Around the year 1962-63, my Grandfather was around 50 years old. He was a man with a family; a wife and 3 sons. All his kids were enrolled in school. They were not very well off, but quite content with what they had; farmland around their house for seasonal produce and paddy, cows in the cowshed for milk, and a roof over their head which they owned.
The village where they lived, in West Bengal, India, and where my father grew up too, was a desolate place at that time. My father was around 10 that time, and he's the person who has told me about this incident.
On a clear and cold November day, my Grandfather was returning to his village from the railway station, well after mid night, with a friend accompanying him. They were walking along the tracks as always. The sky was clear and they could see all the stars and constellations. Winter had set in and it was pretty cold. There was no fog or mist anywhere and visibility was perfect. Everything seemed normal.
Almost halfway, his friend, let's call him Baidyanath, felt an urge to answer nature's call. He urged my Grandfather to keep walking with the assurance that he'll catch up. So my Grandfather kept walking without slowing his pace.
Suddenly, Baidyanath, who had just sat down in the bushes to relieve himself, heard a hullabaloo from the direction in which my Grandfather had gone. In particular, he heard my grandfather yell, "Ke! Ke! Ke okhaaney?! (Halt! Who goes there?!)
As Baidyanath helped himself onto the track which they were following, he sees my Grandfather a small distance away from him, almost breaking into a sprint and yelling those same words repeatedly, in various arrangements, at someone.
Baidyanath too started running to get closer to my Grandfather. As he did so, he saw that my Grandfather seemed to follow someone or something. On following my Grandfather's gaze, he saw a figure, a lady wearing a white sari (traditional Indian attire for women), walking a little ahead of my Grandfather.
Now, as Baidyanath neared my Grandfather, the white figure crossed the railway track and seemed to vanish in the small woods. He heard my Grandfather still call out, baffled, almost shrieking wildly.
Baidyanath grabbed my Grandfather's wrist and almost dragged him home. As soon as they reached, he told my Grandmother not to give my Grandfather boiled rice for dinner, which they usually had (I have no idea why, must be a local belief). On the other hand, my Grandfather went straight to bed and suddenly started to shiver uncontrollably. It was found out that he was running a high fever all of a sudden. All the blankets in the house that could be spared could not keep him warm and he kept on shivering the whole night.
Next morning, he was back on his feet and back to work.
The irony: my Grandpa never believed in the paranormal; neither before and astonishingly not even after this incident. He was never ever scared to go any place, even where there were rumours of a haunting. He never believed.
Read 
Loading comments....
