse in a queer, discordant fashion.

Beryl was well pleased with the success of her endeavour this afternoon. Her heart felt
light and happy as, rolling up the picture, she told the children it was time for them to go
home, reminding them, however, that she should hope to see them again on the next
Sunday.

"Oh, Beryl, how nice it has been!" cried Coral, as the last child toddled away, and they
were left alone. "Weren't they good to-day? That picture was splendid."

"Yes, how pleased they were with it!" said Beryl, her face aglow with delight. "I was
dreadfully afraid they would tear it at first; but they were very good afterwards. And I
really believe they understood what I said."

"And didn't they sing the hymn well!" said Coral.

The hearts of the young teachers were glad and thankful as they went home. What a joyful
thing life seemed that summer afternoon! The radiant sunshine, the shining waves, the
bright sky, all spoke to them of love and joy. Even for these children, life was becoming a
grander, more blessed thing, now that they were learning to care for the good of others.

Beryl did not always find her scholars so attentive as they had been on this occasion. As
the pictures lost their novelty, she found them more troublesome, and often had her
patience severely tried. But she persevered in spite of every difficulty, and did her utmost
to make her class pleasant to the little ones.

Sometimes she felt discouraged, and fancied that her efforts were all in vain; but in this
she was mistaken. The scholars, ignorant and untaught though they were, were beginning
to know something of a Saviour's love, and fragments of Beryl's teaching were repeated by
childish lips in homes where hitherto the name of God had been unheard save in
blasphemous utterance. Truths grasped by the mind in childhood are not easily forgotten,
and some of Beryl's little scholars remembered to the end of life what she told them of the
love of the Son of God.

She was but a child herself, much too young, many would have thought, to be a teacher;
but she was growing in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus whilst she was trying to teach
others about him. Coral and Beryl had no one to teach them now Mr. Gilbank was gone;
but the Lord Himself was their teacher; and as they read the Bible, and talked to each
other of its words, His Spirit made things plain to their childish understanding. They found
no difficulties, and fell upon no stumbling-blocks, for truths that are hidden from the wise
and prudent were revealed to these babes in the faith.

Lucy made no enquiries as to the manner in which her young ladies spent their Sunday
afternoons. She saw them go away with their books, and felt relieved to think that they did
not require her attendance, but left her free to spend the time as she liked. She did not
think that her young charges were likely to get into any danger, for Miss Beryl was well
acquainted with the shore, and generally knew the hour at which the tide would turn;
indeed, Miss Beryl was such a clever, shrewd little person, that it would have been absurd
to feel anxious about her when out of sight.

Beryl had hitherto been careful to avoid being overtaken by the tide, which, when high,
filled the cave in which she held her class.

During the few weeks since she began to keep a "Sunday school," the changes of the tide
had suited her convenience tolerably well. But familiarity with danger sometimes
engenders carelessness, and at last Beryl was thus betrayed.

One Sunday afternoon, when the class had been exceedingly interesting, and her scholars
had said their hymns in the most satisfactory manner, she lingered in the cave talking it all
over with Coral, long after the little ones had gone away, quite forgetful of the fact that the
tide had been on the turn when they came down to the beach, and was now coming in
fast. The cave in which the children stood was a large one, running far back under the cliff.
Its extreme end was lost in darkness; but the subdued light sufficed to show a hollow
opening at one side of the cave, just above a shelf of rock which ran around it, about four
feet from the bottom.

"Coral," said Beryl, seized with a new idea, "do you see that hole in the side of the rock?
Let's have a look at it; I fancy it would do nicely for a little cupboard to put our hymn-
books in. It is such a bother having to carry them home every time."

They ran to the spot; but Beryl found that the opening was too high up to make a
convenient cupboard. It was impossible for her standing on the ground to reach it, and she
was planning how she should climb to it, when some words of Coral's startled her with a
sudden reminder of her imprudence in lingering so long in the cave.

"Wouldn't the hymn-books get wet, Beryl?" she asked. "I thought this cave was full of
water at high tide."
"So it is. Oh, Coral! And it must be almost high tide now. What are we thinking of to stay
here so long? Oh, come quickly!"

As she spoke, Beryl darted towards the mouth of the cave; but alas, the warning was too
late! At that very moment there was a roar, a rush, a sudden darkening of the light, as a
huge wave burst into the cave and swept almost to the children's feet, ere it receded, to
be followed by another as mighty.

