The Nishi

Table of Contents

One rule for the monsoon months: after midnight, no one speaks—no matter what you hear. No exceptions. No excuses. The rain came that year as it always did, heavy and relentless, a wall of water that swallowed the horizon. The river swelled until it swallowed its own banks. Fields became lakes. Roads vanished beneath churning brown currents. At night, the downpour drummed on every rooftop and rattled every tin sheet like impatient fingers.

And with the rains came the Nishi. The old folks had warned of it since the beginning of time—or at least as far back as anyone’s memory stretched. They spoke of it in hushed tones while tending to lanterns, or in whispers as they salted the thresholds of their homes. The Nishi, they said, was a voice that called only once. It spoke in the exact tones of someone you trusted most—your mother, your brother, your child—and it would call your name at night. If you followed, you would be led away into the dark, and no one would see you again.

To Rafiq, twenty-two and freshly returned from the city, it was nothing but a superstition.

“Ridiculous,”

He muttered one evening, helping his father patch the leaks in their old roof with tar sheets. His hands were slick with rainwater, his shirt plastered to his back.

“I’ve seen worse in Delhi,”

He went on.

“We don’t stop talking because of some bedtime myth.”

His little sister Zara, barely ten and half his size, tugged at his shirt. Her eyes were big and serious, like she was carrying the weight of something she couldn’t put into words.

“Please don’t say that, bhaiya,”

She whispered.

“If the Nishi hears you—”

He cut her off with a laugh, ruffling her wet hair.

“It’s just the wind, Zara. The wind can’t steal you.”

But that night, the wind was not just the wind. It came alive in the dark, moving through the trees like something searching. It hissed through the bamboo fence, curling around the eaves of the house, brushing against the windows. There was a sound beneath the rain—soft, almost like breathing. At exactly midnight, a sharp knock rattled the window of Rafiq’s room. He sat up in bed, heart skipping. The rain hammered on the roof, masking almost every other sound—almost. The knock came again, deliberate, urgent.

“Rafiq, open up, it’s me. Baba’s hurt.”

Zara’s voice. High, frantic. Afraid. Without thinking, Rafiq swung his legs off the bed, the floorboards cold under his bare feet. He moved toward the door, pulse thudding in his ears. Rainwater leaked through somewhere nearby, dripping steadily.

“Rafiq!”

The voice again. Sharper. His hand reached for the bolt—then froze. Behind him, a soft cough. He turned. Zara lay asleep on the woven mat in the corner, snuggled under her red blanket. Her breathing was slow and steady, mouth slightly open.

“Rafiq…”

The voice outside was different now—lower, pleading.

“Help me.”

The sound came from just beyond the thin wall, no more than a foot away. Rafiq backed away from the door, his breath fogging in the damp night air. The latch trembled, then began to turn on its own. Metal scraped against metal, slow and deliberate.

Panic gripped him. He ran to his grandfather’s room, slamming the door behind him.

The old man was already awake, sitting cross-legged on the bed as though waiting. In his hands, a small cloth sack sagged with salt and ashes.

“You answered, didn’t you?”

Dadaji’s voice was calm, but his eyes were hard.

“I didn’t open the door,”

Rafiq said quickly.

“That may not be enough.”

They went to work without another word. Iron nails were pressed into the mud outside every doorway. Neem leaves were burned in small clay bowls, the bitter smoke curling into the rain. The old man recited mantras older than the house itself, each one chanted in time with the beating rain. Rafiq followed his lead, the words strange on his tongue, his voice trembling.

The storm roared around them, but the knocking stopped. Still, the air felt thick, as though something pressed against the walls from outside, listening. When the first pale light of dawn pushed through the clouds, the rain softened to a drizzle. Rafiq stepped outside with his grandfather. The ground was a patchwork of puddles, each reflecting the gray sky. That’s when he saw them. Footprints in the mud, starting right beneath his bedroom window. Bare feet. His size. They trailed across the yard toward the pond at the back of the house. He followed the trail, each step tightening something in his chest. The prints went right to the water’s edge—and stopped. No turn. No return path. Just gone, as if he had stepped into the pond and vanished.

Rafiq stared at the still, dark water. His own reflection wavered there, rippled by the drizzle. He hadn’t left the house. He knew that. But the marks in the mud told another story. That day, he kept his mouth shut after sundown. That night, when the wind came again—softer this time, curling through the trees like smoke—he heard his name whispered just once. He stuffed his ears with cotton, pulled the blanket over his head, and prayed until dawn. The Nishi never speaks twice.

FOLKLORE 

The Nishi is a malevolent spirit in Bengali folklore, feared especially in rural Bengal, in both West Bengal (India) and Bangladesh. It is said to call people by name at night, mimicking the voice of someone they know and trust. If the victim answers or follows, they disappear—sometimes found dead, sometimes never found at all.