Neela was still staring. The shadow on the wall in front of her now gleamed into clearer focus. Its shape could be made out but also the fact that it had got a little distorted. The focus seemed finally right – but whether that was Neela’s vision or the shadow’s own, it was difficult to say. When a ghost was literally taking shape in front of you in the dead of the night, who could think of all that?
The shadow formed as it nestled against a half-burnt window – as if it had entered shapeless through that window and begun coming into its own. As if it was slowly climbing the wall and moving right. Or was it the wall moving as it snaked against the shadow? On the other side of the room was another half-burnt window. The figure became still somewhere halfway between these two windows. It was stuck to the wall like glue but also looked three-dimensional – like it was emerging out of it, as though a living person was standing with their back to the wall. A half-burnt fragment of clothing was hanging off its body, which itself was pock-marked with scorched blisters. The head was bent but with a tiny crack. Blood was clotted in dark bunches all across it.
Neela kept looking. They say when you see a ghost, that too a few feet away from you, you scream and perhaps faint in terror – but that’s a lie. Fear comes later. At first, you can’t move, you can’t make a sound – you are hypnotised. You don’t lie unconscious though. But if you are fully alert, how will you bring yourself to look at the ghost? It’s as though an electric current has passed through you – you are aware of what is happening, yet you feel paralysed by the shock of the electricity inside you – that is exactly how it is when you encounter a ghost!
Framed on both sides by the two half-burnt windows, the wall in between was covered in blackish patches. The shadow seemed to almost imitate the wall behind it and blended into it for concealment. Just like inside a forest where the animals camouflage themselves with their dots, patterns and lines. The shadow was more macabre than an actual ghost.
Suddenly the shadow disappeared. Or so Neela felt. As if it was just there and, in a trice, it was gone! In reality, those of us who ever get a chance to “see” an apparition also feel like Neela did at its evanescence. When a ghost vanishes from sight, you cannot feel anything at once. During the sighting of a ghost, the disappearance of its final dregs is also a shock. The time between the two shocks – their appearance and disappearance – is called the ghost-sighting period!
Neela wanted to scream in terror, but she could only manage to breathe fast, gulping air through her mouth. At this point, she heard a bloodcurdling scream next to her ear and fainted forthwith, unable to withstand any more. It all happened in the blink of an eye – Neela’s father, Prafulla babu, too had seen the shadow figure and had stared at it in a trance. Then, as soon as it disappeared, he had expectedly let out a scream. He had screamed an instant before Neela was due to scream – if Neela had been able to let out hers before his, he too would have fainted. This was all par for the course when one encountered a supernatural presence.
Neela’s mother was fast asleep. Her younger brother Balai had been dreaming that there was a flood, their train had stalled in the water and was almost sinking, and he was sitting atop the train! Both now woke up and began making a loud racket in their distress.
Hearing the commotion, the downstairs tenant’s son Ananta arrived with a lantern. They too had rented the house only three days ago like Prafulla babu’s family. In keeping with the abject disrepair of the doors and windows, there was no electricity in the house either.
The landlord had given his word that repairs would happen soon, and electric lines would be restored. Till then, they had to make do with old, cracked lanterns and a handful of candles.
Neela came to as soon as someone sprinkled water on her head. Fainting after sighting a ghost is different from just losing consciousness. There is always a bit of awareness that lingers in the event of the former. The shock of icy water wetting one’s hair in the middle of the night brought back consciousness rather quickly.
“A ghost? On the wall? You both saw?” Ananta sank on top of a trunk looking worried. Staring at the uneven wall surface marked with black splotches, he said, “Ghost-sighting just means a temporary lapse in sight. Whoever claims that they have seen a ghost has actually only made an error in judgement. Ghosts are just mistakes in one’s vision!”
Neela got quite angry at this. “Are you implying that we are lying? We both saw nothing? When with our very own eyes…”
“Oh no…did I say that?” Ananta backtracked quickly. “Of course, you saw the ghost! Why would you scream otherwise? Why would you faint? I was just explaining what seeing a ghost means. Because there is a tangible explanation – there are ghosts. If something weren’t real, would it even have meaning, or could it be explained? What doesn’t exist is meaningless!”
Neela gulped. Prafulla babu stared at Ananta in slight trepidation. The boy had short crew-cut hair; Prafulla also noticed for the first time in some amazement that he wore coloured sunglasses in the middle of the night! Of course, he had met Ananta many times in the past three days. Ananta had helped them set up their furniture and even had tea with them that very evening. But seeing him now was different – it was night, and they were fresh from their otherworldly encounter with a phantasmagorical shadow.
Excerpted with permission from ‘The Singed Shadow’ by Manik Bandyopadhyay in The Phantom’s Howl: Classic Tales of Ghosts and Hauntings From Bengal, edited and translated from the Bengali by Arundhati Nath, Speaking Tiger Books.
