Invasive Species (part 1 of 4)

For the next several posts we will be serializing Chris Blasidell's travels to the Indian state of West Bengal, an area of Eastern India known for its intense paranormal happenings. "Invasive Species" is the the novella-length fictional work which will appear in a forthcoming collection of Chris' adventures in India called "Weird Travels".

Enjoy.

Invasive Species

West Bengal.

When I was planning my travels—or personal pilgrimage of sorts, if you will—throughout the length and breadth of the vast Indian subcontinent, the eastern state of West Bengal had always been on my bucket list of places to visit for one reason, and one reason alone: the sheer teeming abundance of spooks, monsters, and all manner of alt-life critters of folklore and legend that are reputed to dwell there.

Many other states in the subcontinent boast of their bone-chilling tales of bhoots, chudails, daakini, hadal, khavis, kutti chetan, pretas, ogres, spirits, and the like. But from my research, only West Bengal can live up to their claims. It could be that the Bengal people have a culture and belief system that seem to be firmly rooted in the magical arts. Quite possibly more so than any other state in India, except for maybe Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Assan, and Kerala. For millennia, the Bengali borders have been practically bursting at the seams with supernatural entities. And it appears as though, from all accounts, some of their folk-horrors have emigrated as far afield as Europe and beyond…

There is a popular theory that the European vampire of legend actually originated in India. The folklore goes back to the early migration of the Romani people out of Northern India in the 8th and 10th Centuries C.E. The Roma, or “Gypsies,” as they are more commonly referred to (a misnomer which originated with an erroneous medieval European belief that they were Egyptian immigrants), brought with them many customs and cultural ways typically seen as “witchy” and odd, and they as a people have since largely been regarded with distrust and kept at a distance by others (which, for some tribes, works to their advantage). However, due to the difficulty of authenticating the details—as these myths have primarily been transmitted down through the millennia orally rather than in written form—the European vampire and its kith and kin are most certainly connected to the tales that the nomadic Roma brought with them from far-flung Asia.

And to throw a monkey-wrench into the literary world of vampires, apparently Bram Stoker’s Dracula was not largely based on a bloodthirsty Romanian royal, as many now assume. Rather, his undead prince was more-or-less grounded in an Irish nobleman who had a ghoulish taste for torture and bloodletting.

But I digress, and you have not come to hear a history lesson, have you? No, you have travelled far just to listen to me babble on about my next adventure, so let me get to weaving my tale… This next encounter was with a creature so unexpected that I very nearly lost my life. Yes, you laugh! I know, since I got to India little more than a year ago, I seem to be ever in danger of getting done-in by spirits on a regular basis. Chalk my survival rate to having grown up in a family that held the supernatural in high regard, hence my constant awareness—and wariness—of it.

As I may have told you before at some point already, my family, the Blaisdells, are an odd bunch. Our family was originally from old Scandinavia by way of the highlands of Scotland and Lancashire, England, when we emigrated to the Americas in the late 1600s. My people were a wild bunch of educated savages that travelled from one New England town to another in the new world. Family lore has it that they offered their services in return for items of occult origin. Grimoires, talismans, esoteric trinkets… and eldritch knowledge. Anything weird and wondrous that the colonists may have brought with them or acquired since they left the old country for the New World. Over time, it seemed that their kind was not appreciated by the numerous Puritans who populated the original Thirteen Colonies that made up America at the time.

Eventually, in the early-1800s, our tribe of social outcasts—a whole flock of black sheep, that’s what we were!—settled-in at a small liberal arts college town in the Midwest. Life was easier for The Blaisdells in that basin of liberalism and free-thinkers, and over time they established a homestead which was situated a mere stone’s-throw from the local cemetery.

Until the age of 18, when I left for college, all six of my family members—my parents, younger brother Brooks, sisters Heather and Agatha, and great grandmother, affectionately known as simply Tut­—lived in an old mansion made of brick and stucco, built sometime back in the late 1870s. The mansion, which was well-stocked with dusty, yellowing tomes on the occult, theology, world history, anthropology, and suchlike, was very much a living library as well as a home for us. Oh, and let me not forget to mention the stacks and stacks of horror and fantasy pulp magazines paperback novels and comic books. As absurd as it may sound, those masses of printed words were all a growing kid would need in order to absorb the proper knowledge for when confronting whatever extraordinary paralife critter might happen to show up at any given time.

I landed in India four months ago on what was supposed to be a brief foray into exploring the country for a series of articles on paranormal investigation. Recent events had me more than distracted, and the work I was assigned wasn’t getting done.