Coral and Beryl saw their peril at the same instant, and a cry of horror broke from their
lips.

"Oh, we shall be drowned! We shall be drowned!" was all Beryl could say. "There is no
hope for us; none whatever. The cave will be full in five minutes, and no one knows where
we are!"

CHAPTER XI
THE CHILDREN ARE MISSING

BERYL little thought how near her father was to her when she held her class on that
eventful Sunday afternoon. Mr. Hollys had never been known to come home without giving
due warning to his household; but for once, circumstances had led him to depart from his
usual practice in this respect.

Business of an unexpected nature had suddenly called him to Bristol at the end of the
week, and his business being accomplished by an early hour on Saturday, it struck him as
a happy thought, that since he was half-way between London and Egloshayle, he might as
well go on to the latter place, and spend the Sunday there with Beryl.

How surprised the child would be at his unexpected arrival! That it would be a glad
surprise, he felt no doubt. His heart grew warm within him at the thought of seeing his
darling again that evening, and hearing her joyous welcome.

But the plan which Mr. Hollys without further debate determined to carry out did not prove
so happy a one as he deemed it.

The express for Plymouth had started an hour earlier, and the train by which he was
obliged to travel was a slow one, stopping at every station. Mr. Hollys thought he had
never made so tedious a journey, and his patience was severely tried, for, as it was
market-day at almost every town on the line, the train was continually delayed, and when
it reached Plymouth, half an hour after the appointed time, he found to his vexation that
the last train by which he could proceed to Egloshayle had already gone.

Mr. Hollys thought that his plan had been a foolish one, when he learned that there was
not another train that would answer his purpose till noon on the following day. He went to
the nearest hotel, and finding comfortable quarters there, tried to solace himself with the
anticipation of how amusing it would be to see Beryl's astonishment when he suddenly and
unexpectedly presented himself at home in the middle of Sunday afternoon.
Mr. Hollys had ceased to feel any annoyance at the tiresome delay by the time he reached
Egloshayle the next day.

He was in excellent spirits as he alighted from the train at the little country station. There
was no conveyance to take him home, but he did not wish for one. He felt that he should
enjoy the long walk on this bright summer day. He chose the longest path, which skirted
the cliffs, that he might enjoy the strong sea air to be breathed on those heights. He
thought, too, that by going this way he might perhaps surprise the children in some nook
on the beach. But as he climbed the steep hill from the station he saw that the tide was
high, and the waves breaking turbulently at the foot of the cliff. Not a strip of beach was
visible.

"Ah, well, I shall find them in the garden," he said to himself, as he hurried on, eager to
embrace his little Beryl.

Mr. Hollys had some news for Beryl, and he felt rather doubtful how she would receive it.
He had found a governess for her at last, a highly-educated and accomplished young lady,
whom his friend Mrs. Everard could highly recommend. He believed he was doing the right
thing for his child in engaging this governess for her, yet in his foolish fondness, he felt
sorry to think how Beryl's freedom would be curtailed and her actions restrained.

"Naughty little puss, she will not like it, I fear," he said to himself with a smile. "After
running wild like a young gipsy for so long, it will be hard to settle down to regular lessons,
and submit to rules and regulations. But it is high time some one took her in hand. I ought
to have seen to it before; that letter was disgraceful."

Soon Mr. Hollys was within sight of his home. He looked about for the children, but they
were not visible. The house appeared quiet and sleepy, as it stood with every blind closely
drawn, in the glare of the afternoon sun.

He walked round the garden, hoping to find Beryl there; but the place seemed deserted.
Then he entered the house by the glass-door leading into the garden. The Sunday peace of
the house was perfect. Not a sound broke the stillness as he stood in the empty hall, and
listened for the children's voices.

The quietness made him uneasy. He hastily opened the drawing-room door. The children
were not there, and he quietly closed the door again, without rousing his sister, who was
taking her afternoon nap.

Mr. Hollys now ran upstairs to the nursery. Lucy, who sat there reading, was startled at his
unexpected appearance.

"Where is Miss Beryl, Lucy?" he demanded.

"Miss Beryl, sir?" said Lucy, looking scared. "In the garden, I believe, sir."

"No; she is not, for I have just come through the garden," said Mr. Hollys.

