It is a highly debatable topic whether ghosts exist or not. But, most of us, in our inherent fear of these weird species have some encounters which, more often than not, turn out to be hoax calls. These are some such episodes for the readers of this piece.

Story I : 1978. A wintry, windy midnight of December. Place: D S hostel (now renamed as Mahendranath Dekaphukan Hostel), Cotton College. Ranjit Sarma from Room No.24 of PU 2nd year had the uncommon habit of relieving his bowels at that hour regularly. I used to stay one room away, at Room No.26. As usual, he went ahead to the rows of lavatories that were at the eastern corner on the ground floor. The location is quite near the mighty Brahmaputra, winter nights happened to be very foggy in those days – and the cold was sufficiently biting. The arrangement is such that when you approach the lavatory from the boarding side, you get a corridor first that connects the lavatory with the main hostel. Towards the right are the rows of lavatories lined up – towards the left of the dining hall straight ahead, there is a door that leads to a back entrance to New Hostel (now renamed as Sitanath Brahmachoudhury Hostel). In those days, New Hostel did not have its own lavatory-bathroom. There was a rather large concrete water tank under a shed for the use of the inmates for washing, bathing, etc.

What Ranjit saw as he approached the lavatories sent a shiver up his spine and his tendency vanished. An apparition was seen floating in through the door leading towards New Hostel and disappearing very fast into the lavatories. He tried calling out in a choked voice, but neither did it stop nor bother to reply. Panicking, he ran up to his room, looking back frequently to see if that ghost had followed him and after regaining his breath, narrated the encounter to his roommate Ashimda. He then called up my roommate Kumudda and after collecting a few hostel mates, went down near the bathroom. First, they called from a distance to know if there was anyone inside-and as they were greeted by the eerie midnight silence, went inside holding hands. All the rooms were open. No one was there.

Next day, it became the hot topic in the corridor amongst the boarders, who had congregated to read the morning newspaper, that spilled over to the dining hall too. They started talking that the place where the hostel is built housed a hospital during World War II and some old hands narrated how some unexploded bombs and cannon shells were excavated from below the ground during the construction of the hostel. Someone said may be some ‘foreign’ nurses who had laid their lives down here might still be haunting the place.

Words spread and spilled to New Hostel and they were also asked to be on guard at night and not to venture into the lavatories of DS Hostel at night. As a few seniors of New Hostel were discussing the matter at the dining hall at dinnertime, the attention of one of the cooks distributing food was drawn to it. He came near them and listened to the whole story. As he learnt the exact time of the incident, he laughed out loud – ‘Oh! Ha ha, it was me. I was in a hurry, so I did not respond to him. I did not think that he would not recognise me. But yes, I did wrap myself up well with my dhoti, as it was extremely cold. And, by the time they gathered themselves up to come back – I must have left the place.’

Story II: Winter 1982. Jalukbari. Assam Engineering College. 1 Hostel No 7. I had just got admitted and shared the only four-seater room at the Assam type block at the sorthern end. It was termed vegetarian block. Next to our room was a two-seater room shared by two final year students. Both were of the same branch. One of them had been exceptionaly brilliant, but he needed an atmosphere of pin drop silence to study – for whatever little time he did it. His roommate used to ask this and that or just broke the silence in between, which affected his concentration. He devised a foolproof strategy; or so he thought – till the incident occurred. After dinner, he appeared to sit at the table to study – and then, after some minutes, feigned as if bitten by the cold, and he felt too sleepy. Then, he would yawn very loudly and say – ‘Samiron, soun diya,’ (Samiron, I am retiring for the night). Very hurriedly, he used to get into the warm embrace of the quilt and used to tease from beneath it – ‘Haba ja, ei thandat kapi kapi parhi marileo eke sakorie pabi. Tok direct chief engineer bonai nede-besike janileo darmaha ek paisao besike napa’, (even if you keep on slogging braving this bitter cold, you will get the same job – you will not become the chief engineer directly. Neither will you be given a raise on joining because of your better knowledge.) After some repeated tries and also expressing groans of pleasure from under the quilt, he used to succeed in making his roommate get into the bed to savour the pleasing warmth of the quilt. As the latter was embraced by sweet sleep, the first one used to get up and, keeping his table light in a tilted position , start to study. As he slept late, he used to get up late. Again in the morning, he used to tease his roommate about getting up so early and doing his study so sincerely. The hapless roommate did not have any way to know his friend’s secret policy.