For the past two decades I have been a writer for assorted blogs, magazines, and books on the subject. I had no idea that the information I had collected would prove useful out in the wild. I travelled the world wherever my assignments took me: Thailand, Japan, Spain, Nigeria, Scotland, Mexico, and other countries. In those far-flung corners of the world I collected all sorts of little knickknacks, various fetishes, religious and magickal items, et cetera. Some of the more powerful objects I carried with me in—a satchel. A juju bag small enough to fit in the pocket of a coat or in a bag slung about my shoulders. On more than one occasion, I believe that having juju on my person proved highly beneficial to my survival.

And now here I am in West Bengal. So many fantastic tales and creatures came from this mysterious and magical state and spread out into the surrounding world that my mind reels at the contemplation of it. And to think that what I am about to relate to you is something of an immigrant story. Come to think of it, this tale is more like a case of an invasive species…

***

I had just gotten off the phone with my younger brother Brooks. He had called as I was getting ready to leave on trip to a local temple, and his intense interest in my exploration was almost palpable.

“Let me know if you find anything,” he said half in jest. Brooks was the more adventurous family member, and the one who relished hunting-down ‘critters’, as he quaintly called them. He was paid to do so by people, so more power to him. My bag, on the other hand, was research only… at least, if I had my way about it.

I assured him that I would report back any findings, and the possible whereabouts of said critters if I encountered any. Brooks was keen on tangling with the paralife. I was not. I’d already had my fill of the local critters during an encounter with a female ghost shortly after I first landed in India. And then there was that evil reflection from a haunted mirror I encountered while vacationing in Mussoorie (…but that’s another story, as they say). Hence, I was not actively looking to run into anything else—potentially far worse—thank you very much.

After my New Delhi happenstance, I had trouble sleeping through the night, as nightmares of me drowning in a well plagued my slumber. In an attempt clear my head, I travelled to the hot and magical state of Rajasthan, with its pink marble monuments, numerous temples and other sites of interest.

It was in Rajasthan where I was finally able to relax.

Then Brooks called.

The assignment from Charlotte, my publisher, had me in the city of Pushkar on a hunch that a local subterranean grotto might house a rare variety of carvings. This art was said to be guarded by a secretive family who have owned the property for the past 700 years. Charlotte had arranged for the viewing, and it cost her company a pretty penny to do so. She had a hunch is could be a scoop for their line of adventure books. The family, whose name is Saxena, were to allow me access to the site. They assured my publisher that the art would be unlike any ever studied before. Even if the artefacts turned out to be bogus, the trip would be worth the distraction from my disturbing dreams.

I was about to order an Uber for an intercity trip out into the countryside where the ruins were located, when my cellphone jangled in my hand. It was my friend Subjhit Gayen from Kolkata with news of a mysterious rash of killings.

Subjhit fancied himself as a modern day Byomkesh Bakshi, the iconic detective created by Bengali author Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay. Subjhit had solved a few unremarkable cases involving minor theft, but none anywhere near as weird as the tale he spun for me over the phone…

There had been six unexplained deaths of pregnant women within the past month. All of the deceased mothers-to-be were found drained of blood and their unborn child was either entirely missing or discovered nearby—partially devoured. He was sure that stray dogs were to blame for these horrendous infant mutilations.

Besides my steadfast love of the supernatural, serial killers were another morbid fascination of mine. Subjhit was well aware of this, and he baited me mercilessly. He knew I was game, and delighted in hyping me up over the mildest of cases.

India isn’t known for serial killings as much as, say, the United States is, but they have had their fair share of weird ones. The killer known as Psycho Shankar was one of the few to be caught and convicted. He killed more than 19 women in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, as well as being responsible for over thirty rapes, assorted robberies, and other such horrors. The gruesome details that Subjhit described sounded to me like another killer was on the loose.

After a brief exchange of contact names and addresses, I thanked Subjhit and sat down at the desk in my hotel room. What to do? I was not going to pass this up, so I texted my publisher to inform her that I was putting my temple run on hold for a few days. I would eventually get the story on the carvings, and I might have something else for another of her blogs besides.

It was near nightfall before I managed to get everything settled in Pushkar. Leaving on a trip down South was not advisable without a good meal in the belly first, so I ordered room service and booked a late-night flight from Jaipur to Kolkata. Then I gathered together my juju items, packed my bags, ordered the Uber to take me to Jaipur International Airport, and checked-out of my hotel.

The manager was sad to see me go, as he had been planning on taking me to various Hindu ceremonies around the holy city in the near future. We were to have visited his Shiva temple, see the one built to venerate Lord Varha (the Boar-headed avatar of Lord Vishnu), plus visit the only temple for the god Brahma that I know of. I promised to visit him again, whereafter the hotel manager and I said our farewells… but not before he had turned to the establishment’s personal Shiva shrine behind the front desk and made an offering of prayers in my name. He then handed me a newly-made charm of four green hot peppers and a lemon strung on a cord. I took this charm, thanked him, then placed it in my shoulder bag. Then and we parted ways.

