The Unexplained – 2

The Bridge

This incident took place way back when I was in school. I was studying class 9 and sister was in 5^th standard. My father was transferred to a new place called Nowrozabad. It was no different from the rest of the places I had lived. I guess all coal areas are a lot similar except their names. We had heard about a lot of weird incidents happened in the past with the local residents. My father had never believed in those nor paid any attention to the tell-tales. Though, I was always keen to exchange words on ghosts with the locals. Once a school mate told me that she lost her cousin brother to ghosts. One day he was walking on the road and someone called his name from behind. He stopped and looked back. Since then things were never same with him again. He stopped eating and going to school. He started wandering in jungles and talking to invisible creatures. His voice sometime cracked and he spoke some unknown language. His health was deteriorating and then one day he never woke up from sleep. She said her brother was trapped by some evil spirit that sucked his blood. I was horror-stricken and i told my mother what she said. My mother said there is nothing like a ghost, only uneducated mind gives birth to these stories.

There was a big town on the other end of Nowrozabad. Apart from daily groceries, for everything else one has to go to that town. Generally people go there and buy things in bulk and store them for months. There was a stream flowing between this part of Nowrozabad and the town. One has to cross a bridge to reach the other end of the area. This bridge had a different story to tell. No one was ever seen walking over the bridge at any part of the day. People either ride on cycle or use some kind of vehicle to cross it as quickly as possible. There had been many accidents took place on the same bridge in past. Many jeeps and trucks fell in the river while crossing the bridge without having any technical fault. Many people lost their lives. Most of the accidents took place during the night. The locals avoid going to the town after dusk. Many people who have survived and witness the nightmare said, there was a lady walks across the bridge. Some said the lady stops the car and ask for a lift. Some said the lady with an unpleasant face knocks down the vehicles in the river. With so many stories heard I used to feel very scared every time I crossed the bridge. But nothing ever happened to us or any other officer who lived there.

One day we went to buy a CD player to the town and we got late. The driver was asking my dad to finish it early as we have to cross the bridge by a decent time. My dad never paid attention to his words. We started from the town around 10 PM. We bought some patties and cakes from the town as we rarely got them here. After 45 mins drive we reached near the bridge. The driver said, “Saab today is Amavasya. We should have returned early”. My father snapped him “Don’t talk rubbish and drive the jeep.” We were tired and drowsy. The driver told us, “Don’t sleep baby we are crossing the river”. I was looking outside the window and then suddenly my father screamed “Look at the woman she must be daring enough to cross the bridge by walk”. We all looked ahead. The driver slowed the jeep and started to blow horns several times. The woman was walking slowly at the middle of the bridge. She appeared to be one from the local tribe from her dressing. All these noises didn’t make any deviation in her pace and she continued strolling at the middle of the bridge. She was just few meters away, my father ordered the driver to stop the jeep. He replied, ”No saabji, let us not stop here. We have to run across the bridge ignoring her presence”. Then suddenly the driver ordered all of us to keep our eyes open and clutch the seat tightly and not to look back to the woman from the jeep. He blown the horn long and sped up the jeep and ran over the woman. In no time we crossed the bridge. After driving few minutes he stopped the jeep and said, “Saab we would have died today had I not acted wisely”.

We were bewildered and horrified with what we have just experienced. I was frozen with fear and trying to recall what has just happened to us. Then my father asked the driver, “How did you know it was an apparition?”. The driver replied, “Saab the ghost of the bridge is very common among the tribes. And for decades no one ever crossed it by walk. It was very unusual to have a tribal woman walking in the middle of the bridge on a night like this. So I trusted my intuition and gathered courage and the rest we know”. Then we returned home and prayed together and went to sleep. We didn’t have a good sleep that night and it took many days to fade away the remains from our memory.

When I shared the same story with my peers at work in Delhi, many like me came up with similar stories associated with bridge and ghosts. After hearing all these it seems that ghosts are basically nature lovers. They find home in trees, rivers, jungles, abandoned places and above all bridges [wink].

Madhurima Acharya

27^th Dec’ 08