Saatar Sheikh: Story of a spirit

It was in early seventies, I was admitted in my native government primary school at Parigam Chek Payeen.  The school was an old dilapidated mud house which belonged to a local. The ground floor was window-less, with some ventilation in the shape of few roshan dans.

Although it was situated on the right bank of the Nallah Sonman, but it appeared like haunted, a bhoot house. In the mornings and throughout day light we could not feel any fear but as the day advanced, the mud house gave a ghostly look as if some magical sprits had been set free to roam all-around this muddy house.  We, as little school students, would not turn back to our muddy school until the next morning.

Indeed we were aware of the unseen creatures and sprits, it was the tradition of the village households that different folktales of  ghosts were recited to little children during winter evenings. We also felt that our school is at an isolated place hence a jin beathaal - meaning where ghosts meet. And one such ghost, popularly known as Sattar Shiekh was very familiar among the faith healers.  He was believed to head the spirits and possess human brains.  Number of men and women, mostly girls, were  badly affected by him.

Decades have now passed, but the tales around the spirit of Sattar Sheikh have not been forgotten and are still fresh in the minds of our elders.

Since Sater Sheikh, considered the head spirits,  performed a number of magical works. He used to appear in different human and animal forms and 'controlled' number of men and women of my locality, who from time to time were then healed by mystic peers.

Apart from this, he was considered to perform some magical works.  One such spiritual miracle is about the lifting of timber from Hardpur miniature forest to Parigam Bala, covering a distance of half a kilometer. The curious legend states that once the  locals of  Parigam  decided  to builtd a  tomb on the resting placeof Haji Shams ud Din ( RA), the celebrated saint of Pargana Arwani of Kulgam. For this purpose they cut  few large trees in  the little forest of the Hardpur,  but there was a problem of how to left  timber from this forest to the proposed shrine site. One evening the villagers gathered at a place, deliberated on how to lift the logs to the proposed construction site. On the same night Sattar Sheikh with his fellow sprits lifted all the wooden logs to the proposed site and next morning when the people woke up  they were surprised to see that all logs were at the construction site. The people started whispering about happening and consulted the mystic peer of their village.  He told  them that the timber was lifted by the magical sprits headed by Sattar Sheikh. The Sufi shrine built by those wooden logs still exists at the site and  the curious legend associated with the magical sprit is very much popular here.

The advanced science does not believe such stories, and people believed to be affected by such invisible spirits are treated as mental disorder patients. But there are people who say they have practically experienced it all.

The writer is a senior archaeologist and Author