"Perhaps they are down on the beach, sir; they often like to sit there on a Sunday
afternoon."

"That is impossible, for it is high tide. Do you mean to say that you do not know where
they are?" demanded Mr. Hollys, with anger in his tone.

"I cannot say exactly where they are, sir," said Lucy, growing more frightened. "Miss Beryl
likes to go away by herself, but I will find them."
Lucy left the room, followed by Mr. Hollys, in whose heart, anger was fast giving place to
fear.

"You do not think they can have lingered in some corner of the beach till they were
overtaken by the tide?" he asked in a low tone.

"Oh no," answered Lucy, white and trembling; "Miss Beryl would know better than that.
She is very careful is Miss Beryl."

"You have no right to trust to her carefulness," returned Mr. Hollys indignantly. "It is your
place to look after them, and you should not have trusted them out of your sight."

They went out of the house. Lucy turned to make further search in the garden, and Mr.
Hollys hastened along the road leading to the village. Presently he met a child, and
stopped to ask her if she had seen Miss Beryl lately.

Yes, the child had seen Miss Beryl; she had something to tell him, but Mr. Hollys, in his
impatience, found it difficult to understand her broad, Cornish speech.

He made her repeat her words again and again, till their meaning grew intelligible. She
had seen Miss Beryl on the beach that afternoon; she had been in the cave with Miss Beryl
and another young lady and several children, and they had all been looking at a lovely
picture.

As he thus made out the sense of her words, Mr. Hollys knew in a moment what had
happened. He turned from her, and ran at full speed towards the group of fishermen who
stood lounging against the low wall below which the waves were beating. Joe Pollard saw
him coming, and stepped forward to meet him.

"Joe," said Mr. Hollys, as he came up white and breathless, "my little daughter is missing. I
fear she has been overtaken by the tide in the long cave. Have you a boat at hand?"

A look of fear and pain crossed Joe's honest face as he heard these words. Mr. Hollys could
understand that look only too well. He knew that Joe thought the children's fate already
sealed, if indeed it was as he feared, and the tide had surprised them in the cave.

"Ay, sir," he replied. "My boat is moored just below, and we can be off in two minutes. But
God grant you be mistaken, and the young ladies safe ashore! I saw the other children
come up from the beach an hour ago, and I made sure the little missies had gone home
too."

Joe led the way down the steps as he spoke, and in another minute they were in the boat.
Mr. Hollys seized an oar, and began to pull with an energy stimulated by heart-sickening
dread. Not a word was spoken as they rounded the rocks, and made for the mouth of the
cave. Already the tide was on the turn, and so strong was the opposing current, that they
had great difficulty in effecting an entrance. When at last the boat shot into the cave, they
saw no sign of life there. The walls, lined with wet and slimy seaweed, showed the height
to which the water had risen. It seemed clear that if the children had been there when the
waves burst in, they must have perished.

"Beryl, Beryl!" cried Mr. Hollys in despair; and the hollow roof mocked him with a dull echo
of his words.

Meanwhile Joe's quick eye had caught sight of a sheet of paper floating on the surface of
the water. He leant forward, and with his oar drew it towards him.
"What is that?" asked Mr. Hollys, as he saw Joe take something from the water.

Joe unrolled the paper, and handed it to him. Wet and stained though it was, Mr. Hollys
recognised it at once as one of the coloured pictures he had purchased at Beryl's request.
The sight of it seemed to confirm his worst fear, and he dropped it with a groan.

"Joe," he said presently, as if clinging to hope in the very face of despair, "Beryl could
swim; is it quite impossible for her to have escaped?"

Joe shook his head. He shrank from the thought of the pain he must give, yet he spoke
what he believed to be the truth. "I canna think her swimming would help her much, sir.
The rocks are sharp and steep here, and she would need to swim a long way to find a dry
footing. Besides, there is a strongish undercurrent just here."

"God help me!" cried her father, shuddering at the thought of his darling Beryl lying cold
and dead in the depths of the sea.

For some minutes neither of them spoke, then Joe said gently, "We can do no good by
staying longer in the cave. Don't you think, sir, I had better row you back to the shore? If
it is as we fear, it is not here that we shall find the young ladies."

And Mr. Hollys knew that Joe meant him to understand that if the children were drowned,
the swiftly-ebbing tide must have carried their bodies far out to sea.

