This new anthology features Bengali writers who wrote about man-made and supernatural spectres

Raj Chandra Sen, my great grandfather, was the first member of our family to leave Payogram village in the illustrious Khulna district and settle in Suyapur, Dhaka. The move, however, proved ominous for him because soon after he had settled down in the new place, he died. His death, in his early thirties shook the foundation of his family. Sadly, his widow fell victim to the machinations of his extended family and was robbed of her legal rights to his property and share of the zamindari. In a desperate bid to save her three young kids, my great grandmother moved back to Khulna and started living at Bhawani Prasad Dasgupta’s house.

Raj Chandra Sen’s widow brought up her kids; two sonsand a daughter, with great difficulty. In time, the daughter got married but she too like her mother, lost her husband early on in her marriage. Of his two sons, Ramanath was older while Raghunath was younger. Both the sons received extensive education and learnt Sanskrit, Bengali, and French. Raghunath took up business as his profession and spent his leisure time teaching Bengali and French to village kids. Ramanath, on the other hand, became an officer at the police force. His profession, however, didn’t do justice to his aesthetic sensibility. For, apart from being a much dreaded police officer, Ramanath was an exquisite artist too.

Had Ramanath been happy practicing art in his leisure hours, life would have been happy for him. But alas! That was not be. Apart from art, Ramanath was also deeply interested in tantrism as well. In order to seek spiritual upliftment, he would frequently participate in several Tantric ceremonies and ritual performances. It was this unquenching thirst for spiritualism that resulted in his violent death.

One night in the winter of 1838, Ramanath along with a Brahmin friend from his village went to the Gajakhali riverbank to conduct the dangerous Tantric ritual of Shava Sadhana. As you know, this spiritual practice is probably the most esoteric part of Tantric mysticism and involves strict rules and regulations which must never be violated. I heard the story from Ramanath’s second wife, Gauryamani Devi, who was 18 years old at the time of the incident. I don’t remember the name of Ramanath’s friend, but I have seen his son, Shyam Sundar Chakravarty, as an old man. This is how Gauryamani had narrated the incident:

“It was an especially cold winter day. My husband had gone out with his friend early in the evening. It was Saturday and a new moon day. My husband and his friend had managed to locate a couple of Chandala corpses that they planned to use for the Shava Sadhana ritual. We had several family members and by the time, dinner was over, it was usually midnight. The women of the household ate after the men had finished their dinner and I was sitting in the kitchen, before the stove, soaking up the warmth of the fire on that cold night, waiting for my turn. I felt sleepy and eventually dozed off. As I was falling asleep, I saw a dark elderly woman approaching me with a sack. She stood over me, unfastened the back and began to shake out its contents on my head. “Let all the sorrows of the world be upon you,” she said.

No sooner had I woken up than I heard a commotion from outside. I went out to inquire and realised that misfortune had undoubtedly befallen me.

I observed a number of men carrying my husband on a bamboo swing. He was whimpering and there was a red patch on the left side on his neck as if someone had stricken a blow with the open palm of their hand. His cervical spine looked crushed as well and his face was contorted beyond recognition. Shocked and amazed, I began to cry. For three days, my husband remained in that state, never speaking or regaining consciousness, but groaning occasionally. After he had died, people told me that while he was sitting on the corpse and meditating, it had come back to life and inflicted the grievous injuries on him. Shyam Sundar Chakravarty’s father too mentioned the same thing.”

A long time has passed since that incident; nevertheless, I still find it improbable, nay, impossible to believe that a famous and formidable police officer like Ramanath Sen should have encountered death at the hands of paranormal forces. The village people, on the contrary, were convinced and still are that ghosts were indeed responsible for my grandfather’s untimely and horrible demise.

Excerpted with permission from ‘The Unnatural Death of My Grandfather Ramanath Sen’ by Dinesh Chandra Sen in An Anthology of the Best Ghost Stories from Bengal, selected and translated by Barnali Saha, Bee Books.