When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A highwayman comes riding—
Riding—riding—
A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.
Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard.
He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred.
He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord’s black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord’s daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.
These are the concluding lines from The Highwayman written by the celebrated English poet, Alfred Noyes. First published in 1906, more than a century later it still remains one of the most popular poems in the English speaking world. Often described as a romantic ghost story in poem, a nationwide survey conducted by the BBC found that The Highwayman was the nation’s 15th favourite poem. Over the years, it has inspired books, movies, discussions, study papers, was set to music in 2015 and more…For those who haven’t read it, the poem, set in the 1700’s in rural England, tells the story “of an unnamed highwayman who is in love with Bess, a landlord’s daughter. Betrayed to the authorities by Tim, a jealous ostler, the highwayman escapes ambush by soldiers when Bess sacrifices her life to warn him. Learning of her death, he dies while riding back in a futile attempt at revenge, shot down on the highway by soldiers.” In the final stanzas, the ghosts of the lovers meet again on winter nights.
Apart from the sadly beautiful tragic romance set in powerful narrative poetry, the very explicit and strong supernatural element in it has been part of its enduring appeal. I too fell under the spell of The Highwayman while still in school where it was part of my elocution test. That spell has been reinforced since then over the years by many ghost encounters and stories in India with several features of The Highwayman. In the latter half of the 1970’s, it seems residents of Dehra Dun in Northern India lived in dread of two gangsters called Bharu and Bhartu.
They sometimes worked in tandem, sometimes alone, with their modus operandi varying according to the circumstances. Though they also operated in town, their most favoured activity area was the Dehra Dun-Rishikesh-Haridwar highway where they waylaid travelers usually around dusk on some lonely stretch. Often, they would clamp a chain between two trees on either side of the highway, forcing a vehicle to stop. For getaways they generally used stolen motorcycles. It was known that Bharu and Bhartu possessed firearms and planned their dacoities and subsequent hideouts well because of which they evaded getting caught. The fear their daring robberies instilled in the popular imagination was so great that mothers took to telling naughty children, “ If you don’t stop, we’ll call Bharu and Bhartu”, and the effect on the children was amazing.
It was known that Bharu and Bhartu’s families lived in two small hamlets approachable from a “kutcha” path off the Dehra Dun-Rishikesh-Haridwar highway and were very well regarded in the area as they were generous in sharing their loot whenever anyone was in need. It was also known that both were devoted to their families, making it a point to visit them on their motorcycles whenever they knew the coast was clear. The sound of the motorcycles would shatter the darkness and alert people of their arrival much before they arrived. If there was danger, locals had a warning system in place. It therefore came as no surprise that when they were eventually killed at different times and separate circumstances, people in the hamlets and their families, especially their wives, were devastated. But not for long.
Apart from the sadly beautiful tragic romance set in powerful narrative poetry, the very explicit and strong supernatural element in the poem has been part of its enduring appeal.
Old timers in the area recounted how only a few days had passed after Bhartu’s death when everyone in the hamlet was jolted awake at night by the all too familiar sound of Bhartu’s motorcycle. They rushed out, and there, bathed in silvery moonlight, was Bhartu astride his motorcycle. At first, they couldn’t believe it was his ghost and it took their senses some time to get used to the other world version of Bhartu. But they were happy. “He loved his wife so much, it’s only fitting that they should remain united even though they are in different worlds”. It was the same story in Bharu’s hamlet. So many, many years have passed, but their love held firm and to this day, Bharu and Bhartu’s love stories are sighted by some and related by some.
I have come across intense echoes of The Highwayman in many other ghost stories elsewhere in India as well. Like The Highwayman which continues to haunt countless readers more than a century after it was written, these stories too haunt one a long, long time after a person has actually seen their ghostly enactment or just heard about them. In each case, it is love bonds at their purest which erase the image of a law breaker in this world and replace it with the image of a noble soul in the other world. In each case, it is love bonds at their purest which refuse to recognise the boundaries of time, the boundaries between the world of the living and the world of the dead.
In doing so, they not only capture and preserve all the poignancy and enduring quality of true love but also underline how true bonds, strong emotions and energies live on even after death. The ghostly love lives on, and the love story encapsulated in it is repeated again and again, constantly beaming out a message of hope: if love is pure and strong romance can continue from the beyond, defying the constraints of time… And still of a winter’s night, they say, when the wind is in the trees… A highwayman comes riding— riding—riding…