I am new here and this is my first ever story. Actually, this incident was experienced, not by me but my father, when he was a young man in his late teens, residing at his native village in Jhinaidaha, Jessore now in Bangladesh. I must inform you that neither me nor my family members, save my mother, believe much in paranormal happenings, nor have we come across any such event in our lives. This is the reason I was baffled when my father narrated his experience to me one night when we were discussing the paranormal at our dinner table.
As is the case, in almost ALL villages in India, especially the ones which are remote and backward, a lot of superstitions flourish. One can put their cause to lack of education and scientific awareness among the villagers... And most of the superstitions are baseless and originated from misinterpretation of natural happenings, or blind faith. One of the most popular superstitions in the Indian villages is that of the "mareli chidiya" or the Death Bird... It is some variety of eagle or vulture, or a mix of both, that is found in the village forest areas of Bengal and Chattisgarh, also in South India. People say that when this bird screeches, it signifies death is to come upon a member of the family near whose house it screeches. My dad says that there must be some truth to this superstition, because in his native village, he had heard this bird screech loudly, Three times... At different places each time... And a death took place everytime he heard it. He says that this bird usually DOES NOT SCREECH... It normally would be seen flying around... At daytime or night... Maybe one would never even notice it at that time... But when it DOES screech, Death was sure to befall someone, or so the villagers in his village believed.
My dad never paid heed to this superstition until one evening when he was returning from fishing with few friends... They were going to a friends' house for some work...suddenly, just as they were about to near the door of the house, a loud, mournful eerie screech was heard in a short distance. My dad, never having heard this sound before, asked his friend's mother (at whose home they were) about the sound. She replied to them that it was the sound of the "Mareli chidiya" or Death Owl... She commented in horror that surely someone was going to die nearby. SHOCKINGLY enough, right the day after that one, an accident happened at the village pond where a 13 year old boy who apparently didn't know how to swim, fell in the pond and was drowned...startlingly, he lived just two houses away from my dad's friends' home, where they had heard the screech. After that, my dad heard the screech TWO more times, albeit at other places... And each time, two deaths took place in the neighbourhood.
The first instance, one of my dad's friends' widower dad who was suffering from cancer, passed away the very next day. And in the second, a man from another neighbourhood whom my dad heard had died in a freak accidental fire which apparently caught when a lighted lamp fell on the hay at the hen coop where he was working, and set everything alight. The startling thing about BOTH these deaths was that all three incidents freakeningly occurred right within TWO days of this Bird's schreeching...
I wonder- was that a coincidence? Or is there something more to it that gives substance to this popular superstition?
I would like to hear your ideas and opinions. Thank you.
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