The Clandestine Adversary: Bangladeshi Hauntings 101
Whoosh…a breeze ruffles your curtains.
You jump as a distant dog's cry pierces the night. It's 3-ish in the morning, you're uncomfortable. And you just HAVE to relieve yourself at this godforsaken hour.
Deed done, you tiptoe across the dark hall for a sip. An eerie noise echoes; the hair on the back of your neck stands up. You feel an object shift nearby; and the all oxygen gets sucked out of the atmosphere. You wade through the solid darkness, and congratulate yourself for making it to your room alive.
You wash your face, look up in the bathroom mirror- and see a middle-aged, translucent woman staring at you from behind.
Not a lump out of a movie from the horror cheese factory.
True story.
Through the passage of time, believers have been believers, skeptics have been skeptics, and scientists have been debunking naturally-inexplicable manifestations as slips in electromagnetic forces and mechanics, dumb coincidences and the classic “Jinn er Asor”. But to us ardent soul-searchers, there is only one explanation to such “faux” phenomena – thunderclap- Paranormal beings.
Hear me out first, please?
I'm not saying that a Chupacabra will bite your head off right now, but humans and spirits, good and bad, we co-exist. Its just that our activity timings sometimes overlap in places most ordinary. That's when the gateway between nightmares and reality open up. There is also substantial proof that residual “energy” resulting from untimely, violent deaths linger in this mortal Earth. K2 meter readings, thermal camera pictures- name it. Talk about science, peeps!
It's not all in the AXN channel, y'all. Who said our dear old motherland isn't haunted? Don't believe me? Well, next time you visit, beware of the following- the horseman at Lalbagh fort, the white lady in “Mandir wala bari at Bakshibazar”, “Helar Ghat Shashan” in Moshiahati of Jessore, tea-plantations of Sylhet, “Mermaids” of Foy's Lake, cemeteries of Rangpur, etc. Be careful when you board a bus in Dhaka-Khulna and Dhaka-Chittagong highway; the passengers and drivers are sometimes not human, but lost victims of genocide of 1971.
Nearer to home, I'm pretty sure you've heard of the lady at Uttara Airport Road, the house on the Mazar Road in Mirpur, the haunted houses situated at Road no. 6/A, 27, 3/A of Dhanmondi, DMC Morgue, the 3AM prayer congregations of Jinns in different Madrasahs of Lalmatia, even the shrieking lady at Architecture Department of NSU.
All of us young adults, to some extent, have faced such horrid incidents in real life apart from listening to our grandmothers' tales. Anklet-wearing footsteps, the legendary possessed maidservants and whatnot. In Rubyena's haunted house in Comilla, two telephones from different floors placed themselves beside each other in the middle of the night, and one called the other up! “My mum took part in a Jinn summoning session when she was little. It was furry as a monkey, had hooves and a severely nasal tone” said Sabira. Ayon said he had attempted a planchette once, and the room got abnormally hot and someone kept calling out his name. Abanti said, “My mother had a miscarriage after having perpetual nightmares in which my dead grandfather appeared and warned her about it”. Nafis's uncle would always find their bed transferred to the other end of the room every morning. As for yours truly, the door opened and then shut by itself as I write. Scratchings are common, too.
For the amateur Bhoutists- tape recorders pick up hidden noises! Compasses, dowsing rods, and pendulums made from household items work too. Google them! Disclaimer: yours truly is not to be held responsible for any endeavours gone wrong.
The don'ts: Ouija boards, joining cults, and self-performed exorcism rituals. No amount of garlic will help you. And no amount of chanting and toilet flushing will bring Bloody Mary around either. Please. These are just too mainstream.
It's a society where some people still swoon in crowds over fanged, glittery, bloodsucking “beautiful” monsters and canines as if they were real Princes Charming who will sweep them off their feet. A tad bit discriminatory, don't you think? Give these poor poltergeists a chance to be believed in!
Disclaimer: We have no idea where the writer and her gang of 'Beliebers' are coming from. Frankly, the most supernatural experience we've been privy to is when one of writers had a cat that would hold the door open for him. But then, we're probably the unlucky bunch not allowed to chillax with ghosts. Or the Winchesters smoked them all out. The latter sounds more plausible.