Something is wrong! Every time I pick up the
telephone ……. the voice on the other side tells me an old story in a husky
voice. When I ask about her number, the old woman stops speaking a word. I
could not remember but could faintly recognize her voice. It seems very close
to me, but why, I can’t remember her? Was it, that I visited a place called
Jotishpur about more than a decade ago in one of my weekend outings? It was
near Rupnarayanpur named by the river Rupnarayan, in between the districts of
Howrah and Midnapore. I visited a childhood friend, who invited me to spend
some time with him. I stayed there for about a week, on an evening stroll in
the surroundings of the house, I unexpectedly went a little far. I was feeling
that someone was calling me from within myself, to go there. The other side of
the town of Rupnaryanpur is also called Jotishpur and I came there, quite
unexpectedly during the evening walk. It’s the month of November coming to an
end and during morning and the evening cold is being felt. In this Mo fusil
area the cold is felt much more than in Kolkata. While walking, I reached a
field and beyond it saw some bushes and trees and a broken house in a very
deplorable state. Since, winter is gradually setting in and a small town so
both traffic and people are becoming less visible. I hurriedly crossed the
field; the boys have already left the place after their game. The place is
almost deserted; after crossing the field and negotiating the bushes and trees,
reached the basement of this massive palatial building. Almost a destroyed
house, I met an old woman there, all of a sudden.
She asked me, “Where you have you been all these
years?” but I was unable to recognize her. She again asked, “Why you were so
late, in coming here?” She touched my hand and I felt a shiver, running down my
spine. Her hands were cold as snow and I gradually lost my consciousness and
fell down on the ground. I did not know how long I was lying there? My
consciousness came back when my friend Sridhar came calling to rescue me with
some of his local friends. I was feeling a pain on the back of my head and saw
at a distance that old woman waving me and disappearing among the broken walls.
Returning to my friend’s place, after dinner went to sleep. In the very early
hours of the morning, a dream almost engulfed me. I saw myself as a zamindar’s
youngest son and was looked after by a middle aged maid. I could recognize
gradually the face of that maid and found resemblance with that old woman, I
met. She took great care of me, since my mother was sick and my father left me
at a very young age. I saw everything in my dreams.
Later, the rest of the week I stayed there visited
that haunted house and heard some female voice calling me from a distance but
never got the sight of that woman. The voice resembled that woman. I heard from
the local people and my friend that this was a Zamindar’s palace. They were
said to be related to the Chand Saud agar’s family of ancient Bengal and they
practiced the ritual of not worshipping, the snake goddess Manasha. So they
were cursed and any one member of the family would be bitten by snake bite. It
was my father’s turn and he was bitten by a king cobra while inspecting the
renovation work of a lake in our village. He died within a few minutes in spite
of providing the best of health care of that time. I remember all the events in
my dream and they come one by one. I also see that old woman calling by my
name,”khoka”, long ago called by my mother who is too old to remember those things.
When I asked my mother after returning from my friend’s place. She seemed
mesmerized and reclosed herself into deep thinking. Later at the dining table
at night, she asked me about the description of the old woman in her standard
weak and feeble voice. She said that long ago about two hundred and fifty years
ago, these events took place, but how I am related to it is quite impossible to
her to understand? It seemed that I was
related to that place from my previous birth. My mother also recalled the same
thing and said that old woman is present at that place as a spirit and has no
physical presence. This left me totally dumb-struck, even on reaching and in my
sleep, I saw that woman. The last and the most awkward thing happening for the
last month or so is getting phone calls and the voice on the opposite side is
of that woman. I am getting increasing helpless and feeling psychologically
weak. I am feeling that woman is trying to hypnotize me and eventually kill me.
But my wife and my mother is assuring me that, since she loved me so she will
not harm me but is trying to influence me to unearth some mystery. So one day,
taking a few days’ leave from my writing job, me, my wife and my friend along
with a local priest went there. We dig out the place where the old woman
disappeared and found an ancient skeleton in a very deplorable condition at
about two feet below. We cremated it and performed the holy rituals and left
the place. That very night, in my dreams she came and blessed and congratulated
me for this noble deed and she also said that I did the true job of a son,
tears flowed down my cheeks and I went up.
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