The following story is based upon real incidents that had occurred in a small village in Namchi, Sikkim.

 

A crashing loud noise tore through the nightly silence jolting Bhavna out of her thoughts. She heard water running from the tap. Quickly, she got up and went into the kitchen. When she switched on the light, she saw all the plates and utensils crashed down on the floor. And the tap was running too. The kitchen had turned into a mess. Just a few hours ago she had cleaned everything up. The window jerked open with a sharp spooky creak and rattled against the frame as the wind beat it harshly. Her heart thudding, she shut the window and fastened it up. Again. Before going to bed she had closed the window and locked the kitchen door. In the house, she only had her son, severely ill, sleeping on the bed. He could not have done that. The poor kid could not even get up let alone reach the key kept up in the rack. The key. She had kept the key in the rack but then the kitchen was unlocked. The lock hung on the door with the key dangling on it. Currents of sharp cold chills ran up her spine. Out of nowhere, she felt a touch on her shoulder. She ran out of the kitchen, screaming in fear, scared to death.

 

Hurriedly, locked the door and collapsed on the floor crying. Then something began quaking violently. She switched on the light, but electricity was gone. The wind was blowing angrily outside. The quake was coming from her son's bed. As she lit up the lamp, she saw him shaking brutally. 'Nayan, what happened?' she said, worried. He looked extremely pale with eyes rolled up and was murmuring something. As she held him in her arms trying to wake him up, her body shook too.

Through the dim light of the lamp falling upon Nayan's face, she saw it taking a ghastly appearance as it seemed to slowly distort and become a rough old face—the face of her dead husband. ~ After cutting enough wood to load up two dokos, the girls took a rest before leaving for home. As Anita looked for a spot to sit upon, she noticed an unusual hole on the ground. It seemed quite wider and deeper and had a bizarre opening. As she looked at it closely, sheer horror grasped her when she noticed hand marks on the soil running down the hole. 'Preeti nana,' she called her sister, 'look here.' The two girls stared at the strange hole in horror. With two hand marks imprinted on the sand it looked like someone held onto the ground and got out of that hole from under the land. 'Oh my God! What is this? I got so scared,' Anita said, completely petrified.

 

'Wait, this is the place where Ashok uncle was buried,' Preeti said. 'Who is Ashok uncle?' 'Did you forget? Bhavna aunty's husband who had died in 2013 in an accident in Kholaghari. His car had fallen into the river.' A sharp cold chill ran up Anita's spine. 'He was buried here?' 'Yeah, this is where he was buried, I remember.' 'But don't they burn the dead body? Hindus don't usually bury bodies right?' 'Yeah, I don't know what happened. They couldn't burn him so they buried him here.' 'Why didn't you say that before? We shouldn't have come here. Let's go home.' 'Jesus, but what is it? It looks so scary.' 'Do you think it might've been made by his ghost?' Anita asked anxiously. 'Yes, it must be his ghost,' Preeti said and pretended to run away, leaving Anita screaming and crying in fear. 'Hey I am just kidding,' Preeti said, laughing at her sister being freaked out. After finishing their chores, they decided to visit their aunt Bhavna down in Ranguthang. ~ Bhavna was making some soup for her bedridden son when someone called her out from the door.

 

'Bhavna aunty how are you?' It was her nieces, Preeti and Anita. Her tired face glowed with happiness to have her nieces come to visit her during that monotonous day. It had been a long time since they had visited her last. She had lost a lot of weight since the last time they had seen her, and looked like she had not slept enough. Her house was surrounded by trees and towering bamboo plants all around with no neighbors. There was a long stretch of stairs that ran through her aangan and the only time she would see others was when people passed through there. Other houses she could call neighbors were several steps away from her home.

So she would be delighted when somebody came to visit her. 'How is Nayan now?' Preeti asked. 'Khai, his illness is getting worse. Even walking has become hard for him. He has been in bed for 3 days now. Various bijwas and jhakris treated him but still he has not gotten well.' 'Didn't you take him to the hospital?' 'No, how will I take him up to the road? He can't even walk a little. How will he climb all the way up?' Preeti and Anita felt terribly sad and pitiful for their aunt, and Nayan, who lay in bed sleeping.

