It was exactly midnight!
The last local train from Shiadah to Canning stopped at Taldi station!
It was a winter night. There were only a few passengers on the train. Everyone got off at the last station, Canning. I got off at the previous station, Taldi, alone.
The train dropped me off at the station in a lonely darkness!
I am returning home after many days. Many changes have happened in the area. I have heard everything but have not seen it with my own eyes. Now I cannot see anything of it because of the thick fog.
The station I know seems unfamiliar!
I got off the train alone and was shocked! The station was silent and empty! There was not a single person anywhere!
However, it was covered in thick fog! The lights of the station were surrounded by icy fog. Despite their many efforts, they could not push away that icy fog and spread their light around.
They could not be seen at all from a distance. It seems quiet from close. And the cold is also quite chilly today.
It is even beating down on my heavy coat. I don't remember ever feeling such cold here before. Sometimes I have to shake like a regular.
The station that I know so well seems unfamiliar today. I never imagined that it would change so much in just a few days.
The people have increased. It has acquired a semi-urban appearance. Yet so much solitude! Does it indicate any event?
How is the wind blowing! As if an unknown fear has settled inside me!
What is it? I don't know. Is it the presence of some unknown entity?
No no. Ghost! Are they all there again? All those disembodied spirits, ghosts, and all that is nothing. All those are human imaginations and mistakes of the mind. Being disembodied doesn't mean anything.
I gathered some courage and started moving forward after convincing my mind.
But I am also afraid that a few people might catch me alone and take everything. On such a night, pickpockets catch me alone. They can take away everything I have. Such incidents happen often.
But I have never heard of it happening here. So just because it doesn't mean it won't happen. Why can't it happen to me today or tomorrow! Such fears are swirling in my head. What if I say so? It's already night by the time I get back. I am walking a little cautiously.
In front is Manada's bicycle garage. I asked her to leave a motorcycle there at home. Sage Bhai has left the motorcycle there as I told him. He called me and informed me. No worries. Manada sleeps in that bicycle garage at night. She doesn't stay awake until late at night, she told me. However, if you call her, she will get up and open the door.
It is freezing cold today. And it is so foggy. You can't see anyone in front from a hand's distance. I can only see where I am stepping.
I got off the platform and was about to cross the railway line, when I saw two men standing right in front of me on the railway line! Wearing half shirts and full pants, their heads were not visible. I stopped and saw them in front of me. I was a little surprised.
I thought, oh my! What a body temperature! They are spending their time in such cold weather wearing a half shirt? But I heard that if they are drunk, their body stays warm. Even drinking alcohol in this cold weather cannot be dealt with.
I looked at them again carefully. I saw that they did not seem to be drug addicts. Let them be spared, father.
If they were drug addicts, they would be drug addicts. Then they are not drug addicts. Thinking about it, I felt a little relieved.
I saw that they were not saying anything! They were not moving! They were just staring at me with one look!
I thought, oh my father! But did they freeze to death in the cold? Or did the railway company make a statue like this here?
But their faces don't look like statues! But are they ghosts!
At that thought, my hands and feet are getting more and stiffer! I heard that all the people who were killed by trains become ghosts and stand on the railway tracks at night! The ones who have been killed don't even have heads like that. Only the storm that has been killed wanders around.
I didn't say anything out of fear! I didn't want to waste time talking unnecessarily.
I tried to walk past them. I saw them move to the side and they also moved in an instant and stood right in front of me!
I couldn't understand correctly. I thought maybe it was my mistake. I had walked in front of them by mistake in panic.
I tried to walk past them several times, right and left. I couldn't. Then I realized that it wasn't me, it was they who were coming in front of me, repeatedly!
At that time, I felt very tired. My eyes were drooping from sleep. At that moment, I closed my eyes in fear like a child and screamed. "What is going on? Is this a prank?"
Actually, no one wants to hear the truth. They didn't want to hear it either. The two ghosts are teasing me like this, that's what they're doing. That's why the words stuck with them.
After that, I looked around. There was no one else! I couldn't see where they had run away to in the moment I screamed.
I had heard that people who were run over by trains turn into ghosts and wander around at night. They even come home with them. But they are so skinny!
They don't have heads on their bodies! That's why they can't see anything! They move forward with their two arms waving! Whoever they can reach, they will twist their necks and kill them. No matter how strong they are, they will be defeated by their power.
As soon as they left, I remembered the mantra to drive away ghosts. I had heard that they are very afraid of the name Ram. So I chanted the name Ram seventeen times and chased them away from me.
