Ghost

Back in those days, the mighty Rajdoot motorcycle was nothing less than a royal war elephant masquerading as public transportation. It did not merely drive; it conquered. Mud-filled roads, broken stones, half-drowned village paths—the Rajdoot navigated them all with the unbothered arrogance of a drunken zamindar returning from a land dispute.

My father had purchased it using the hard-earned arrears from his first teaching job, and for one entire, glorious chapter of our childhood, that motorcycle existed not as a mere machine, but as a sovereign member of the family. Even today, whenever childhood memories return carrying their old bamboo baskets and kerosene lanterns, the Rajdoot rises with them—its handlebars stretched outward like muscular arms demanding, “So… you people plan to forget me now?”

Technically, the motorcycle belonged to my father. Emotionally, however, it belonged to all of us. At least, it did until my mother shouted from the kitchen, “Have you all climbed down from that thing yet?” Immediately, our glorious vehicular adventures would shift from the Rajdoot’s leather seat to the wooden railing in front of our house, where we would sit and pretend to ride into the sunset.

Before we moved to Ghilamara, we lived as one gigantic, chaotic joint family in Bordoloni. In those days, the Rajdoot had not yet entered our civilization; this was the Bicycle Epoch. Fresh off his M.A., my father briefly taught at Jengraimukh College in Majuli. According to his stories, his students would frequently invite him over with the utmost academic sincerity: “Sir, today we slaughtered a pig. You must come.” Naturally, my father, accompanied by his close friend—the legendary Mising folk artist, the late Ganesh Pegu—would accept these invitations, partaking in rice beer and pork with rigorous scholarly dedication.

Father often described how Ganesh Pegu would arrive at his quarters, lie belly-down on the bed, drum the mattress like a tabla, and sing, “Kiti kiti kititang… milikke bomtak raktub dembi…” which, even today, sounds less like a folk song and more like advanced forest magic.

Years later, by pure coincidence, I found myself seated next to him on a night bus from Guwahati. I recognized the legend immediately but remained entirely silent for the entire journey, behaving like an undercover intelligence officer on a highly classified mission. I did not speak. I did not move. Finally, the poor man, deeply unsettled by my statue-like demeanor, whispered to a fellow passenger in Mising, “What type of creature is this boy?”

It was only when we reached Lakhimpur at dawn that I finally broke my cover: “Aren’t you Ganesh Pegu? My father talks about you all the time.” The moment my father’s name was invoked, the man exploded. “Then why didn’t you say so earlier, you idiot!” he roared, immediately following up with an affectionate tiger-slap to my back that was powerful enough to realign my internal organs. As we parted, he pointed toward his house and said warmly, “Come visit someday.”

I never did. Many things in life remain permanently trapped inside the optimistic prison of the phrase, “I’ll go someday.” That visit became one of them, leaving behind a small, quiet sadness that time has never quite erased.

Eventually, my father joined North Bank College in Ghilamara, and upon receiving his long-pending arrears, the Rajdoot was finally brought home. I still remember the sensory fragments of that era: the motorcycle arriving in our courtyard, the new front house under construction, the carpenter attaching a tiny metal mango-leaf decoration to the wooden frame, and the sudden, thrilling appearance of a CID officer.

Yes, a suspicious stranger had arrived at our door, claiming he needed to stay the night. My father, possessing the sharp instincts of a man who reads too many detective novels, sensed something fishy. Pretending he was going to the market to buy chicken for the guest, he instead detoured to the police station. But the suspect apparently possessed a sixth sense—or perhaps criminal Wi-Fi—because before my father could return with the authorities, the man had vanished into thin air.

Despite the Rajdoot’s heroic aura, I was utterly terrified of it. The moment the machine moved, my soul attempted to submit its resignation. Once, when the family planned a shopping trip to Dhemaji, I flatly refused to board the motorcycle. No amount of bribery or persuasion worked. Ultimately, my father had to measure my foot using a piece of straw and buy my shoes alone, returning from the market looking like a defeated emperor. I must have been four or five years old.

But my fear of the motorcycle was entirely eclipsed by my fear of the sky. One stormy evening, my grandfather and I were sitting near the kitchen fire, blowing into bamboo pipes to keep the flames alive, when the heavens simply exploded. Thunder, lightning, and cyclonic winds tore through the village. A massive Madhuri tree beside the kitchen snapped with a deafening crack, crashing directly onto the straw-roofed shed where we sat.

