Believe it or not...!!!

By Jawed Khurshid

The world is littered with bizarre incidents odd enough to push us in nail-biting spree.  At times we find ourselves amidst strange riddles difficult to fathom. The real life tale which I’m narrating is extremely terrible and you are advised not to read this alone in your bedroom, else I would not be held responsible for any eventuality. Circa 1977: I was merely eleven year old then. I happened to visit Karachi, a happening port city of Pakistan along with my mother and siblings at the invitation of my maternal uncle who has now migrated to Canada after the hate mongers and religious zealots unleashed  pogrom against a minuscule peaceful minority, the Ahmadiyyas (they call us Qadyanis). There I heard a strange story which was hard to digest.

 A couple of hours away from Karachi, on a broad highway that links the port city with other major cities of Baluchistan province, such a terrifying incident occurred that had made our hair stand on end. On a chilly 11 December’s night, at 11 PM a cabbie was negotiating through the serpentine track amidst swathe of dense wood and hills in his yellow Toyota . He was mumbling some pushto song and was seemed to be in a pleasant mood. As he reached a U-turn, he was greatly surprised to find a gorgeous damsel draped in spotless white shalwar-jumper (clothes girls used to wear) standing erect at the middle of the road waving her hands desperately to stop the cab. As his eyes gingerly moved towards the girl’s forehead an unknown fear overwhelmed him. The fresh blood was oozing from her forehead as if she had met with an accident a couple of minutes back. Two thin rivulets of blood was formed which ran through her face all the way to her slender neck and ultimately merged with her satin across hercollar bone, making large crimson patch behind the left shoulder.

 Fear gripped him and various lacerating thoughts started haunting him time and again. Had she met with an accident? What was she doing here at this hour? As he drew closer his leg spontaneously pressed on the brake and with a sudden jerk the cab ceased to move a few feet away from the girl. She walked past the driver and opened the back-door and sat comfortably without mincing a word. Gathering his courage the cabbie asked, “Bibijiaapkokahanjanahai? And he wavered, “Is waqtaapyehankiyakarrahinhain? (Where would you like to go? and what are you doing here at this hour?)” She didn’t reply; simply waved her hand in a direction supposedly she would like to proceed. Now the driver was completely gripped with nervousness; broke out into a cold sweat and found that his movement was not under his control. After driving on the highway for a couple of minutes the girl waved her hands towards left and the cabbie was immensely frightened to find that the car turned sharply towards the left on a kachcha path (non-metallic road) strewn with grey pebbles inside the deep wood without his effort. He started shivering with trepidation. The cab moved on the jerky path and after few minutes reached before an old haveli (mansion) and stopped.

 The castle-like house seemed to be abandoned for years. She got down as silently as she had boarded the cab indicating with her hand asking him to stay there. He thought that she might have gone inside to bring fare. Initially he was hesitant to stay there even for a second but some unknown force paralyzed his movement. After half an hour when she failed to come out, he frighteningly came out from his cab and knocked one of the moth-eaten doors through which feeble light was coming out through the cracks that had developed in the door. A very old man holding lantern came out and asked him for the reason of his visit there and that too at that hour. He said that he was waiting to get his fare and narrated the entire event. Multiple lines of pain appeared on old man’s face and he brought the lantern towards the photograph of the same girl hanging on the dusty wall and asked, “Were you talking of the same girl? He nodded in approval. “She died years ago at the same spot in a road accident from where you were saying she boarded your taxi. And no other soul except me stays here.” His words fell like a ton and in a fit of nervousness he jumped inside his car and drove madly towards his house. After parking, he went inside his room, bolted the door and slept. The very next day he was found dead.

It is yet another strange but hair-raising incident that happened in a small town of Bihar – Bhagalpur , far back in forties. A student of a local college, on one unfortunate day, had left the movie theatre and was on his way on shank’s pony to his house in the dead of a night. As he was passing through the middle of the mango orchard he saw something glistening there. A mixed feeling of joy and fear overwhelmed him. But the joy for having discovered an abandoned treasure had overcome the fear of ghostly trap and he decided to get it before other could notice it.  Spontaneously, his body gave a jerk and he moved towards the shining object. An unknown feeling of joy had put him on cloud nine. As he drew closer and approached the place where it was lying he was astounded to find that the thing which was shining brightly was not gold but carcass of a human hand – all bones and no flesh. The fear-stricken boy screamed out in terror. He swiftly galloped away from the place and ran fast on the bushy lane to be fortunate enough to hear the tap-tap sound of a Tonga driven by a horse from the rear. As it came closer, the boy without thinking for a second jumped on it - shivering and profusely sweating with fear. The kochwan (driver) asked about the reason for his nervous state. He mumbled everything before him. When he reached his place and was about to pay the fare, the kochwan spread his hand out and asked, “Babu is terehkahaanththakya?” (Sir, was that hand resembled mine?). Lo! The boy saw the same skeletal hand being spread before him and an enigmatic smile spread acrosskochwan’s face which looked more ominous in the dim light. With a shriek the boy threw the coins at him and ran towards his house. Puffing and panting, any how he reached his house where he was staying with his old aunt. She showed concern and asked about his fear. The boy narrated everything before her. The aunt jocularly asked, “Beta, is the hand which you saw resembled mine? She said by moving her hand towards him. Behold! The boy experienced the same bony hand and without uttering a word died.

Believe it or not but the people here believe this as the real incident which had forced the then collector to put ban on the night shows in the town. The ban continued for many years even after independence and was lifted only in mid-sixties.