He could not speak; but the boatman took his silence for consent, and without another
word, rowed the still, sorrow-stricken man to the landing-place.

CHAPTER XII
DELIVERANCE

AND what of the children, of whom no trace save the floating picture could be found? Had
the cruel sea indeed borne them away in its winding-sheet to sleep beneath its waves,
leaving a darkened house and a desolate heart to mourn their loss?

It seemed to the terrified children that such must be their fate, as they watched the
hungry waves coming each minute closer to the corner where they crouched.

Beryl had ceased to cry, and was trying to bring all the force of her mind to bear upon the
contrivance of some plan of escape. The only idea which occurred to her was that she
should have recourse to swimming, and try to get to land in time to secure succour for
Coral ere it was too late.

But when she looked at the rough waves, battling together as they forced their way into
the cave, and remembered at what a distant part of the beach the cave was situated, and
how far she would have to swim before she could find a landing-place, Beryl's heart failed
her. She felt that her childish strength would be no match for the pitiless might of the sea's
opposing current. Yet she would have made the attempt, hazardous though it seemed, had
Coral wished it; but her little adopted sister cried out in terror at the mere suggestion of
Beryl's leaving her.

"Oh, Beryl, do not leave me; please do not leave me!" she cried; "I dare not stay alone in
this dreadful place. Let us keep together, whatever happens. If we must be drowned, let us
hold each other tightly, and then, perhaps, it will not seem quite so bad."

The children clung to each other as the waves washed over their feet. How awful seemed
the death which threatened them in that gloomy place! How many persons at Egloshayle
would have hurried to their rescue, had they known of their peril! But here, beneath the
rock, shut in by the relentless waves, they were out of sight and sound of every human
being, and Beryl felt sure that no one would know of their danger till it was too late to help
them.

Her heart sank within her as she thought of her father. Ah, if he, far away in London, could
have known what was his child's position at that hour! But he would know nothing till they
told him she was dead.

Beryl leaned against the rock and sobbed alone, as she thought of what her father's
anguish would be, when he heard that his little daughter was drowned.

Then she remembered that though no human friend knew of their danger, a Father's eye
was upon them, a Father's ear could hear their cry for help. She recalled the words Mr.
Gilbank had spoken concerning the "Father-King, all-mighty and all-loving."

"Coral!" she exclaimed, hope ringing in her voice. "Let us pray to God. We ought to have
thought of that before. He can help us, if no one else can."

"Do you think He really can?" asked Coral sceptically, as with frightened eyes she watched
the progress of the waves.
 "IF WE MUST BE DROWNED,
LET US HOLD EACH OTHER TIGHTLY."

"Why, Coral, of course He can," returned Beryl. "Don't you remember how He saved Daniel
in the lions' den, and Moses when he was left by the side of the river in the ark of
bulrushes? And oh! Don't you know the story Mr. Gilbank told us of how God made a path
right through the Red Sea for the Israelites to walk over? I'm sure if He did that, He can
save you and me from being drowned."

"But what will He do?" asked Coral anxiously. "Will He make the waves go back?"

"I can't tell what He will do," said Beryl; "but I know He can save us if He will. And if He
means us to die," she added, her voice suddenly faltering, "let us ask Him to make us
good, and take us to heaven, for Jesus Christ's sake."

And so Beryl prayed in simple, childish words, coming from a heart strong in faith; and
Coral tried to follow, but could not attend for her terror of the quickly advancing waves.

The water was already high about the children, a little longer, and it would sweep them
away to death. As Beryl ended her prayer, her eyes fell upon the ledge of rock above her
head, and the dark hole which she had fancied would make a convenient cupboard. The
thought struck her that if they could climb to that, they would be for a time above the
reach of the waves.

"Coral," she said, pointing out the place to her, "try if you can climb up there. Put your foot
on my knee, and then catch hold of the seaweed, and draw yourself up. There, that's
right; now are you safe?"

Yes, Coral was securely placed on the shelf of rock, and with some difficulty, Beryl
managed to scramble up beside her.

Their courage rose on finding themselves a foot or two above the water, though Beryl felt
pretty sure that it was only a temporary respite, and that ere the tide turned the waves
would sweep over them where they sat. It was dull and melancholy work, sitting still to
watch the rising of the water, and Beryl presently crawled along the ledge till she reached
the hole which had before attracted her attention. It was a much larger opening than it
had appeared from below.

