The Longest Night of my life..!!!

It has exactly been 9 years, 7 months and 5 days to be precise. Now you must be wondering what the hell?? Frens!! I m talking about that night when I had the closest encounter with something called death. Yes you heard it right! The very thought of that marathon night makes a chill run down my spine and my adrenal gland to release all its adrenaline to combat the fright.

It was in Dec ’99. I went to Changlang, Arunachal Pradesh (AP) for a holiday with my cousin, Basu after my final term exams. For all those who are alien to this place, it is a small district in AP and set in the hills. The roads are quite steep and adorn dangerous curves all the way. Basu was working in the LPT station of Doordarshan Kendra there. He was allotted a room at an Inspection Bungalow right at a hill top. You can peep into the entire town from there. It was a huge mansion but strangely completely deserted. Not a single soul could be seen around. Like all the houses there, this bungalow was also built on a platform of wooden planks. It was kind of a raised platform and you can actually crawl below it. Strange Na..!! As I strolled around the place, an aura of mystery was creeping into me. The entire bungalow was in a dilapidated condition with broken window panes. I suddenly felt a strong urge of peeping into a room with windows wide open. It was a quite chilly evening with furious winds fidgeting the windows. As I neared to tame the panes, I heard a loud BURAN!!!!..Hey dats my pet name. It was my cousin who shouted with all his might to stop me from peeping in. As I turned back, I saw the words “Bhoot Bagla” inscribed emphatically into the walls with tarred ash. What the crap!!!!

Basu pacified me saying that it’s the outcome of the mischievous local Wangchoo tribes and assured me not to bother. I asked him why he resisted me to peep in. He then went on to narrate me a riveting and nerve wrecking story of Sonia who committed suicide right at the next room of ours courtesy burning herself. From then on nobody dared to enter that room and hence the tarred look. The local tribes complained of strange auditory experience every night coupled with helpless cries. Hence the fear compelled everyone to abandon the mighty mansion. Are u nutz…!!!! , I screamed. You have brought me all the way from Tinsukia to this crappy place of yours for a holiday. He tried to pacify me stating that the tribes are transpiring the rumours as they want to capture this mansion by scaring everyone out. I was not at all convinced.

It was a Friday night and hence started the longest night of my life. It was a freaky freaky Friday. My cousin has already sown all the seeds of extreme fear into me which I hesitated to reveal. In those parts of the country, dusk strikes quite early. It was evening by 4.30 PM. To my awe, it was a new moon night. It was so dark that I could hardly see myself. The mansion silhouetted with all the little light it had in the background. But I must admit the bungalow looked extremely fascinating against the dark tresses of maiden night.

Basu came back from his job early as I requested him so. We cooked a strange meal of boiled and mashed potatoes, pumpkins and reddish and topped that up with Ghee and Achar. Mmm Yummy..!!! I doubt u agree. Everything was normal by then. It was almost 10 PM. It was time for the Friday movie in Doordarshan, nd we were watching the scantily clad Zeenat Aman singing “Panna ki tamanna hai” to Mr. Dev Anand in the movie Heera Panna. I was getting axtremely bored specially watching all the strange antics of Dev Sahab.

I decided to call it a day as Needra Devi was seducing me to sleep. Even Basu thought of retiring to bed. We switched off the TV and decided to sleep. Basu makes it a point to keep his trademark Eveready torch by his side while sleeping. That night he somehow forgot. I went beneath the red Thai blanket to combat the chill. But all I could think of was Soniya and her mystery. There was an extension of the tubelight switch accessible from the bed. We thought of switching off the light after getting into it.

We had a tete-a-tete about the strange town of Changlang with the lights still on. He asked me to switch them off after sometime. As I moved my hands, the lights went off on its own. I thought there may be a power cut. But hang on, what the hell..The TV switched on immediately. We were like F***. What on earth made the TV on. Immediately again there was a silence as the TV went off. We didn’t utter a word. The lights started playing hide n seek for 30 secs until we heard a Zoop..There was no movement again in the luminity and darkness prevailed. I was scared like hell and Basu just scremed “Who’s there”. That’s it. These were the only words he uttered.

We had not even recovered from it completely that we heard a BOOM..I cant explain the astute severity of the sound. It was like a huge explosion. I was dumbstruck. I had no courage to scream. I looked at him for support. But there he was, scared like hell, fully stiff without uttering anything. I wanted to scream but strangely nothing was coming out. I tried with all my might but all that was coming out was reckless air. I can hear my breath. I was falling short of it. I could hardly breathe. I struggled to breathe and trust me the sound of my breathing was much louder than even I speak. Such was the severity. I wrapped myself up so much under the blanket that I almost folded myself to the size of a hanky. Even the greatest of gymnast would have failed to compete with me that night. I once tried to look out of the blanket but all I saw was extreme dark with the mighty branches of the wild tree through the window devoid of curtains.

Hey Krishna, Rama, Shiva, Ganesha, Durga Mata save me. I lost count how many Gods I tried to invoke. The only time I felt that having 33 crores of Gods by your side actually helps. The night was dragging at a snail’s pace. I could hear every tick of the stupid alarm clock but couldn’t dare to see the time. I was just praying that the night passes away and I get to see the day, which I was extremely unsure of. I promised to Bhagwaan jee that I m nevr gonna lie or commit any wrong. Just help me to get the reminiscences of dawn. I don’t know wen I felt asleep and when I got up I saw that I am alive.

I still don’t know what happened that night, neither I dared to ask Basu. We both kept mum and the first thing we did was to pack our bags and hurried back to Tinsukia. Basu left his job and even now the very name of Changlang leaves me into jitters.

I am lucky to be alive and survive the longest night of my life..

Scarily Urs

Dev DC ..