Amol had just stepped into vacation spirit after completing
his class X exam. It was like feeling fresh after going through a long ailment.
Suddenly sleepless nights was replaced by complete freedom to read Satyajit
ray’s Feluda Series or the adventures of Famous five by Enid Blyton. He was
more than happy and wanted to read all of them in one go. “Life has never been
this wonderful” thought Amol.
“Hey, where are you going during the vacation” asked Nabeen.
A strikingly lean boy, with elephant ears and sparkling eyes. He was Amol’s
bestie, a very bright student too. Both of them were busy playing video game at
Amol’s place, their favorite afternoon pass time.
“Err…I guess nowhere” answered Amol hesitantly. “And you?”
“To my native village “replied Nabeen enthusiastically.
“Baba says, it’s all green, there is also a pond with loads of fishes. Thamma
(Grandma) promised she will make me my favorite coconut laddu.”
“Wow!” exclaimed Amol with wide open eyes.
“Hey, you can join us. Baba said I could take my friends
along, if I wanted to, and you are my only friend,” said an extremely excited
and smiling Nabeen.
“Really?” asked Amol with his eyes beaming with excitement.
“But I have to ask my parents. And I don’t have any hopes of hearing a yes,
they dislike me going out of station without them, remember that School
excursion?”
Their journey started at 6:00 am in the morning, when they
started from their houses to board a bus from Esplanade (in Kolkata) to their
destination. The bus was not a luxury coach, but the early morning atmosphere and
the excitement, made their journey enjoyable. The two boys talked their hearts
out, while the bus sped past the city, to enter into the greeneries of the
village. The pollution free breeze was new to their city made lungs, which
suddenly sprang into more life. The cultivated fields, the small huts, the
farmers with their bullocks, as if their drawing books were suddenly in front
of their eyes. After the bus, a small country boat took them to their
destination in Gadiara (a small village, in Howrah
district, West Bengal ). Gadiara was famous for
being the place where Damodar, Rupnarayan and Hoogli rivers met.
Amol and Nabeen were astonished to see the contrast. The
village was mostly in darkness, Benjamin Franklin ‘s electricity had not reached most of its part. Fortunately their
place of stay was amongst the blessed few to see illumination. However power
cuts were too frequent. The house was old but comfortable. The bedrooms had
huge teak beds with sooty oil lamps placed on the small bedside tables. Even
the fans looked old and both the boys wondered on their ability to run, but the
cool breeze from the fields nearby compensated. There was no living area;
instead there was a small area in front of the house, where you could live
under the sky. Along the house, there was huge pond, supposed to be filled with
fishes. The house was surrounded by coconut, mango, neem, jackfruit etc. trees.
Nabeen’s grandma was super excited to welcome her son,
daughter in law and beloved grandson. When her eyes fell on Amol, he
immediately noticed the happiness in them. The face was old, tired and wrinkled
but her eyes had a strange sparkle, she was very intimidating.
It’s been two days they had been in that remote village,
going around the fields, eating fresh fruits from trees and enjoying Grandma’s
out of the world fish recipes. Amol and Nabeen had almost started putting on
weight.
That evening Grandma had left for Kirtan (devotional songs)
in the nearby Krishna temple, the songs were
almost reaching Nabeen and Amol’s ears as they sat in the open space in front
of the house. Nabeen’s parents had gone for a leisurely evening stroll as every
other day. The boys were having a good time, as the breeze softly blew past
them caressing their hair. But suddenly the lights went off and it was pitch
dark all around.
“Oops...” said Amol. “Darkness asphyxiates me.”
“Don’t panic! Your eyes will soon get used to it, and you
will be able to see,” assured Nabeen, holding to Amol’s hand. “This is the best
ambience to listen to horror stories. What say Amol?”
“Please, spare me,” snapped Amol, who was already suffering
from a strange eerie feeling that whole evening.
Slowly their eyes got used to the darkness; the sliced moon
was mysteriously shining down on them, while the wind had started a fiendish
dance. Amol started feeling uncomfortable, inspite of his try he was unable to
look away from the pond with the moon light on it. It looked quite scary. The distant cry of an
unknown animal sent a chilling sensation down his spine.
“Why are you so quiet Amol” asked Nabeen who himself wanted
to break the eerie silence and was praying for his parents or grandma to return
fast.
“No, ummm….just not feeling comfortable,” said Amol and
slowly turned his face to face Nabeen and froze. “Ummmm…mmmmm…..w…wh…what
is…s….th..that?” Nabeen could hardly hear Amol but from his look, he understood
that he had seen something terrible. But being the braver among the two, Nabeen
didn’t give his brain time to think and immediately looked in the direction
Amol was seeing.
A dark image stood menacingly near the neem tree behind the
house, it was clearly visible even in the deem moonlight, Nabeen could not make
out what it was. But it did not look anything near human. He lost his speech
and continued to stare at it frozen. Sweat drops started appearing on his
forehead. He could not understand how much
time he was in that position, but soon he revived senses.
“Amol, come with me”, said Nabeen in trembling but confident
voice. Suddenly some strange power had caught over him; he remembered how his
father had explained non existence of ghosts. But still no reasoning could
explain the creature right in front him. “Are you coming Amol? If you don’t
want to come, I..I…wi…will go alone,” he fumbled.
The creature had started showing signs of discomfort with
Nabeen increasing confidence. At this point suddenly electricity resumed and
lights fell on it.
“He is Nolen, he is a Bohurupee,” (meaning a man who
imitates different kinds of forms) said Nabeen’s father from behind,
understanding the fright of the kids. “Don’t be afraid, he won’t harm you”.
The boys knew what bohurupee meant and laughed their hearts
out.
With loads of coconut laddu the boys left for Kolkata. But the high
point
Aritra Chakrabarty Sengupta
“
No comments:
Post a Comment