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The Thing
Revisiting a childhood experience of living in a haunted house.

In 1995, my mother had started teaching at a college

in Jalukbari, so she, my brother and I moved to this
locality that was then on the outskirts of Guwahati
in Assam. As we were moving into the new house,
my mother announced that there was something unusual
about its design. It was a gabled tin-roofed structure, with
a living room, a large bedroom meant to accommodate
two king-sized beds and a dining room with blue coloured walls. But the strange thing about the house was
that each room had four doors; as if it was not designed
to live in, but to escape from.

Each of those doors led us to a different world. The

front door opened into the living room, which provided
us with four other exits: the door straight ahead ushered
one to the backyard where a guava tree bore fruit for
most of the year. The door to the right opened out onto
the exterior of the house of our landlords an elderly
couple. And the one on the left led to the dining room.
We covered most of those exits, or entrances, with tall,
broad wooden bookshelves. Only the front door and the
door leading to the backyard were left unblocked.
But there was also a curious appendage to the

TEXT

ARUNI
KASHYAP
ILLUSTRATIONS

RESHI
D E V

house: a lone, thick, towering

bamboo plant stood next to
the kitchen, its body pressed
against the wall. Who plants
bamboo just beside a house? I
remember Ma had commented.
On windy nights its branches
thudded against the tin roof
and once I watched the plant
shaking her head during a
storm, like a crying woman who
had just lost her husband.

The thing, returned soon

enough, knocking and making other sounds, with more
intensity on Tuesday and
Saturday nights the days
of the week that people here
believe spirits are at their
strongest.

to the mysterious visitor. But then the knocking

sounds started moving around the house, coming from the windows, the other doors and the
walls. We could hear a mans voice calling out,
Ganesh! It lasted for hours.

The next day, while having tea with the landlady, my mother asked her if one of her four sons
was called Ganesh. The landlady stood up suddenly, her face pale. But my mother hadnt
noticed. Laughing loudly, Ma said, The two girls
were so scared. I told them to not worry, and said
maybe its someone from the landlords house.
The landlady said she didnt know anyone named
Ganesh. But she looked uneasy.

Almost immediately after we moved in, strange,

inexplicable sounds started to descend upon the house
at night, which were different to the thudding of the
bamboo branches. These terrified us, as did the more
disturbing incidents where an unseen thing that we
started to blame for the happenings, made itself more
known once attacking a guest as he slept. We felt
that this thing mustve been there before we came,
and it was as though it didnt like that wed blocked the
doors, somehow curtailing its freedom to move in and
out of the house. Back then, I was 11 years old and, with
my father based in Shillong with his job, it was just the
three of us living in the house, along with two girls,
Swapna-baideo who cooked, and Bhabani-baideo who
cleaned. Mostly, we endured eerie noises, and during
those terrifying nights, Ma, my brother and I would
huddle together in the bedroom, while the two girls lay
awake in another room. None of us would be able to sleep.

The thing returned soon enough, knocking and

making other sounds, with more intensity on Tuesday and Saturday nights the days of the week that
people here believe spirits are at their strongest. My
brother and I were petrified. We tried to ignore the
sounds. But my Ma, clever and brave, wasnt scared,
and she began to concoct explanations for what made
those noises: the tapping on the roof, she said, was
just the birds that were nesting in the bamboo plant
hopping around, or it was bamboo leaves rapping
against the tin. But when we heard what sounded
like handfuls of sand, pebbles or water being thrown
onto the roof, and then sharply trickle down, she grew
silent. She had no explanation for this, or for the unseen
something that moved around the dead of night, slowly
knocking all over the outside of the house.

The first incident happened the very night we moved

in after all but the two doors were blocked with wooden
almirahs. Someone knocked on the front door. As it
was midnight, Swapna-baideo and Bhabani-baideo who
were sleeping in the living room didnt open the door

It wasnt long before Ma decided wed had enough, and

she and I went to visit her colleague from the college, a
Brahmin she trusted who knew certain protective chants.
Dont tell anyone in the house about this visit, she said.
You are the man of the house in your fathers absence so
you will have to be brave. She said this again on the way

