THE GHOST CARP OF SILCHAR
Now I am not claiming that this story is true, and I am not saying that it is not true.
We were renting a British colonial era bungalow in an outskirt area of Silchar, called Tikarbasti. From the main road, itself a dirt road, you followed a narrow dirt lane for may be some twenty meters. Then suddenly, a field opened up in front of you, with the broadside of an oblong white building facing you. In the middle there was a semicircular projection containing the sitting room fronted by a round veranda. This gave the house the look of a historical building. It was known as R. M. Nath’s Bungalow.
If you stood in the veranda and looked ahead, then at about 2 o’clock there was a house at some distance which we knew as the house of Jaladhar Babu. At 9 o’clock there was a house in which two young ladies lived, whom we addressed as aunts: Suruchi-pishi and Sukeshi-pishi. This was the extent of our neighborhood.
Behind the bungalow were two rectangular ponds, one behind the other. The first one, next to the house, had its short side parallel to the house. It was rather featureless, clear-water pond. During a major earthquake that occurred about this time, fish were seen frantically jumping out of the pond. The clam water was good for “skipping” pottery shards, at which we children developed some expertise. Behind this Small Pond was the Large Pond, with its long side parallel to the house. The special thing about this pond was that its banks were raised. So you had to walk up the bank to see the water. Its water was a mysterious greenish dark, and near the edges, logged by creepers called Kalmishak. These spinach-like leaves could be picked, fried and eaten with rice.
About the vegetation: Right in front of the house, at about 1 o’clock, was a very ancient and thick-trunked Aola tree (also called Amloki) with long and strong branches. It bore marble-sized tart fruit. Just behind the house, at 4 o’clock was another tree which I remember bore tiny fruits called Looklooky. You had to take this fruit and knead it between the palms of your hand for a while before it was soft enough to eat. Later in life I asked many people, but nobody recognized that fruit or that name or that procedure. These trees gave the house some character. But the real point I want to get at is the Shaora tree, which stood in the far corner of the Large Pond, at 7 o’clock.
Now, the Shaora tree to the treedom is what a haunted house is to the housedom. The tree has low, strong, horizontal branches. On the lowest branch, at evenings, the grotesque female ghost Shakchunni sits, dangling her spindly legs almost to the ground. She waits to catch children who dare to go under the tree after dusk, and make a meal of them. Every Bengali mother warns her children: Do not go under the Shaora tree after dark.
The Shaora tree and the mysterious pond together created a sinister arena to which, after dark especially, we children gave a wide berth.
But as if that were not enough, the house itself was reputed to be haunted. It was said that the British denizens of yesteryear still lived in the house. Indeed, my favorite uncle who often came visiting us from Haflong, had occasion to give substance to this legend. One night, something woke him up, and he thought he heard noises – a tintinnabulation - from the dining room. He took a peek, and saw, under dazzling light, sahebs and mems sitting around a long dinner table, and laughing and talking in Ingreji and eating with kata-chamoch. This silverware is what made the noise he heard.
During my uncle’s visits, he and my father and some other adults sat around a round table and played a game called Planchette – a kind of séance. The lights were turned off, and a candle was lit. Many hair-raising hints about the house being haunted arose from the séance. That made an already bad situation worse for us. Luckily, my elder sister and I were of an age to not completely understand that we had to be afraid of these happenings.
Back to the Large Pond. Local legend had it that a deola (“of the spirit world”) Rohu fish lived there that was very ancient and very large. No one I knew ever saw the carp, but everybody believed that it was there. Some heard big splashes that were unexpected in this pond. It was said that a great many able fisherman had tried to catch the fish with great many techniques, without success. The legend had it that whoever caught this fish would die. I spent many hours of daylight on the raised banks of this pond, and once heard a big splash. When I looked where the sound came from, I saw disturbance in the water and nothing else. I thought it might be a big snake, as huge snakes infested the area around our house then.
So now you get the picture: The house of Jaladhar Babu, the house of Suruchi-pishi and Sukeshi-pishi, and the Shaora tree – these three locations defined the perimeter of our world – the region we were allowed to roam freely, as long as we would be home at meal times and study times.
I recall wondering if the Shaora tree, the carp and the house – if all these were somehow connected, may be through some very ancient pact. Did the Shakchuni, the ghost carp and the ghost sahibs and ghost mems collaborate against us? Would we have the ghost of chance against them if they jointly decided to do us harm?
Eventually, we left that house, and rented another place in Itkhola, across from the mosque. Because of this mosque the area had to be holy, I thought, so we would be permanently out of that sinister world. And it seemed that we were. The story ended for us.
One day a couple of years later word spread across the town (it was amazing how word spread in that town solely by word-of-mouth) that the deola carp had been caught! This was very big news – and people rushed to have a look. We could not, as Tikarbasti was too far for children to go alone. But we heard eyewitness accounts.
It turned out that the then renter of the house – let us call him Abhoy Babu, a vigorous and powerful young man – had decided to drag the pond end to end with a large fishing net, leaving no possibility for anything to escape. And the carp was snared. It was larger than anything ever seen in the fishmarket of Fatak Bazaar. What is more, it looked positively prehistoric. Its scales were large, thick and hard. They were dark except where overgrown with green moss. It almost looked like an organic combination of a fish and a clump of vegetation. It smelled awful – a smell no one recognized. The eyes were positively terrifying. After being brought to dry land, the fish thrashed around with such power that nobody could control it. Several people had to beat it with sticks until it was subdued. Eventually, it died simply from being out of water.
A triumphant Abhoy Babu decided to have a big feast – there would be fish kalia, fish fry, fish head curry and so on. It was difficult to cut the fish with the normal implement, so an axe and a big blade called ramda were pressed into service. Finally, manageable-sized pettis and gaddas (steaks) could be cut. Abhoy Babu’s wife personally did the cooking, and the family sat down joyfully to the evening meal.
Although the cooking was very fine, the flesh was as tough as Dunlop rubber. Nobody could even bite off a small chunk. Suddenly then, and at long last, the wife had a premonition. She ordered the servant to take the entire fare, and place it in a large gamla (large, shallow pot) under the Shaora tree. This was done.
That night the house itself came alive. Sounds were heard that, from the reports, were much like the sounds my uncle had heard. Abhoy Babu’s young children spoke of sahebs and mems walking about the house, speaking Ingreji. Nobody could sleep that night. Everyone was glad when sunlight came.
Early that morning, the whole family went to see what happened to all the carp preparations that had been consigned to the Shaora tree. They were all gone, the gamla licked clean.
Also that morning, Abhoy Babu died.
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