Real Paranormal Experiences: The Black Bull of the Jamun Tree

This is a story from a village, and it centres on a jamun tree. It is one of the real paranormal experiences I have never been able to explain. The jamun tree stands in the middle of a bil, on the bank of a pond that was famous even before 1971, the Bilaisha Dighi. Beside the jamun tree is a pond, very deep, always full of water hyacinth. There are no houses anywhere around the tree, no settlement, only bil and more bil on every side, with knee-deep water. Very few people in that area have not eaten the jamun of this tree.

The Jamun Tree at the Edge of the Bil

One day my cousin and I went to the bil at twelve noon to eat jamun. After wading knee-deep through water over a long stretch from the road to reach the jamun tree, we were a little tired. The tree is very tall and thick, and it is a bit hard to climb from below, but once you are up, you can go to any branch, as they are all thick. I pushed my cousin up from below, and he climbed the tree and began picking jamun, big black ones. I could not climb, so I sat below, gathering the jamun in one place. It felt good. But that good feeling was perhaps not in our fate.

The Bull at Noon

Because of some unseen force, we could not go on picking jamun properly for long. Suddenly I heard the bellow of a bull from the direction of the pond, like the call of the black bulls you see in villages. I heard it once, and after a while again. After hearing it three times I understood that something was about to happen. It was a little past one in the afternoon. From the top of the tree my cousin said, “Hey, where is the bull bellowing?” I said, “I do not see anything.” Then we went back to picking jamun as usual.

After a while I heard a sudden sound from the south. The kind of sound you would hear if a tree like the one we were on fell and broke. I said, “Brother, I am afraid, come down quickly, we will go home.” My cousin said, “Wait, just a little more, I am coming down.”

Rasel bhai, in the harsh noon sun, with no settlement anywhere near, I saw a huge black bull suddenly appear from the south side of the pond. I cried out “Baba re!” From above my brother said, “What happened?” I said, “There, look, on the bank of the pond, a huge black bull!” On its forehead was a red, blood-smeared mark of vermilion, and its eyes were blood red. The black bull was slowly coming toward me. In fear I began to run through the knee-deep water. My cousin shouted from the tree, “Stop, stop! Where? There is nothing!” I looked back and indeed there was nothing. Where had the bull gone? What was happening to me today? I thought: first the bellow of a bull, then the terrible sound of a tree breaking, now suddenly the bull appearing and vanishing again. No, I would not go near the jamun tree again. I said, “Brother, come down, I do not feel right, hurry.”

Read more: [LINK: Real Haunted House Story: The Sreemangal Tea Bungalow]

The Branch That Broke

As soon as I said it, the sky turned black with clouds, and a terrible wind began to blow. It was so dark all around that it felt like night had come. I was still walking through the knee-deep water of the bil toward the road. Suddenly that terrible tree-breaking sound came again, and with it my cousin’s scream. Looking back I saw that a huge, thick branch had broken and my cousin had fallen from the tree. I did not know what to do. A brother of my own blood, if something happened to him… Despite my fear, unwillingly I set off toward him. When I got close I saw saliva dripping from my brother’s mouth, and he was groaning just as a bull does. I did not know what to do, I only kept screaming “Save me!” Then suddenly I took his hand. The moment I took his hand, all the sounds stopped. The clouds in the sky suddenly cleared and the sun came out. I wondered, am I dreaming? But no, this was not a dream, my brother was lying right in front of me. I understood that the danger had perhaps passed.

Suddenly I saw my elder kaka coming through the bil. It seemed that Allah had turned His face to us. Kaka seemed to understand everything. He lifted my cousin onto his shoulder and began to walk. Saliva was still dripping from my brother’s mouth. I did not say a word until we reached home. At home, after I told the whole incident, my elder kaka called the imam of the mosque. The imam saw everything, sprinkled blessed water on my cousin’s body, and then he opened his eyes. The hujur (Islamic scholar) gave some taweez and did a recitation and blessed water, and said, “How you two came back alive today, only you know. This was not anything ordinary.” Seeing a taweez on my hand he asked, “What is that taweez on your hand?” I said, “Hujur, this is my body-sealing taweez.” The hujur said, “That is perhaps why you two came back.”

What Was in the Tree

Both my cousin and I came down with a high fever. I was fine in two days, but my cousin was ill for seven days straight, burning with fever. After seven days when he was a little normal I asked him, “I told you again and again to come down, why did you not?” He replied, “I wanted to come down, but I could not go downward in any way. And I saw that on the south bank there was a jamun tree, from where the sound of a tree breaking had first come. But there should be no tree there at all. Then what I saw I was not at all prepared for. On the very branch I was on, at its tip, was that huge black bull, with vermilion in the middle of its forehead and its two eyes blood red. It felt as if it would tear me apart and eat me right then, or toss me down with its horns. Before I could even finish thinking it, I saw that the branch had broken and I was falling.”

Hearing this, my elder kaka said, “A long time ago there were two jamun trees in that place. The owner of that land was a Hindu. Everyone would eat the jamun from those two trees, and he, though the owner of the trees, could not take any jamun himself. He could not stop people, so he put thorns at the foot of the trees so that nobody could eat the jamun. In the end he decided to sell the two jamun trees, and he did sell them. The people who bought the trees, when they went to cut them, cut the tree on the south bank halfway. Then everyone began to say, ‘I feel strange, I feel strange.’ They felt uneasy, and unable to cut the tree any further, they all went home feeling unwell. Everyone got a fever, everyone was ill for some days, and everyone had the same dream: ‘If anyone goes to cut that tree, there is no escape for you, you will all die.’ The next day they told the tree’s owner everything, refused to buy or cut the tree, and took back their money from the owner, saying we will not buy the trees. Some years after this the tree died by itself.”

Kaka said, “What you saw, only you know. Never do such a thing again. There is such a thing as the right time and hour. You went to eat jamun at noon, and that place is not at all good. Many strange things have happened there before. Anyway, you have come back, and that is the greatest gain.”

In truth we all like to hear stories. But only the one it happens to understands what such a strange incident means, and why it happened to him. Does it have any explanation at all?