Tale of horror after the partition

By Ekachit Khullar 

This story was of a 13-year-old, Arun, who lost his grandfather due to cardiac arrest. After the incident,  Arun’s parents wanted to sell the house and return to their normal life. The house of Arun’s grandfather was very big and fancy, but they were not able to find any buyer for it. After a lot of effort, a man showed interest in buying the property. So Arun’s father decided to stay in that house for a week till the buyer paid off all the money.

The next day, Arun went to play in the park and founda stone with the name ‘Ismail Khan’ written on it. He read the name loudly, and felt like someone plucked his hair and raised him in the air. He was screaming in pain, but couldn’t see anyone there. After a few minutes, he fell on the ground and ran directly to his room and slept, without saying anything to anyone.

The next day was 15 August, and patriotism could be smelled in the air. Every kid in the street was waving tricolour flags. Arun was also trying to mix up with them by forgetting the incident. Suddenly, he saw a kite hanging from a tree in his garden, which reminded him of the incident. What surprised him was a diya lit on the tree. Arun was terrified, but the kite was big and beautiful and he could not resist and started pulling it from its string. But because of pulling, the string pushed away the diya and it vanished. Just when the diya blew off, Arun was hearing painful screams. He saw the stone where Ismail Khan was written entering the cracked land. He went closer and saw the stone actually fall down in an old well and suddenly his foot slipped and he fell into the well.

Arun’s father heard the loud splashing of water and he immediately came out of the house and saw a man wearing a cap near the well. He could see a lot of wounds on him. While giving scary expressions the man said, “This land is mine, I will never leave it,” and vanished into the air. Arun’s father got scared and called all the neighbours for help. Meanwhile, an old man came running with a diya in his hand.

People took Arun out of the well and asked about the incident. He was terrified and told that he saw visions of a Muslim man dying during the riots. Suddenly, the old man said the name of that man was Ismail Khan. He said, “This house was built by Ismail Khan. During the partition, his whole family wanted to go to Pakistan, but Ismail refused to leave his house. So, his family left and he was killed in the riots and was hanged on that tree.” When Arun’s grandfather bought this house he felt the presence of that man. He kept a diya on the tree and wrote Ismail’s name on a stone and buried it in the sand for his ghost to rest. Hearing this, Arun was terrified and was never able to forget this incident.