I didn't think much about that. But while chanting the name of Ram, I looked around, and I was a little afraid.
Who knows, these days they might not be afraid of the name of Ram. So I'm afraid they might grab me from behind and twist my neck.
In the fog, you can't see anything if you move two feet. So they just If you hide from view, you won't find him again.
I slowly walked towards Manadar's garage.
I took out my motorcycle from Manadar's garage and started it. In the headlights of the car, I saw Zarim Bhai standing in front of me.
I didn't understand when he came and stood in front of the car.
Zarim is familiar to me. He also lives in my previous village. We have to go on the same road. Maybe he stopped when he saw me, and he will return home together.
I saw him wearing a paisley and a t-shirt! I thought, what happened to all of them? Isn't it cold? Meanwhile, I feel quite cold.
I asked him, saying he was a familiar person. "Are you going home?"
He nodded and said, "Yes."
"Then sit in the back."
When he sat in the back, I started the car.
Zarim sat in the back. I asked him. "Why didn't you bring winter clothes with you? Aren't you feeling cold?"
"You didn't give me anything else from home." He said.
I was a little surprised! He keeps talking about home so much? I've never heard of it being like this before!
Let's say that Baba and all the other things are not working. Still, on this lonely cold night, I don't have to return home alone. Someone is still with me. I have regained a lot of my strength. Thinking this, I didn't ask anything else.
I moved forward quietly. First, I passed the mango orchard. Then the guava orchard. Then, when I passed the tamarind plantation and entered our village at the Hogla intersection, I asked.
"How many children do you have now?"
He replied. "Six."
"Are they all married?"
He replied. "Yes."
"Is the old man still alive?" I asked.
I didn't get any more answers.
Just then, I was passing by the cemetery in their neighborhood! Suddenly, a gust of wind came towards us from the direction of the cemetery!
The wind blew around our car and back towards the cemetery!
After that, it felt like there was no more weight on the back of the car! It had become lighter!
I stopped the car and stood there! I looked back and saw! The back seat was empty!
Where did Zarim Bhai go? Didn't he fall out of the car somewhere? I didn't think so! Still, I need to look around. I could have made a mistake too.
I turned the car around and walked back. I looked carefully at the road here and there! I called out a few times on the road. "Zarim Bhai! Oh Zarim Bhai!" I didn't get any answer anywhere.
Hearing my call, Anwar came out of his house. His shop and house are on the side of the road.
Anwar is my school friend. He came out and asked. "What happened?"
I told him everything. Hearing his answer, I was completely sweating even in the bitter cold.
He said. "Zarim died a few days ago! He was cut down by a train!"
"Tell me what!" My heart immediately jumped.
So who did I bring in the car? I asked myself in a sad mood.
I saw a ghost, who had been run over by a train, who had not lived on the train line but had come and made a home in the neighborhood cemetery!
But he was not a ghost! He was a genius! Maybe geniuses can do that, at least that's what I saw.
And I didn't dare to return home that way. I chose to leave the five-minute route home and take the fifty-minute detour. With a terrible conflict and fear in my mind! Here he was standing in my way!
But the ghost was still in my mind! If I had seen any other person in front of me, I would have thought he was a ghost. I can't say what would have happened to me then.
There was danger in getting lost there too!
I had to return home and there was only about five minutes left. I was riding my bike a little too hard, when suddenly a bush-shaped scale fruit tree on the left side of the road shook!
I stopped and stood there. I saw how many bats had flown away from there! I thought they must have come there in search of food from that tree. Then I remembered that now is not the time for the fruit!
Then fear entered my mind! I looked at the tree and saw something hanging from the branch like a bat with its legs up and its head down! Quite big!
"Such a big bat!" I was a little surprised. After that, I thought, it could be. Such big bats are seen in the Amazon jungle of South America. They carry people, cows, goats, etc. on their necks. Maybe one of them has escaped and come here.
The fear went away. Now I wanted to take a closer look at it. When I looked at it closely, I was surprised!
"That's not a bat, it's a whole person!" Its skin color is black, so it looks like a bat! In an instant, my hands and feet became cold! Somehow, I controlled myself a little, drove the car at full speed and covered the five-minute distance in five seconds!
Standing outside the house in the light, I saw that my clothes were soaked, due to the heat. There was no cold at all.
Since that day, I have not returned home at night. I don't know if an enemy ghost will be standing somewhere dressed as a living friend. If he gets the chance, he will kill me.
Tell me, who wants to die at the hands of a ghost?