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back, when we returned with a packet of charmed mustard seeds. Ghosts, she said, are afraid of mustard seeds, iron
rods and the smell of fire-roasted red chillies.
The charmed mustard seeds worked and we slept
peacefully for five nights. But the sounds returned on
the sixth night. My mother and I hurried back to her
colleague. He asked her to check whether the mustard
seeds had germinated; on the third night, there had
been rain. How beautiful the light green, curved shoots
were, I still remember.
Things took a sinister turn when Baneshwar-da, one of
my mothers favourite students, came to stay the night to
attend a job interview in Guwahati the next day. That
evening he turned in early. Hed travelled a long way and
was exhausted. We set up a bed for him in the living room
and the girls moved into the dining room for the night.
In the middle of the night we woke to his screams.
Ma instinctively thought a robber had broken in, and
started shouting, trying to alert our landlords. But that
wintry, foggy night was too powerful and trapped people
in their dreams and quilts.
When we heard what had happened to Baneshwarda, none of us slept for the rest of the night.
I couldnt breathe for a long time. He was hairy,
heavy, red eyed, long nailed, too-tall-too-tall, he said,
sitting up in bed, drenched in sweat, though it was such
a cold night. It was only after I promised that I would
sacrifice a black goat in Kamakhya Temple that the
thing took his hands off my neck. Ma later explained
to me that you could appease angry spirits by sacrificing
a goat at this temple in Guwahati.
Ma tried to reason with him, saying that he mustve
imagined it all, and he was just tense because of the
next days interview. But he wouldnt calm down. He
jumped up and started to pack his bag to leave as soon as

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the sun rose. Im sorry I wont stay here anymore.

That thing kept calling me Ganesh. There is something in this house. Someone has committed suicide or has
been killed here.
That weekend, my father came to visit from Shillong. It
was the first time he had visited since wed moved into
the house, and it was only now that he was told about
the strange incidents.
The sounds that night were different. We could hear
a woman outside weeping incessantly. Then the sounds
started to sound like they were drawing closer to the
house. It was around midnight, and my father got out
of bed, irritated, tying the knot of his loongi as he walked
outside into the courtyard. Oo ghost, come out, lets
have a conversation: one on one. Swapna-baideo watched
him, terrified that the thing would kill him. But my
fathers making light of the situation gave my mother
courage, and she started to laugh and joined him. Oo
ghost, where are you? How many legs do you have?
What do you wear? Diapers or trousers or a royal turban
like the Ahom kings?
The sounds died away, weakening like echoes. And
I felt relieved; there was nothing to be afraid of now
because my father was here.

We cooked fish the next night for

dinner, and the smell emanated from the
kitchen window, out past the bamboo
plant and into the cold night air. As we
sat down to dinner we heard the sound of
a galloping horse outside. Then suddenly,
every door and window in the house
burst open, swinging outwards with a
swift, synchronised movement and with
great force. Shocked, we all jumped out of
our chairs and moved into the kitchen,
deliberating what had just happened.

That thing kept calling

me Ganesh. There is something in this house. Someone has committed suicide
or has been killed here.

The kitchen window overlooked a murky pond with

snaky hydrillas clumped inside. There is believed to be a
type of ghost called a baak that inhabits quiet, swampy
ponds, and is fond of fish. An hour mustve passed before
someone wondered out loud, Could it be a baak? And
when we walked back into the four-doored dining room
the fish was gone, and someone had left a clump of curly
hair on the rice; hair that my mother would pull from her
brush, and roll between her palms before throwing it away.
My aunt who knew how to deal with these things,
was called first thing the next morning. After my mother
hung up the phone, I faintly heard her saying to my father
in another room, You will be happily living in the land
of clouds, but what am I to do with these young kids?
One day you will find all of us dead of a heart attack.
Do whatever you need to but solve this before leaving
for Shillong. I have tried once, and now its your turn to
take stock of things in the family.
When she arrived, my aunt thoroughly inspected the
house. I told her what had been happening. It couldnt
be the wind, added my mother. And when we told the
landlords about the doors opening, she said they told
her that as the house had been built so long ago the
doors loosened in the wind sometimes. The sounds

on the roof, they said, were made by

vultures that lived on a nearby hill or by
bats that would come to eat the guavas.
And they simply didnt believe wed heard
a galloping horse.

My aunt took my parents to visit a

bej, a man who knew the art of dealing
with spirits and supernatural creatures
and who lived in a remote village. My
parents returned after dark from their
visit. My brother and I had been scared
to stay inside the house and our eyes
had darted from door to door, worried
something would burst through one of them,
toppling an almirah in its wake.

