The shaitan or shaytan also spelt satan which made us lose our way in the night where as we were daunted by phantasmal. The Shaitan nir Gach (Tree of Shaitan) is between Shaharpara and Kurikiyar in Syedpur Shaharpara Union Parishad, Jagannathpur, Sunamganj, Sylhet, Bangladesh. It is the only tree in the Duwalabone or Dowalabon or Daulahbone (a paddy field) and Hapatibone (a paddy field).
In the flood season, the tree gets surrounded by the water and in the dry season, there are swamps in the Dualahbone and Hapatibone. This is the only tree in both paddy fields and the paddy fields are joined together with the Western part of Daulahbone with the eastern part of Hapatirbone. The locals called it the tree of Shaitan which is the Shaitan asylum.
It is the renowned tree of shaitan for all the seasons to mislead people’s way in the night which means, it makes the people lose their way and then keeps them wandering around the paddy fields until Fajr (the Muslim morning prayer) five minutes before sunrise. The event occurred in the year 1993. It was a moonlit night with moderate weather and at the end of the flood season in Bangladesh.
Flooding normally occurs during the monsoon season from June to September and eighty per cent of the land of Bangladesh is floodplain. Once in the night, we were coming home from Sylhet on the late bus with my paternal nephew, Khasru Miah and myself, Khasru’s and my ages are not much different as I’m exactly one year older than him and literally our birthday is the six days different.
Flooding normally occurs during the monsoon season from June to September and eighty per cent of the land of Bangladesh is floodplain. Once in the night, we were coming home from Sylhet on the late bus with my paternal nephew, Khasru Miah and myself, Khasru’s and my ages are not much different as I’m exactly one year older than him and literally our birthday is the six days different.
We came out of the bus and we were stuck in the middle of a road at Bhober Bazar of Mega Khali Nouka Ghat (boat harbour) where we missed the last ferry boat. From there we normally have to take a ferry boat to our home in the village of West Tilak which is also spelt, Tilok of greater Shaharpara.
In the Nouka Ghat (boat harbour) there wasn’t any boat or canoe which made us anxious, so we wondered what we should do, and then I thought of a friend who lives there a little further on the western side of the Mega Khali Nouka Ghat whose name is Abdul Mossabir and he is one of my childhood friends from East London. We went to his house to seek any local boatman who could take us home.
The friend said; I cannot allow my family servant to drop you at your home because the journey will take a long time and it almost getting late at night and all the servants are already sleeping. They have to go to work in the very early morning at the paddy field to plant Boro Rice. It is a crucial time because it is the end of the season in our area and they are urgently required in the early morning to be in the paddy field by the head of our family.
Therefore, I arranged with one of my village men who can drop you at your home with my family boat which is specialised for carrying water hyacinth (its scientific name is Eichhornia in Bengali Kusurifena and locally it is called Fena) for cow feed in the flood reason and it is a weighty traditional Jagannathpurian style of shape longboat (Locally know as Fatami Nouw) with a length of around 33ft.
So, it won’t be any problem on the way and then the men will come back to my home with the boat, said Mossabir. From Mossabir’s house, further, south-west where the boat is parked in the distance but, it is through the way of Shaharpara. So, we had to go to the boat on foot through the mud and muddy water and then start the journey in the immediate south to Shaharpara.
The route to Shaharpara is straightforward although it is far in distance from the place where the boat was parked and the journey will take more than an hour ride to Shaharpara. Once we go to Shaharpara, then to the east to West Tilak which will be under an hour's journey through the Hapatirbone that lies in the northern part of Shaharpara.
Hapatibone and Daulahbone are joined together, which is the roaming around the territorial sites of the haunting shaitan whose asylum is in the Tree of Shaitan. The western part of the Hapatirbone is the village of Syedpur and to that to the immediate east part of Syedpur is the village of Shaharpara. Both of the paddy fields are empty after harvesting and it is submerged in water which is becoming convenient for fishing.
