Imagine this. You are a fisherman. You have a small hand-rowed boat, because that is the only kind of boat you can afford. Besides, even low-power motors scare the fish away, and you cannot afford to scare the fish. You earn from day-to-day, so you must catch as many fish as you can, everyday. Fortunately, fish are plenty where you live, which is on an island in the delta of a massive river. You have heard that the river starts in the faraway high mountains called the Himalayas, but you’ve never seen a mountain, so you don’t quite know how that is. Near where you live, in the Sundarbans, the river breaks into hundreds of tributaries and streamlets, winding its way between islands of mangrove trees and wild animals.
One of these animals is the mighty tiger, the king of the delta forest. It is said that the tiger always knows where you are, whether you can see it, or not. You are in trouble only if it shows itself, because then it has plans for you. Tigers can swim, too, through currents that even experienced swimmers find difficult, so when you are on your little boat in the shallow straits, between islands shadowed by dense thickets of mangrove, you must be very, very careful.
Tigers are a good reason to always finish packing up your nets and crab-pots before dusk. You have heard, all your life, that dark must not find you outside, on a boat, surrounded by water and marshland. You must be home, in the warmth of family and cookfires before darkness turns the world outside featurelessly black. In your world, the only light at night burns in homes. There are no real lights in the marsh forests.
But tigers are not the only things to fear outside, in the dark. You have heard stories of the ghost-lights that sometimes burn in the waterways and islands. They are not real, and you must not follow them. They are the spirits of fishermen who died there, and the spirits cannot move on. They are trapped in this world, sorrowful and angry, and since they cannot exact revenge on the things that killed them, they must exact it on the living. The only living who traverse the narrow streams after dark are fishermen who stayed out too long. You must never, ever, be one of those fishermen. You have heard the lights described, but never seen one, not clearly. The winking lights that you sometimes see between the roots of the mangrove are like large fireflies. They did not call out to you in any way, and you certainly felt no compulsion to follow them into the tangle of mangrove roots.
The tides are not always predictable. Sometimes, they roll in a little early, sometimes a little late. The monster of the open sea comes gushing in through the inlets and streams, drowning some of the further reaches altogether. Sometimes, high tide brings storms. Even where you set your nets and pots, further inland, your boat can get swept along as the channels fill. You usually get home before high tide, but when you get caught, you sit it out and hope that you will be able to find your way back, well before dark. That has always happened.
One evening, you are tired. The gush of seawater down the channel takes you unawares, and your net gets swept away by the tide. Your boat drifts down channels you have not seen before—there are always channels you have not seen before, and the landscape shifts during high tide. Rowing has no effect. It is getting dark, and you are getting worried.
The forest darkens around you, night sounds and deep shadow. The water is still reflecting the last light of the sky, so you know you still have a little light to get out of the forested areas. The only problem is that you are lost. Nothing looks familiar, no bend in the waterway or large clump of trees that you can steer by. It gets darker.
You try to steer by the moon and the stars, but there is nothing but darkness above and below you.
You keep rowing, exhausted, heartsick. There must be settlements nearby, even a few houses. You’ve been rowing for hours, and it feels as if the direction is roughly right. Then you see a light far away to your left, beyond a bend. It’s burning steadily, as if it could be from the open door of a hut— that’s what you see in your mind’s eye, an open door, lit from inside, water to drink, and food. You’ll row back home tomorrow morning.
Joy filling your heart, you turn towards the light. As you get closer, it goes out. There is complete darkness. Another light comes on, but this is a little further. You are not thinking now, just rowing towards the light, wherever it is. A little further, your mind says, a little further, and there will be light. And maybe, with the light, there will be home.
In the stories they tell, this is how those who see the Aleya of the Sundarbans die.
[Illustration by Rob Alexander and the Wizards of the Coast, 2004]
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Ghosts of Bengal 