My aunt told us the story the next morning,

while Ma and Swapna-baideo were digging four holes
around the house, to the east, west, north and south,
to bury four porcupine quills that the bej had charmed
with holy water and crocodile teeth. The quills, hed assured, would keep away the spirit one that had many
things to fulfil for it had left its body far too young. Its
a teenaged boy who worked as a labourer during the
construction of this house, said my aunt slowly in a low
voice. He hung himself in this house.
We went to the bejs house, my aunt continued, but
he initially turned us back because the steel plate where
he sees the past and future only sticks to the bare back
of a man whose sun-sign is Libra. He tried on your
father whos a Leo, but it wouldnt stick. So we got your
cousin whos a Libra; it stuck to him immediately.
Did you look into the steel plate? my brother asked.
No we were too scared to see, even though its just
like any steel plate you serve rice on, my aunt replied.
But dont worry, if it is the boys spirit, or whatever else,
the thing wont be able to trouble you anymore, she said,

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a slight quiver in her voice.

My mother wanted to ask the landlords why
theyd hidden this secret from us. But father
told her to let it go, saying asking questions
may lead to more trouble. Many things remained
a mystery why the voices oscillated between a
mans and a womans on different nights, what
couldve happened to the fish. But the sounds
and incidents stopped right after the charmed
porcupine quills were buried.

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My aunt took my parents

to visit a bej, a man who
knew the art of dealing with
spirits and supernatural
creatures and who lived in
a remote village.

We lived peacefully in that house for a couple

of years. But trouble with the landlords eventually did come. They wouldnt fix the damages and
increased the rent by many times. Toward the end,
we were almost not on talking terms with them and
we wanted a change from the suburban life of Jalukbari. We were looking for a house more centrally
located in Guwahati, where my fathers workplace was
now based. Shillong was a thing of the past, of the days
when the thing was around. By the time we decided
to leave the house, I was still scared of ghosts, but I was
no longer 11 years old and was thinking about girls, not
ghosts, at night.
A day before we left, the mother of Sajidur, my
brothers friend, came to visit. She was a ruddy-faced
woman, who almost always chewed betel nut and wore
a red-bordered cotton gamusa around her neck. She said
she was sad to see us go.
That day Sajidurs mother told us about the boy. We
have only heard that your landlords family was somehow
responsible for driving the boy to suicide, you know, she
said. Your landlord was a police officer, isnt that right?
He apparently suppressed the case from the public. Its a
mystery why the boy hung himself. His soul hasnt gotten any peace, and thats why he takes on different forms

and disturbs anyone living in this

house. Thats why the house lay
abandoned for eleven years. We
were surprised when you all had
come. We thought, dont these
people know?

We left that house some time

in 1997, leaving it the way we
had found it when we first moved
in, with the doors unblocked
and open, banging slightly in
the wind. Before leaving, I went
to have a look at the remnants of what used to be the
tall, thick bamboo plant. After the porcupine quills
were buried, the bamboo had shrivelled up until nothing
but its roots remained. I still remember the landlady
fighting with my mother and accusing her of poisoning
it. Poisoning a bamboo shrub? I am sorry, how does one
even do that? Ma had said.
While driving toward the city with our packed
belongings, my mother stopped the car at Kachari, on
the banks of the Brahmaputra River. She opened a
small packet with soil and the porcupine quills. Before
throwing the contents into the river, she said to us: The
bej had said we would not be able to keep the thing
away from the house forever. If we didnt return his usual
hideout he would haunt us everywhere we went.
In 2002, my parents returned to Jalukbari to attend
a wedding. There my mother met two sisters whod lived
in that house. How did you all stay there for so many
years? they asked her. Sajidurs mother tells me you
didnt have any problems. They relayed their experiences
with the noises at night, someone called Ganesh, and
reported that in the last five years not a single tenant had
been able to stay for a sustained period in the house.

People would leave before the lease was over, or as soon

as the lease expired. In one year, four families came and
left. My mother just listened, but she was only too
eager to visit the house to see what had become of it.
So she and my father visited for one last time, and
what they saw, she later told me, was that the bamboo
plant was at the prime of its life, all grown up, better
than before and much healthier.