After the flood season, the land got fertilised and was ready for the next plantation of Boro rice. When we were in the middle of Hapatirbone we saw the village of Shaharpara in front of the boat in the south. Khasru said to the boatmen, Once we got near to the village, turn the boat to the left to Daulahbone which is the way to West Tilak.
Immediately after that, we suddenly saw one of the unusually flat shapes, a very small boat approximately around 9ft in length. It came out in the middle of nowhere in front of our boat. In the middle of the boat, there is look-alike a pressure kerosene lamp but strangely, it is not powerful enough to that pressure kerosene lamp. The characters in the boat we cannot see clearly but it looks like a shadow of two short people.
The two short shadowy characters are standing on both Golui (fore) of the boat one of which is rowing the boat with a bamboo stick and another one is kept in pole spearfishing. The character with the pole spear is continuously spearing the fish which were the sounds as well as the actions of the character. Actions we can see, very clearly from our boat and hear the sounds crystal clear.
Their boat is not that far in distance from our boat, but we cannot see their faces because they are facing forward. The mysterious characters of these two short shadowy human form figures in the boat were doubtful to us. Their boat is kept crisscrossing at the front of our boat which is not far in distance and continuously hunting the fish with the prong pole spear.
It was the season of all kinds of fishing, especially at the end of flood season when the water became shallow in the basin and the fish became clearer to target. Fishing gig with all kinds of prongs poles spear folks with the fire torches or pressure kerosene lamps or even the kerosene lamps in the night in around the paddy fields or by the side of canals and by the village’s sites, it is the common fishing ground for of villagers.
Mossabir gave us one of the five batteries touch but unfortunately, the battery was too low and almost dying out, therefore, we couldn’t even see the boat in front of us clearly with our torchlight, although there it was a moonlit night that does not even help us visually to identify these characters. When they started to zig-zag very closely to our boat we could see very clearly their side which is shadowy faces, so we identified that they are ghosts which are in the form of shadowy human figures.
The boatmen spotted the suspicious boat which kept crisscrossing in front of our boat and then he said to us, “Could you kindly ask what this boat is doing at the front of our boat which keeps distracting me.” When I asked them, who they were they did not answer me. After a long pause again I yelled, but there was still no answer. But the character continuously spearfishing on the water supposing his fishing in every hitting of his pole spear and doing it continuously which wasn’t a conventional way of fishing.
Now our doubt is turning into reality the reason; you cannot find the fish one after another is because when you hit one fish, the next fish to that fish runs off in the distance. Therefore, you have to have a break in-between and then you hit your next target which will have some gap in time. We can hear random sounds created by these shadowy people from the boat, which is like talking but we do not understand a word of what they are saying to each other:
Suppose it is the beginning of that poltergeist activity. Now we are getting to understand the reason why the lamp wasn’t powerful enough to see the characters in the boat. Why the boat is unusual in flat shape and very small in size which is the ancient monoxylon. The boat is made from a hollowed tree trunk which will be hundreds of years old. The lamp was placed in the lower-middle part of the dugout canoe instead of in the Golui (fore) which is the appropriate place for a lamp to see the fish more clearly.
The causes of the character with pole spear continuously spearfishing did not answer my question. Khasru said; Sasaji (uncle) “is it the shaitan from the famous shaitan nir gach 'tree of shaitans' of Daulahbone?” It is the famous shaitan and renowned for misguiding the destination of people's ways and then directing them to get lost in the night and making them wander around the paddy fields until the Fajr.
At that time, we started to laugh loudly and then I said to the shaitan; Hey you stupid shaitan why are you mocking around with us we are the locals and want to go to West Tilak to get away from us. The boatmen become very scared and said; Please do not mess around with them they are the ghosts who like to eat fish. I said to the boatmen; Do not fear these ghosts they cannot do anything to us don’t worry and do not feel afraid of these ghosts be calm and just row your boat steadily there are three of us in the boat.