But every devil has his day. One night, as he was at the urinal to relieve himself after winding up for the day, one of the taps of one of the bathrooms suddenly opened. His heart skipped. Not a very courageous person, he practically shivered and managed to ask in a somewhat audible tone, ‘Who is that?’ A reply came promptly: ‘Kamala’, that sounded like a woman. Kamala is a name normally given to ladies. He thought fast. The entire hostel was asleep. There was no one in the hostel or among the cooks bearing the name Kamala. And the cooks too, did not usually come to this bathroom. Moreover, women were not allowed to stay at night with the cooks, not even their wives. Still, gathering his last ounce of guts, he continued, ‘Who Kamala?’ Again the prompt reply in the same lady-like voice - ‘Kamala Das, Sir’. He was about to faint. He started reciting the Gayatri Mantra and he did not properly remember how he reached his room. Next day, he narrated the encounter to his friends. An enquiry started. At last, it was found that a new hand, a boy of 13 or 14 years, had come from home that morning and had to go to the bathroom, as he had eaten too much at the hostel, since this was his first day. But our senior’s ploy of putting his roommate to sleep was exposed by the incident.

Story III: 1985. Summertime. Jalukbari. Assam Engineering College. Hostel No 6. Exam Time. Semester System. No study leave. Students were slogging late into the night. Partha came out of his room to straighten his limbs after a long haul and prepare for the last bout before calling it a day. He used to wear a very powerful pair of spectacles and, as such, from near, his eyes appeared a bit unearthly. Moreover, he was exceptionally dark, had pimple marks on his face and had some half-inch long hair on his head. He surveyed the rooms to check if he had company. A few rooms away down the corridor, Diganta’s room emitted light. An idea just struck him, to play a little trick with this fresh Black Belt in Kung-fu. He alighted on top of the porch from the first floor verandah overlooking the entrance, and then got up on the slab that runs along covering all the windows, and moved ahead towards Diganta’s window. Each window had a large ventilator attached above it. He went to the window and as the ventilator was large enough, put his head inside through it, and called up, “Diganta, porhisa?” (are you studying?). Startled, Diganta looked in the direction of the voice that came out rather hoarsely and eeriely, as his already hoarse voice was made more so by the stretching of the neck, as it got twisted in his endeavour to put his head through the ventilator. Diganta, the Black Belt, emitted a muffled cry and swooned instantly. He fell to the floor in slow motion, pulling his chair together with him. Partha immediately took out his head and ran back to his door, retracing his steps and knocked hard. As Diganta was not in a position to respond, Partha called a few others and broke the door open. There was froth in Diganta’s mouth and he was mumbling something. He had to be shifted to hospital immediately and given injections, etc., to be revived.

Later, we learnt what appeared from Diganta’s angle of view – a cut-off head (with a very bad looking face and bulging eyes-as Partha in the attempt to poke his head inside had removed his pair of spectacles to protect it from getting scratched) talking to him, which was a shocking enough to make him faint.

Story IV : Sainik School, Rajapara, Goalpara. Winter. I was visiting my sister’s family. My brother-in-law was the Medical Officer there. One evening, the compounder came running to his residence with a face as white as a sheet. He was literally trembling and shaking with fear. At first, he could not say anything. After a couple of hours, he calmed down and narrated the story, the gist of which was – he was about to go to the school dispensary to fetch some medicine for some injured students, who had hurt themselves during their sports classes. But, he found the road blocked by the swaying figure of Hastabahadur – the hefty Nepali chowkidar who had died a few months ago. My brother-in-law did not believe in ghosts, and immediately set out to see in person, despite his assistant’s pleadings not to do so, saying that in case he was attacked, nobody would save him. Anyway, my brother-in-law proceeded and as he went near, he saw that what appeared to be the swaying, giant figure was actually a sapling planted the year before, that had now grown tall enough to match the height of a person and its bushy body appeared as its hefty torso, and the white washed drum protecting the sapling looked like the white half pant the chowkidar often used to wear. The freshly grown grass around the drum made up for the lower dark skinned part of the ‘ghost’.

Bibekananda Choudhury