The hollow seemed to extend a long way back, for stooping down and peering into it, Beryl
could see light coming through, as if from an opening at a considerable distance.

Crouching down close to the rock, Beryl found that the aperture was just wide enough to
admit of her crawling through, and having passed the entrance, she found herself in a
larger place, a kind of natural tunnel, leading she knew not whither.

Feeling that she had made a great discovery, Beryl crawled back the way she had come,
and called to Coral to follow her. Coral, being smaller, made her entrance even more easily
than Beryl had done, but she was awestruck at the gloom of the place into which Beryl
introduced her. The rocky passage would have been in utter darkness but for the faint,
weird gleams of light which stole in at either entrance. The walls were so low that the
children were obliged to bend their heads, as they groped their way along; a grown-up
person would have been obliged to creep on all fours. The tunnel seemed to run through
the rock for a great distance, and as they stumbled along, for the path was rough and
uneven, Coral grew frightened and footsore, and began to cry and beg that they might go
back.

But Beryl, who thought that this passage promised them deliverance from the threatening
waves, was resolute in urging her forward, and soon, as they pressed on, the light before
grew larger and clearer, and Coral no longer wished to return to the sea-washed cave. On
they went, till daylight shone bright and beautiful before them, and they saw green leaves
waving against the opening, and caught the gleam of a gull's wing as with a shrill cry of
dismay the bird fled from the strange intruders who had invaded its sanctuary.

Beryl stepped very cautiously through the narrow doorway, half-hidden by low shrubs and
coarse grass, and it was well that she was thus careful, for the tunnel ended on a tiny path
in the face of the cliff, scarce a foot in width, below which the rock shelved off
precipitately. Beryl had not been conscious of ascending as she made her way through the
rough rocky passage, but now she saw to her satisfaction that the sea was far below them.
To her surprise, also, she perceived that they had come through the heart of the rock to
the other side of the cliff, into which the cave penetrated, and were looking down on the
little cove where David Gilbank had been accustomed to meet his band of learners on
Sunday afternoons. The narrow path on which she stood led by sharp zigzags to the
beach, and it would be a comparatively easy matter to descend, when the waves had
receded from the cove.

"Oh, Coral!" cried Beryl, as she clasped her hands in joy and thankfulness. "We are safe!
The waves cannot reach us here; we have only to wait till the tide turns, and then we shall
be able to go home."

How intense was the feeling of relief felt by these children, as they realised their
deliverance from the peril which had seemed so near and awful. Tears came more readily
than words at such a moment, and clinging together they kissed each other fondly, and
cried as only children can cry.

But this violent emotion was soon exhausted, and as they sat in the shelter of the rock
they began to talk over what had happened, and tried to imagine how Lucy would regard
their long absence from home.

"I expect she will be very angry," said Coral; "and oh, Beryl, I am afraid she will never let
us keep Sunday school on the beach again."

"We must try to find a safer place," said Beryl thoughtfully. "That old cave was not very
nice, and now I feel as if I never wanted to see it again. Coral, have you thought how God
has heard our prayer? He has saved us, although He did not make the waves go back. Was
it not strange that I never noticed that hole at the back of the cave until to-day?"

"Yes," said Coral; "but what a nasty, dark place it was. I was so frightened till I saw the
light at the other end. And oh, Beryl, look at my boots!"

"Never mind about boots," said Beryl, surveying her own cut and soaked shoes with the
utmost indifference. "I shall be glad enough to take mine off, though, for my stockings feel
as if they had stuck to my feet. I wish the tide would make haste and go down."

"Will it be very long now, do you think?" asked Coral.

"Another hour, I dare say," said Beryl, as she peered down at the water below. "I say,
Coral, what a good thing it is that papa is not at home! He would have been so frightened
about us."
It seemed a long time to the children ere the tide receded. They watched the sun sink to
rest, curtained by crimson and purple clouds, and not till the glow was beginning to fade
from the summer sky were they able to descend from their lofty crag, and make their way
across the wet, slippery stones to the stile, which commanded the nearest route home.

Beryl started in sudden fear, as she saw a dark figure leaning against the stile. What was
her amazement when the figure turned towards her, and she saw that it was her father!