We heard lots of stories of this Shaitan is renowned for miss guiding way. The boatmen said: It is very late in the night now look around to the Hapatibone is there any light or anyone fishing boat there in the paddy field accept us in the whole of Hapatirbone. According to the boatmen, we looked around the paddy field in all directions where there weren’t any light or fishing boat shows. It is very strange, we cannot see, even Shaharpara which was in the views earlier when we were in the middle of Hapatirbone.
Where, Shaharpara should be on the south of our boat, in fact, we cannot see any village apart from the huge water body around the boat. By this time, we are hearing lots of terrible sounds of turbulence, and it is getting louder than before which gave us the bad expression of atrocity. It is petrifying as we become frightened because of the horrible sounds and the dugout canoe is still in front of our boat crisscrossing.
Khasru started to call him Mamu (maternal uncle) we heard a lot about your paranormal activities and we now accepted, please leave us alone and let us go home safely. The boatmen said; Tonight, we cannot go home, we will be wandering around the paddy fields all night, that is for sure! Khasru saying; These shaitans cannot do anything directly to us i.e. physically all they can do is lose our way home and make us wander around the paddy fields throughout the night.
At this point, I just started to say loudly, “Hey shaitans we are going to Shaharpara and we are the descendants of Hazrat Shah Kamal (RA) leave us alone right now!” Then we can see Shaharpara very clearly on the east of our boat. The boatmen said; that Shaharpara was immediately south earlier whereas we are on the west of Shaharpara. The shaitan almost lost our way and directed us to the way of Syedpur.
I’m not going home by myself tonight it is spooky, I’m already frightened of those shaitans' horrendous behaviour. You guys have to give me some space to sleep tonight at your house or somewhere on your house veranda where I can sit down until the end of the night. Then I said; We have enough space for you to stay at night, but I’m worried about the boat which was given to us with trust and it is my friend's family boat and also, it’s expensive too.
Because we took a different route through Shaharpara instead of Dualahbone to East Tilak. The boat will not go to our home directly for parking it will end up in Tilkidara where we have to terminate the journey and then we have to walk through the main dirt track road of West Tilak to our home Master-bari, which will take less in time than predicted than our journey. He said I do not care I’m nerve-wracked by what happened I’m not going back home alone at night.
Then I said to the boatmen; There is only one place to park the boat under the Tilkidara culvert bridge, but do you have the chain and lock for security. He said, No. I said what happens if someone steals the boat? The boatmen said: I will come back in the early morning after the Fajr Azan, which is not long away, and I hope in the meantime no one steals the boat. We heard lots of stories from our older generation that there were lots of fish in the area, especially in the flooded season when they never use a fishing net for catching fish.
Hundreds of years back, the Bengalis in the delta used to use the dugout boat (in Bengali called Donga) from a hollowed tree trunk which is also a dugout canoe in these areas, too. The shape of the local boat of this area is a bow, not the old flat-shaped dugout canoe and the new bow-shaped boat has been used in this area for many centuries now. These two shaitans are the very old ones whose presence in this area could be from the medieval period because they used the logboat which was used locally but many centuries ago.
When I mention the name of Hazrat Shah Kamal (RA) aka Hazrat Shah Kamal Quhafa (RA) these shaitans vanished straightaway. Hazrat Shah Kamal (RA) was the Sufi saint who sought the audience of Hazrat Shah Jalal (RA) the patron saint of Sylhet who came in the early fourteenth century. I am the descendant of Shah Jamaluddin Qureshi who was the beloved youngest son of Hazrat Shah Kamal (RA) from Baglar-bari of Shaharpara proper.
The paranormal stories of Shaitan nir Gach where the shaitan has asylum and is roaming around the Dualahbone as well as the Hapatibone in the night which has been experienced by many people from these areas. We encountered the paranormal activities of the shaitans of Dualahbone.