In the three hours it took for my intercity Uber to whisk me away from Pushkar to the airport, I had a lot of time to think about what I was doing. I called two of the numbers which Subjhit had given me over the phone, and it turned out to be a mutual friend, who I hadn’t realized was also simultaneously traveling in India.

“Chris!” said Meghan rather excitedly. I had known her since our college days at Ohio State University, where she’d majored in Communication and I’d studied Social Anthropology. For the past few years she’s worked as a freelance reporter for various travel blogs… sort of like me.

Meg was short, bubbly and attractive, with a figure to die for and a smile that could blind the unexpected. Why we’d never hooked-up was beyond me! Maybe it’s just not fated to happen? Besides, she was one of my best friends, and such, um, ‘unforeseen complications’ have been known to ruin friendships, after all. So probably it was for the better that our relationship remained strictly platonic… not that I couldn’t help wistfully wondering, you understand.

“Meg, what are you doing in Kolkata, of all places?” I asked, forgetting for a moment she was a world traveler, much like myself.

“Hey doofus, what are you doing in India?!” she shot back playfully, then laughed.

It turned out that, for security reasons, Meg had given Subjhit one of her numerous noms de plume rather than her actual name. She was investigating a series of odd deaths that had been occurring in and around the city. Since Subjhit was a private investigator who worked the South Bengal region, it was purely by chance that she knew him as well.

“Small world,” I mused and smiled, recalling the last time I’d seen Meg. We were both at a bar in Cardiff, Wales. We were drunk as skunks, and our discussion rambled into and out of various subjects. Sex talk was one of the most popular. We were both “in the mood,” if not for each other. Meg eventually went home with a cute redhead, and I…well…I had a run-in with a rather fetching gwyllion–a kind of Welsh fae, or fairy–on my way back to my hotel. But that, as they say, is another story for another time.

We chatted for a bit over the phone, playing catch-up; what we’ve both been up to for the past year or so since we’d last been in contact and whatnot. I was excited to hear she hadn’t yet met anyone serious—as in any ‘significant other’—and she was currently just as single as I was, though evidently not feeling lonesome because of it (any more than I was, that’s how comfortable in my own company I’d gotten over the years I’d voluntarily spent alone, due to my calling). Then another call came in on Meg’s end. We ended our chat after agreeing to meet up after I landed at Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport outside of Kolkata.

The second number that Subjhit gave me was for a woman named Subhashree Pal. She worked as a coroner’s assistant for one of the largest hospitals in Kolkata. Apparently, she and Subjhit were dating, and she would give him details about the more unusual corpses that ended up on her slab. I dialed the number and let it ring until it was disconnected by my carrier. I tried again, but still couldn’t get the line to connect. Frustrated, I sent a text, knowing full-well it probably didn’t go through either.

At least I made my flight, and by the time we were in the air I took a much-needed snooze for all of the two hours it took our plane to reach the city of Dum Dum. From there I hired a taxi to take me into Kolkata.

***

The city of Kolkata does not define the state of West Bengal, but it sure does embody it. It is a mysterious city in a state boasting the most ghosts of any in all of India. It would seem that in Kolkata, every forest, jungle, city, village, crossroad—even each and every street corner—has a tale to tell or is haunted by some supernatural entity or other. The state is infested with all manner of critters: from the impish gudro bonga, to the dwarfish khokkosh, to the typical women-in-white and other such ghosts that were once human and among the living.

Spanish novelist Carlos Ruis Zafón summed the city up best for me with a single line from his 1994 book The Midnight Palace: “It is as if the people who inhabit the streets, inspired by some mysterious wisdom, realize that the true history of Calcutta has always been written in the invisible tales of its spirits and unspoken curses.”

Now, Kolkata—formerly Calcutta—is not one of the older cities in India. That distinction is given to the ancient metropolises of Varanasi, Madurai, Dehli, Pushkar, Kollum, Thanjavuror and a few others which are all far older. Up until the late 1690s, Kolkata was a group of three small villages cobbled-together by the country’s British imperial rulers under the East India Company, and then taken over by the Crown. Shortly afterwards the city became one of the most influential in all India. Calcutta was once India’s capital under British rule until 1911, when the governing body was moved to Dehli.

From its authors, artists, filmmakers, to scientists and politicians, Kolkata has always been one of India’s seats of intellectual power; it was the birthplace of modern Indian literary and artistic thought. Which is why I was thrilled when Meg suggested we meet at the famous College Street Coffee House, one of the oldest active coffee houses in the city with its larger-than-life-size portrait of author Rabindranath Tagore on the wall.

We agreed to meet up at five in the afternoon, but I intended to arrive at College Street a few hours earlier to browse the bookstores for possible rarities.

TO BE CONTINED