'Bhoot Bangla' by Mariya Hussain

Bhoot Bangla by Mariya Hussain (21184) 11G

The deafening sound of a cooker whistle cut through the stillness of the night like a knife...    The ghastly infamous ‘bhoot bangla’ - a.k.a. the ghost mansion - stood tall and wide with its arms open in a devilish embrace. The wind was a broom sweeping its way through the building’s decrepit windows. My mum and I turned to each other, the look of horror on my face reflecting in hers. The instinct to run burned in us like a fire fed with gasoline, there were no thoughts, only the sting of the ruthless wind as we bolted away screaming our lungs out.

It stood right in front of our gated community apartment. The rickety, ill-famed mansion was a lanky tower barely able to stand upright, an important element to the ghost stories told to us children to keep us safe and well away from the far corners of the apartment. Today, I know that it was just another precaution to prevent us from wandering too far, but back then it was a fact. The seemingly simple tale was made even more believable by the people living there. Actual real people lived in that dilapidated building and their silhouettes, well… were very ghost-like. 

One day, my mum and I decided to visit the gap between two of our apartment buildings, from where that awful place was visible. The ghost stories were so widespread that even my mum had a hard time believing that they weren’t true. As we stood in the tension-filled silence feeling accomplished and very, very brave, that darn cooker whistle blew from one of the apartments surrounding us. It looked like the sound emerged from the flat closest to us. This would have been just another common occurrence if it wasn’t for the fact that the flat was inky dark with its windows closed… no one lived there. 

This made our hair stand on its ends, arousing goosebumps all over our bodies. Chills ran down our spines, our worst nightmare was coming true. The ghosts had announced their arrival and were coming for us. We sprinted back home without stopping, keeping a check on each other's location. Our heavy footsteps thudded with urgency as we sought to distance ourselves from that cursed place. We had only one goal in mind -  reaching home safe… and we finally did.

This simple and effortless tale, woven by the grandmas and made intricately terrifying by the visuals and sounds, were the source of my nightmares throughout my early childhood. My dreams were occupied by phantoms emerging from that wicked dark place, always chasing me, but this time I never made it home.

Today, it's another incident to add to my vast experiences and memories from childhood. The event of my mum and I being terrified is a source of laughter, and the oddity of us actually believing in it, an opportunity to pull our own legs.