He had wandered there to look for her, though in his anguish, he believed all search would
be vain, unless, indeed, it should reveal the dead body of his child. One moment he had
been in utter despair, the next he heard a light step on the stones, and turning, saw Beryl
by his side.

A cry of almost incredulous joy broke from his lips,—

"Oh, Beryl, my darling! Is it you?" he exclaimed. "Where have you been all this long time?
Ah, if you knew what your absence has caused me to suffer! Thank God, I see you safe
and sound, my precious one!"

CHAPTER XIII
ANTICIPATED GLOOM

THE children's escape appeared well-nigh miraculous, and when the news of it spread
through Egloshayle, numbers of the villagers flocked down to the beach to inspect the
subterranean passage, of which scarce any one had been aware. Some of the oldest
inhabitants, however, could tell, now that their memories were thus jogged, how in bygone
days they had heard it said that there were two entrances to the long cave. They
remembered that the place had for a long time borne the name of the Smugglers' Cave,
because it was the lurking-place of a desperate band of men, who cunningly enriched
themselves by a contraband trade.

An old man could tell how on one occasion, when the coastguardsmen had surrounded the
cave, convinced that they had the smugglers in their power, they had, after long waiting,
discovered that the culprits had given them the slip, and escaped from the cave, in spite of
their constant watch at its entrance. Their mysterious flight had been a subject of marvel
at the time; now it seemed plain that the hidden passage, discovered by the children,
furnished the key to the mystery. It was strange that the existence of the tunnel in the
rock should have been so long unknown, but doubtless the smugglers had done their best
to keep it secret.

None save a few children could remember having noticed the hole at the back of the cave,
and with them, it was evidently a recent discovery, so that it seemed probable that the
place had only been disclosed of late. Mr. Hollys judged it likely that the rough seas and
gales of March had swept away some barrier of rock or seaweed which had guarded the
opening.

It was some days ere the children recovered from the effects of their strange adventure.
Beryl was the first to shake off its ill consequences, but little Coral was poorly for more
than a week. In her rough climbing, she had bruised her ankle, and the injury, which had
seemed nothing at the time, now proved so troublesome as to oblige her to lie with
bandaged limb on a couch in the nursery; whilst Lucy, full of remorse for the neglect from
which had ensued such disastrous consequences, waited upon her and petted her with
astonishing devotion.

Whilst Coral was thus laid aside, Beryl was her father's constant companion. Mr. Hollys
prolonged his stay at home, for how could he bear to leave at once the child who had been
given back to him from the arms of Death! Though it was the height of the London season,
and he had many engagements in town, he sent excuses to his friends, and lingered at
Egloshayle till he saw Beryl looking strong and bright again, and knew that the horror of
her narrow escape from drowning had faded from her childish mind.

Those were joyous days for Beryl. Her father could not make enough of her, in his
thankfulness for her restoration, and from morning till night his one aim seemed to be to
give her pleasure. So anxious was he to spare Beryl any annoyance, that he made no
mention of the governess who would shortly arrive at Egloshayle. It would be time enough
to name that with other inevitable, though perhaps vexatious, truths, when he was about
to leave home again. If Beryl fretted over them then, as was not improbable, he would at
least be spared the pain of seeing his darling's tears.

One of these sweet June days was Beryl's birthday, and it was the first birthday, as far as
she could remember, on which she had had her father's company. The anniversary of
Beryl's birth had never been celebrated with the joyous festivities that form a bright spot
in most of our memories of childhood. The day was one of gloom for her father, recalling
as it did the darkest shadow that had fallen on his life. He had never cared to spend it at
Egloshayle, and, now that it found him there so unexpectedly, he felt little disposed to plan
a picnic or any such treat as Beryl hinted would be an agreeable way of marking the
occasion.

So he promised the child that they would "keep" her birthday when he came home again in
the autumn, and told her meanwhile to take counsel with Coral, and try to decide what
would be the most delightful way of spending the day.

Beryl was perfectly satisfied with this promise. Her real birthday passed very quietly. The
June roses were blooming in the garden, as on that day long ago when Guy Hollys had
gathered them to place in the cold hands of his young wife. The sunshine was glorious, as
it had been on that morn when its brilliance had struck so cruelly on the heart whose very
light of life seemed gone. But now the healing hand of Time had done its work. That
sorrow was but a memory. The wailing babe, whose presence had been held unwelcome on
that day, had grown into the fine, fair girl whose beauty and grace gladdened her father's
eyes. As Mr. Hollys' gaze rested on his child, he felt how great was his consolation, and his
heart was not untouched by thankfulness to the Giver of all good, who had mercifully
spared to him this precious gift.