 

The once fat guy had turned so skinny. His face had gone pale and looked so much in pain even when he slept. 'Oh, by the way, aunty, you won't believe what we saw today.' The two girls told her about the hole that they had seen at the place where her husband was buried. Bhavna told them that they were not the first ones to have encountered that hole. People who had crossed through there had seen the weird digging on the land and assuming it to be made by some animal, they would block it with sand. But then, when ten different people came to know that they had seen the exact hole on different days when each of them who saw the hole had blocked it, they knew something was not right.

 

Soon they realized that no matter how many times the hole was blocked, it would reappear everyday. When Bhavna herself had come to know about it the first time about a week ago, like everyone else, she thought it was the work of some wild creature. But then the recurring strange events that began to haunt her house every night and the reoccurrence of the hole at her husband's burial every day, she began to feel was no coincidence. Her son had suddenly fallen ill and his health dramatically worsened through the days, the plumpy guy was reduced to a skinny bone. The ghastly look of her dead husband pasted upon Nayan's face on the previous night. The paranormal events that had started to haunt them every night.

 

All had begun since the appearance of the mysterious hole. Some village people suggested that it might be her dead husband's ghost that is haunting them and advised her to call a bijwa and perform a chinta to chase away the ghost. 'I cannot understand what karma we are suffering from. My husband didn't let us live in peace even when he was alive and now he is still haunting us after death.' Preeti and Anita were filled with dread after hearing her story. 'Oh God! It really must be the ghost. How are you living here like this aunty? We have to do something about it,' Anita said. Preeti said their papa might know a bijwa and she would tell him to contact him and they would perform the chinta soon. ~ Paro Hang, who happened to be a respected bijwa from the neighboring village, was called by Preeti and Anita's father. He agreed to look upon the matter. When he came to Bhavna's house, he sensed that the house was possessed by a spirit.

 

The chinta was held at night. People from all around the village gathered at her house. Bhavna was happy to see so many people at her home, but anxious too. The bijwa was ready in his dark oversized robe. As he began to beat the dhangroo with his stick, dancing savagely the adults watched him in amazement while kids in fear. Abruptly, he began shaking as the spirit took over him. 'Spirit of Ashok Rai, why have you come to this house?' the bijwa demanded. The spirit, through the bijwa's body, spoke in a raspy voice different from that of Paro Hang, the actual voice of the dead man. Bhavna was shocked to hear her dead husband's voice and watched in awe as he spoke. He said that after being buried dying an uncertain death in a car accident, he was trapped under the ground unable to achieve mukti. He had been trying to escape out into the world for so many years. Over the years, he struggled to dig a way out and finally was able to get out through the hole.

 

All his life he had ill treated his wife and son, trapped under the ground for several years, tremendous guilt had burnt over him. When he got out, he went to his family and tried to communicate with them but they could not see him. Every attempt of his communicating with family appeared as a paranormal haunt to them. His son got severely ill because of his presence. Guilt stabbed him everyday as he tried communicating with his family in vain. He had realized the value of his family after his death. When it was already too late to make things right. He haunted the house everyday and night to be close to his wife and son.

 

The bijwa told the spirit that the dead and the living cannot exist together, the dead have to leave the world. He said the dead body has to be dug out and burnt with a proper funeral so that the spirit could get mukti and leave. The next day, they went up to the site where Ashok was buried. The hole was still there. Few men dug the hole and when they reached the body, they were shocked to see it. It had been buried for six years, that long duration of burial should have decomposed it, but there lay the body of Ashok Rai with not a single inch of skin lost. It had not changed a bit since it was buried. With soil stained all over the body, it seemed to have turned dark. The bijwa grabbed it by its mouth and pulled it out. Pools of blood oozed out from the back of its head. The wound looked fresh. It was like the body was healing itself and was about to be alive again. The bijwa predicted that had they not taken out the body in time, it would have become alive again and risen from death to haunt the entire village.

 

The body was shifted on a wooden carrier and carried down to the river, where it was kept on top of a pile of woods. Bhavna set the fire to the woods. The fire gradually engulfed all of her husband's body as huge thick smoke rose up to the sky, carrying his spirit to the heavens. ~ 'Bye ama, take care. I will come home soon. If you need anything, call me la,' Nayan said as he got out of home for college. It had been a week after she had burned her husband for good. Bhavna was extremely happy to see her son become healthy again. Although her husband never treated them right when he was alive, she felt glad that at least he realized his mistakes, although after death. After that day, the paranormal happenings in their home stopped and Nayan began to get well right away. Peace was restored in her home and they lived happily. Sometimes when her nieces would visit her, they would have a good chat talking about those times.

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