The moment the storm hit, my grandfather had pulled me tightly against his chest. By sheer miracle, the tree fell just beside us rather than on top of us, but the structure collapsed, trapping us in the dark. Outside rained chaos. Then, cutting through the storm like a divine cinema projector, came the blinding beam of the Rajdoot’s headlight. Using only that shaft of light, my father navigated the debris and rescued us. To this day, I suspect the Rajdoot itself felt incredibly heroic afterward.

Naturally, once my father acquired his metal companion, the rest of the family was relegated to secondary notifications. He often returned home very late from college, usually after being forcefully “fed” by his colleagues. One such night, long after midnight, he was riding back from the Butikur area.

As he approached the first wooden bridge after Bootikur, Dhemaji, it happened.

Suddenly, in the dead center of the road, two young women appeared. They did not walk out from the bushes; they simply materialized, as if the earth itself had birthed them. My father’s body froze. That stretch of road already possessed a dark reputation, and at that hour, every nearby household had long surrendered to sleep. Though his heart began performing an aggressive tabla solo inside his chest, my father was a brave man. He did not immediately collapse. Determined to ignore the apparitions, he twisted the throttle and rode ahead.

He looked in the mirror. The girls had vanished.

In their place, sitting squarely in the beam of the headlight, was a fox. Its eyes glowed with an unnatural, demonic luminescence. “Move aside!” my father shouted, delivering a heroic, cinematic kick toward the beast. That single, foolish action instantly destroyed the motorcycle’s balance. The Rajdoot flew off the road, and my father crashed into the ditch below the bridge with enough dramatic flair to serve as the climax of an Assamese film.

He lost consciousness. When he finally awoke, he found himself lying mere feet from the dark, swirling floodwaters. Beside him lay the loyal Rajdoot—silent, injured, and emotionally unavailable. It was a pitch-black, new-moon night. Half-dazed and bleeding, my father dragged the heavy machine up the embankment and began the kicking ceremony. Kick. Kick. Kick. Nothing. Perhaps the Rajdoot had also seen the ghosts and entered a state of psychological shock, or perhaps it was simply offended at being thrown into a ditch. Either way, it refused to cooperate.

Defeated, my father began pushing the dead motorcycle toward the nearest houses, shouting for help. Nobody came out. Most likely, the villagers assumed, “No human being calls for help at this hour. It is definitely a ghost.”

Finally, he reached a house and parked the bike in the courtyard. He shouted again. Still no answer. Instead, from deep inside the house, came violent, terrifying sounds. THUD. THAM. DHUP-DHAP.

My father immediately concluded, “Excellent. Now this family has armed themselves with sticks to fight the ghost.” He prepared for a strategic retreat. Just then, the door creaked open. There stood a husband and wife, holding an oil lamp like a village-version of Florence Nightingale. They welcomed my father inside with immense warmth.

It was only under the glow of the lamp that my father noticed something gigantic lying across the floor. It was a massive, slain snake.

Apparently, when the homeowner had woken up to my father’s shouting, he had rolled over and discovered the python sleeping right beside him on the hay bed. One accidental turn in his sleep, and the man would have been permanently transferred to the afterlife. The terrifying dhup-dhap sounds my father had heard were actually the man beating the snake to death with a wooden club before opening the door.

Thus, on that strange, surreal midnight, my father had arrived believing he was being chased by ghosts, while the homeowner believed death itself had slithered into his bedroom. The two traumatized men spent the rest of the night drinking tea and discussing fate, snakes, spirits, and survival, while the injured Rajdoot rested outside in the courtyard, noble and still as a wounded warhorse.

Morning finally broke. My father went in search of a mechanic. But before leaving, just to check, he gave the Rajdoot one casual, half-hearted kick.

VRROOOOM.

The motorcycle roared to life instantly, as if the previous night’s silence had merely been a temporary spiritual crisis. My father rode home triumphantly with his faithful metal companion.

As for the ghosts? Well, I have never seen one personally, nor do I possess any professional interest in future encounters. Still, since the incident happened in my father’s life so long ago, I thought the ghosts of the past deserved one final, public appearance.