Beryl made a wreath of the white roses, and went with her father to place it upon her
mother's grave. She laid some flowers, too, upon the mound beneath which Coral's
parents slept. The churchyard was no gloomy place to Beryl, but a familiar and loved spot,
which she often visited.

"Papa," she surprised him by saying, when they had stood for some minutes beside her
mother's grave, and her eyes were thoughtfully bent on the turf on which the roses made
a spot of whiteness, "Papa, if we had been drowned the other day, Coral and I, where
would you have buried us, do you think?"
"Oh, my dear! How can I tell?" he answered hastily. "What a question to ask!"

"Would you have put me here by mamma's side, and Coral over there with her mother?"
asked Beryl, indicating with her foot the place where she supposed her body would have
lain.

"Perhaps; but do not let us speak of it, darling."

But the subject was of interest to Beryl.

"If it had been so, papa," she asked curiously, "would you have come sometimes to put
flowers on my grave?"

"Oh, my darling! What can I say? You pierce my heart with your questions," he replied in a
tone of pain. "Thank God, I have you with me still, my little jewel. You must never run into
such danger again, Beryl. Promise me that you will take all care in future."

"Yes, I will be very careful," said Beryl, who had already given the promise several times.
"And oh, papa, I am very glad I was saved! I should be sorry to go away, and leave you all
alone. You would miss your Beryl, wouldn't you?"

"Ah, indeed! More than you know," said Mr. Hollys fervently.

The memory of that talk in the churchyard haunted his mind for some time after his return
to London, making him look anxiously for the letters which came to tell him of his child's
welfare.

Two days later, he left home. An hour before he went away, he had a serious conversation
with Beryl, in which he told her of the governess who was coming almost immediately, and
urged her to be a good and industrious girl, and try, by the utmost diligence, to gain
knowledge and make amends for the precious time which had been wasted.

Beryl listened to his words with a long face. The prospect before her seemed a
disagreeable conclusion to the holiday-making of the last few weeks. She had some
difficulty in keeping back her tears; but she managed to do so, for she felt it would be
babyish to cry over such an absolute necessity as education. Mr. Hollys thought she took
the news well, and he told her she was a good child, and would be sure to get on nicely
with her governess.

When she had seen her father drive away from the house, Beryl went upstairs, looking
very grave, to impart to Coral the startling intelligence of the change which was about to
take place in their lives.

"Oh, Coral, I have something so dreadful to tell you!" she cried, bursting into the nursery,
where Coral, still treated as an invalid, was resting in Lucy's rocking-chair.

Coral looked up in alarm, for Beryl's face was so serious, and her tone so tragic, that the
child knew not what to expect.

"Oh, Beryl! What is it? Please tell me quickly!" she exclaimed, as Beryl tried to heighten
the effect of her words by an impressive pause.

"All our nice times are over," said Beryl solemnly; "We shall never be able to play alone
again, or to go on the beach or anywhere without some one to look after us, or to do
anything that we like. The governess is really coming at last, Coral!"
"Is that all?" replied Coral, in a tone of relief; for her imagination had been conjuring up all
kinds of dire possibilities, so that the governess's coming seemed, in comparison, a slight
evil.

"All! I should think it was enough!" said Beryl sharply. "Why, Coral, you don't think how
horrid it will be! I am sure she will be a nasty, cross thing, and I shall hate her;—or, at
least, dislike her very much," she added, feeling that hate was too strong a word to use.

"Did your papa say she was cross?" asked Coral simply.

"Oh no, of course not; he said she was a nice young lady, the daughter of a clergyman;
but I know she will be cross—all governesses are," pronounced Beryl, who had an opinion
of her own upon most subjects, and never allowed the narrow range of her experience to
limit her conclusions. "I expect she will be just such another as Aunt Cecilia; only I dare
say she will know more, for between you and me, Coral, I don't think that aunt knows very
much. You see, it is so long since she was a little girl and went to school, that she must
have forgotten all she learned there."

