Quoted from Hindu News Update Service

The villagers of Bhalej, about 15 kilometers from Anand town, has completly banned the Reshamiya song after several persons from the village got “possessed” while dancing to this Reshimiya number from the film starring Emran Hashmi and Udita Goswami.

“There is an atmosphere of fear among the villagers after three persons, who were part of a Muslim wedding procession, began to act strangely a week back”, said Gajendra Jani, an elderly resident of the village which has a population of about 17,000 constituing largely of Muslims.

“They danced as if they were possessed and sang this song whenever somebody tried to talk to them. They also began to eat more than what they normally did”, he told PTI while relating some of the incidents that took place in the village in the past few days after this song’s popularity.

I’ve had songs that hypnotized me before. It all depended upon the mood I was in and the atmosphere. Some songs are just that good.

This story reminds me of the hysteria created by the War of the Worlds radio program back in the 30s(?). Thankfully, nobody in the Indian village was hurt; they just simply destroyed the offending music.

Although our culture is more advanced, we still have our bouts of hysteria brought on by superstition and fear of the supernatural. For example, the Harry Potter books were banned from several public libraries because several Christian groups felt that the books promoted witchcraft and sorcery, which they felt was a product of devil worship.