Gost Stories Real: The Scent That Followed Him

A friend of mine once told me about a series of real ghost encounters that followed him from his village in Bangladesh all the way to Oman. I am passing them on the way he told them to me. Before I get to the incidents, let me describe the area where his family home is.

The Road to the Market

From his house to the market, it takes about half an hour on foot. By bicycle it takes ten to fifteen minutes, around twelve on a good day. Halfway along the road, between his house and the market, there is a cremation ghat. Inside it stands a banyan tree. The road runs right beside it, and anyone going to the market has to pass that spot.

One day, after the Asr prayer and just before dusk, he was sent to the market from home. The family had a bicycle, and he used it more than anyone. He rode to the market, bought what was needed, and started back. By then the Maghrib adhan had already been called. He was quite young at the time.

The Heavy Bicycle

He was riding home on that road, and the moment he reached the cremation ghat, his bicycle suddenly became heavy. Let me explain what that means. When you ride a bicycle alone, it feels light. When someone is sitting behind you, the bicycle feels a little heavier. That is how it felt to him.

He kept pedalling, but the bicycle was not moving the way it should. After a while he felt that someone was on the bicycle with him. But when he turned his neck, he could not see anybody. It took enormous effort. The harder he pushed forward, the more the bicycle refused to go, and his own body began to feel heavy too.

With great difficulty he kept pedalling, and at last he came close to his house. Just as he was about to go in, the bicycle suddenly turned light. He felt that whoever had been sitting there all this time had just stepped off. He had been looking back the whole way, but he had still not seen anyone.

He got badly scared. He went inside and told his mother everything. She recited some surahs and blew over him in the traditional way, and for that day things went back to normal.

The Light in the Mosquito Net

The second incident came on a night soon after. He had eaten and gone to bed, as people do in the villages. There were mosquitoes in those days, so like most people in the village he slept under a mosquito net. After he lay down, he noticed something at one corner of the net, a faint, small light. He wondered what it could be.

He could not work out what it was. It looked as if it was coming into the net, or climbing up it, like a firefly. But he could clearly see it was not a firefly. At the same time, from the moment he noticed the light, a beautiful fragrance began to fill his room. The whole room was thick with it.

He was very frightened, and yet he could not say anything, which is how it is for most people in that situation. At some point he screamed. People sleeping nearby rushed in and asked what had happened. When they came in, they found nothing. He told them in detail what he had seen. But here is the thing, Rasel bhai. The people who came in smelled the scent in the room too. It was an unusual fragrance, nothing like the usual smells, and they all noticed it.

That was the end of the second incident. Afterwards his family performed a jhar-phuk, a traditional recitation, and gave him water that had been recited over. He drank it.

After that, Rasel bhai, whenever he was alone, or sitting alone, or going somewhere alone, the same thing kept happening. He would smell the very scent he had smelled that night in bed. When he smelled it, he knew someone was near him, that some presence was there, though he could not see anything. His body would turn heavy. It happened to him countless times.

The Scent That Followed Him

At some point he left Bangladesh and went to Oman as an expatriate worker. Even in Oman, he could sometimes sense that presence. Every time it came near, a separate fragrance reached his nose, a perfume-like scent unlike any ordinary smell, and he knew it was close. In all of his real paranormal experiences, this scent was the one thing that never changed.

One night in Oman, the scent suddenly came again. He realised it was near him. He was afraid, and the hair on his body stood up. His body went heavy. A few fireflies were drifting faintly in the air. This is how he told it to me.

Suddenly he saw a figure shaped like a woman in front of him, about fifteen to twenty haat away, roughly seven to nine metres. It was coming toward him, and as he watched it, his whole body went heavy. The scent was strong. The figure came in front of him, to within about ten or fifteen haat at the nearest, perhaps a little more. There was a thicket nearby, and it walked into it and was gone.

He had sensed this presence many times before. That night a thought rose in his mind. Let me see today whether this is a person. The scent had come, the smell was there. So he gathered his courage and told himself, “Let me see what happens. Whatever will be, will be.”

He had his phone in his hand. He switched on the flashlight and walked up to the thicket. When he got there, he found nothing at all. The place was completely empty. There was no person, no shape, nothing. He was amazed, and he was afraid.

Afterwards he went back to his room. Who could he tell? This had been happening to him from Bangladesh all the way to Oman. He never shared it with anyone. He did not tell this to anybody else. But these are the things he shared with me.