"When will the governess come?" asked Coral, who was now looking as troubled as Beryl.

"The day after to-morrow," replied Beryl; "is it not dreadfully soon? I wish I had known
before. Fancy, we have only one more day to ourselves."

"We must make the most of it," said Coral, with a sigh.

"There is another thing I must tell you," said Beryl, echoing the sigh. "Papa has made me
promise to have no more Sunday schools on the beach. He laughed when I told him about
it, Coral, as if it were something quite ridiculous. He said it was like the blind leading the
blind, and I had better learn more myself before I tried to teach others."

"Oh, Beryl! What a pity to have to give it up!" exclaimed Coral. "And just as we are getting
on so nicely, and they are beginning to understand about the pictures, and to sing 'When
mothers of Salem' so well."

"Yes; and now they will forget everything we have taught them," said Beryl despondingly,
"and no one will tell them about Jesus. It seems as if everything were against our doing
anything for the kingdom."

"We can ask God to send some one else to teach them," suggested Coral.

"Yes; we can do that," said Beryl reluctantly.

This suggestion was not quite to her mind. It was hard to think of the work which was so
dear to her being given to the hand of another. The rest of the day did not pass very
happily for the children. The coming of the governess hung like a dark cloud on their
horizon, and the forebodings which it awakened, made it impossible for them to enjoy the
freedom of the present.

CHAPTER XIV
THE GOVERNESS
THE hour of the governess's arrival came all too soon for Coral and Beryl. The children
wore very grave faces, as, fresh from the hands of Lucy, with clean white frocks and
smoothly brushed hair, they went down to the drawing-room to await the coming of the
stranger, whom they were inclined to regard as their natural enemy.

Tea-things stood ready on the drawing-room table, and Miss Hollys, very handsomely
dressed, sat on a low chair languidly working at some embroidery. In her way, she was as
anxious as the children with respect to the newcomer. The arrangement was one she had
long desired, and from which she hoped to reap advantage. If Miss Burton proved an
agreeable companion, it would be very pleasant to have some one besides the children to
speak to; some one, too, who would be better able to appreciate her pretty dresses and
the costly ornaments on which she prided herself.

Moreover, the presence of the governess in the house would set Miss Hollys free to leave
home as frequently as she wished, and she had already planned a visit she would make as
soon as she had seen Miss Burton comfortably settled with the children. Pleasant and self-
congratulatory as Miss Hollys' reflections were, she was not so absorbed in them as to be
unconscious of the severe shock to her nervous system, conveyed by Beryl's violently
banging the door behind her as she entered the room.

"Oh, Beryl," exclaimed her aunt crossly; "when will you learn to close a door quietly?
Thank goodness, there is a governess coming to teach you manners! If ever a girl needed
to be well taken in hand, you do. I hope Miss Burton is a thorough disciplinarian, and will
keep you in strict order."

Beryl could only guess at the meaning of the word disciplinarian; but she gave it credit for
the most unpleasant significance. She pouted and scowled as she crossed the room to the
side window, which commanded a view of the entrance-gate.

"I have no doubt she will be everything that is horrid," she muttered to herself.

"I hope she will teach you to be better-tempered, and to speak politely to your aunt," said
Miss Hollys, unable to hear her niece's words, but guessing from Beryl's angry face that
they were not of a correct nature.

The speech which trembled on Beryl's lips then was anything but a polite one, and would
certainly have demonstrated her need of instruction in courtesy; but happily, she
remembered how often she had had to repent of her hasty utterances, and checked this
retort in time. As Beryl was quiet, and provoked no further reproof, Miss Hollys turned her
attention to Coral.

"Leave that dog alone, Coral!" she exclaimed, speaking in the severe tone in which she
generally addressed the child whom she regarded as an unwelcome addition to the
household. "I hope Miss Burton will teach you how wicked it is to be cruel to poor dumb
animals. How would you like anybody to treat you in that way?"

Coral thus detected in stealthily pulling the poodle's tail, with a view to rousing him from
his lethargic state, coloured deeply; and finding herself quite unable to imagine what her
feelings would be if she were in the dog's place, tried to escape from the uncomfortable
speculation by running to join Beryl at the window.

But Beryl came to her defence. She could not resist this opportunity of giving her aunt an
indirect hit in exchange for her annoying rebukes.