of us – boys and girls ranging in age from eight to eighteen - were sitting on the wing wall of the old wooden cantilever bridge over the Boar river at Kaladhungi, listening to Dansay telling ghost stories. The bonfire we had made in the middle of the road, from brushwood collected in the nearby jungle, had burnt down to a red glow and with darkness closing down Dansay had selected just the right time and setting for his stories, as was evident from the urgent admonition of one of the nervous girls to her companion, 'Oh don't keep looking behind. You do make me feel so nervous.'