Carillon Magazine

Issue 16

Bandage Bhoot
Noushine Naqvi (Goettingen)

St. Teresa's Convent stood in the isolated colony of Docetist Christian Missionaries. The road that led to the school was dilapidated and portended an eerie sort of air. To passers-by the convent would have appeared a huge bungalow, but due to its substantial student base and efficient staff, it became known to many in its true capacity.

Everything moved within St. Teresa's at a normal pace, teachers met their deadlines and students prepared matter-of-factly for their Monday Test, until one day...

It was after the morning assembly. A girl's blood-curdling shouts hur- tled from the lavatories. Bandage Bhoot! Bandage Bhoot! The teachers, who had just settled in their classes, ran out while the students, who were fretfully pulling out textbooks from their bags, leaned out of the doors to see what the noise was about. The corridor that had been swept with phenyl that morning soon became a tunnel accommodating a hundred bees heading towards a honeycomb.

Shikha was seen limping out of the green wooden door of the lavatory, sobbing and panting and turning around to make sure there was no one behind her. When enquired, she said she had seen a Bandage Bhoot. A man swathed in bandages from head to toe, without an inch of flesh visible. She remembered she had smelt ointment and parts of the gauze tied around the body of the man showed a yellow liquid, which could have been pus...

Mrs. Hashi Sen who took Mathematics, and was much feared by the students, reached the spot first, told Shikha to get back to class with ayah Surati. She exchanged looks with the other staff members who had run to the spot as well, and when couldn't reach a logical explanation returned to her class. She told the girls to stop craning out as this was creating a scene. She, being the strictest teacher, in the school wanted to bring things under control. Little did she know that the students of the convent were far more inquisitive and controversy-loving than most teachers and the principal, Sister Rose Adele, assumed.

By break time the girls were ravenous to know about the bhoot. They were seen forming circles, huddled in corners, with Shikha in the centre. As the bell rang, the girls pulled away from Shikha like an elastic, so that the teachers, especially Mrs. Hashi Sen couldn't see them amassing information from her about the man, more importantly, disturbing her. Mrs. Hashi Sen had instructed her colleagues to see that the girls did not turn the whole thing into an issue. They wanted the students of the convent to forget that such a thing had happened within the premises.

Before the teachers could make the incident past, the screams were heard again. This time it was during the interval. The girls, after having finished their tiffins, were making their moves in and out of the lavatory's cubicles. Suddenly, one girl screamed, and then all the girls started to scream. Bandage Bhoot! Bandage Bhoot! Rahila, who was a non-believer of ghosts and possessed a strong intuition, said the girls were just playing a prank and there was nothing like the Bandage Bhoot.

The incident was repeated a couple of times, and then forgotten. There was no proof to validate the existence of the Bandage Bhoot. However, in their minds the girls had created an image of him. Those who hadn't seen him created the image through imagination and passed on information.

The existence of the bhoot wasn't proved even till it was time for the Bhoot's first witnesses to leave the convent. Shikha passed out and so did Rahila. The Bandage Bhoot remained a mystery. However, the scribbles on the lavatory's walls remained prominent. Bandage Bhoot!