We grow up reading Bengali literature filled with the concept of ghosts. For us, ghosts are not only scary, they can be helpful, friendly and funny too.
Kolkata: It’s Naraka Chaturdashi today and as per legend, Lord Krishna had slayed the demon Narakasur on this day. While the country will celebrate the day as Chhoti Diwali, in West Bengal, it will be slightly different. The day will be celebrated as Bhoot Chaturdashi since it is believed that ghosts of all sorts crawl out of hell on this day and in order to ward them off, people will light diyas, lanterns etc.
We Bengalis have a special connect with ‘bhoot’ or ghosts and while Bollywood loves to portray us as beholders of dark powers imbibed from the proximity to ghosts, it takes a great deal more to understand that firstly the stereotypical concept is absolutely nonsense and secondly, how and why the concept of ghosts mesmerises a Bengali mind more.
The answer, for those who do not know, lies in our books. We grow up reading Bengali literature filled with the concept of ghosts. For us, ghosts are not only scary, they can be helpful, friendly and funny too. And very few Bengali litterateurs have been successful in avoiding topics revolving around ghosts and the paranormal.
In the early days, ghosts were probably the only element of Bengali folklore and fairy tales. Famous Bangladeshi novelist Humayun Ahmed in his collection of Bengali ghost stories titled ‘Amar Priyo Bhoutik Golpo’ has mentioned the obvious presence of ghosts in the daily life of people in rural Bengal. In the villages of Bengal, the appearance of ghosts used to be a daily occurrence, considered to be the people of the house or a part of the family.
In his book Ahmed narrates a conversation between his grandmother and a guest from a neighbouring village. He says while the flow of conversation between the two continued smoothly, it became uncomfortable when the guest suddenly lamented that a petni (pretni) was creating a nuisance in his family of late. The nature of the trouble was such that when a fish was fried in the house, the petni would reach out through the kitchen window and try to snatch the fish. If she fails to lay her hands on some fish, she would beg the family in a nasal tone to give her some fish. Ahmed observed that the most startling element was that none of the guest’s family members were surprised by the incident or considered it unusual.
Ahmed has written stories on solving paranormal happenings through his character Misir Ali, a guest professor of parapsychology. Just like Misir Ali, Boroda is also intrigued by the paranormal world and shares his tales of adventures and experiences with his friends. And Boroda was created by Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay, a writer who gave us a detective like Bomkesh Bakshi. Although known more for the detective series, Bandyopadhyay has penned ghost stories like Kamini, Dehantar, Bhoot Bhobishyot etc.
Reverend Lal Behari Day, a revered writer and journalist, collected many folk tales of Bengal and translated them into English. His book ‘Folk Tales of Bengal’, first published in 1883, contains many tales associated with ghosts and supernatural beings.
It has been a practice since ages for grandmothers to sit with their grandchildren in the evenings, when the sun sets beyond the horizon and the stars brighten up the sky rendering the perfect backdrop, to tell them folk tales. Tales of princes and princesses, of demons and ghosts. Admittedly, this practice is slowly taking a backseat these days with the concept of nuclear families devoid of the presence of grandparents but many of us can still relate to those times.
It is probably because of this practice that a book, a collection of folk tales, was named ‘Thakumar Jhuli (which loosely translates into Grandmother’s tote bag)’. Yes, a bag, a bagful of stories, that’s what he grew up listening to and later read them and also cherished our collection of cassettes that had the sing-song versions of these tales. Compiled by Dakshinaranjan Mitra Majumdar, Thakumar Jhuli was also a book of morals.
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It is ‘Thakumar Jhuli’ which sharpened our concepts of rakkosh-khokkosh (demons and evils) and the famous Laalkamal Neelkamal is probably the best teacher we had.
Muhammad Zafar Iqbal, a writer famous for his science fiction novels, mentioned Pishachini in many of his supernatural stories. Pishachs or ghouls are flesh-eating demonic entities that feed primarily on corpses. The female version of a ghoul, called Pishachini, is described as having a hideous and terrifying appearance, but she sometimes appears in the guise of a young, beautiful maiden to seduce young men.
Even the legendary Satyajit Ray could not keep himself from writing ghost stories. His stories around Tarini Khuro and even Professor Shanku often spoke about paranormal experiences.
One of Bengal’s favourite authors, Syed Mustafa Siraj, who was famous for his Colonel series featuring Colonel Niladri Sarkar, often wrote about ghosts. In fact, the Murari Babu series dealt only with the paranormal.
Even Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay penned stories like ‘Ashariri’, ‘Medal’, ‘Ronkini Debir Kharga’, ‘Maya’, ‘Abhishopta’, ‘Taranath Tantric’ etc.
Tantric practices and black magic were very popular in rural Bengal for many centuries in the past. Taranath Tantric is a classic character in Bengali literature created by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay in the field of supernatural stories. Taranath is a practitioner of occultism and an astrologer by profession, and has had many encounters with the supernatural in his extensive travel across towns and villages of Bengal. He shares these experiences with a few friends over cups of tea and cigarettes at his Mott Lane home.
While Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay had written the first two stories of the series, his son Taradas Bandyopadhyay continued it and also came up with his own paranormal stories.
But ghosts are not scary all the time and Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay has strengthened our belief all the more with his portrayal of ghosts as kind-hearted, innocent and funny beings. His famous creation was ‘Gosaibaganer Bhoot’ which was later converted into a movie.
From Tarashankar Bandyopadhyay’s stories, we got the concept of daini and kana bhulo. While daini or a witch is not a ghost, kana bhulo is a ghost that hypnotizes a person and takes him to unknown places.
Just like the others, Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore too couldn’t stop himself from writing short ghost stories like ‘Kankal’, ‘Manihar’, ‘Mastermashai’, ‘Nishithe’, ‘Khudhit Pashan’ etc and all of them are considered classics of the genre.
And to end, while an average Indian may have come across the stories of Hastar and got acquainted to the concept of an unearthly being guarding treasures at a much later stage, probably after the release of the 2018 movie Tumbbad, for us, the concept came from Hemendrakumar Ray’s Jakkher Dhan. In fact, for us, it even turned into an idiom.
So, the next time you stereotype a Bengali as the possessor of dark powers, we may take the liberty of throwing a fat book at your face or worse, hand you over to a band of rakkosh-khokkosh! Happy Diwali.
