‘The Phantom’s Howl’: A nifty little trove of emotionally complex, modern Bengali ghost stories

History, especially of the 19th century, rivals rashogolla and ilish maach for the affections of the average Bengali. But even as they devour the heroic narratives of the progress of reason heralded by Rammohun Roy, Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar, and others, somewhat ironically, they also consume copious amounts of modern ghost lore produced since the 19th century. Indeed, the word bhoot doubles up as both a word for the past and a word for ghosts.

Few subcontinental languages can boast as rich a tradition of modern ghost fiction as Bengali. To wit, these are not simply an outgrowth of the older, more folksy tradition of ghost lore populated by such quintessentially Bengali spectres as the brahmadaitya, shankchunni, mamdo and so forth. The modern ghost lore is rather closer to the English ghost stories of MR James, Henry James, EF Benson and others. As the writer Pramatha Nath Bishi once noted, whereas the traditional Bengali ghosts looked very little like mortal beings – being characterised by mulor moto dnat ar kulor moto kaan (large, radish-like fangs and winnowing-fan-like ears), the modern ghosts were often tragic leftovers of an unsettled past. They looked and worked exactly like us, mere mortals, incessantly replaying their troubled lives and instigating us, in turn, to contemplate...

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