After coming to know of the comical antics of ghosts in a popular Bengali film recently, I started thinking about Shiji and Guji. The two, as you might have guessed, are ghosts as well, nephews of the fisherman ghost, Shibu, in Leela Majumdar’s short story, “Penetite”. Shiji and Guji would often slither up a water pipe, enter the balcony of a sprawling mansion by the river, and sit up with our young hero during the long, lonely nights, enchanting him with tales of boatsmen, storms, crocodiles and the sea. They even taught the bullies of his school a lesson that I, even after all these years, cannot forget.

So I dusted the jacket of Shob Bhuture, turned the pages, and began to read about the other memorable ghosts that Leela Majumdar had written about. Soon enough, I was greeted by Ahididi and her friends. Bogesh and his brood of wiry, dark-skinned and perpetually hungry children — who had had their tongues cut off by an evil merchant in an earlier life — lit up Ahididi’s evenings, jostling with each other to inch closer to the kindly matron who cooked delicious snacks for them.

Other friendly ghosts have enriched Bengali literature as well. Rajsekhar Basu’s Nadu Mallick, who spent his time recounting his glory days as an inspector in Rishra to the equally lovable Shibu and Karia Piret in “Bhushundir Mathe”, is one such.

Some of the other spirits I reminisced about, although as memorable, were far more sinister. Satyajit Ray chose not to name the malevolent spirit that slew Anathbabu, a man blessed with a scientific temper and an interest in ghosts, inside the haunted Haldarbari. But he did name the cat who was a ghost. Simon, Mr Brown’s favourite pet, drives the fear of god into the cynical Banerjee on a dark evening inside a decrepit villa in Bangalore.

Later, I began to wonder what made it difficult for me to forget the likes of Shiji, Guji and Bogesh or the ghosts that lived in Bhushundir math — a desolate stretch dotted with ancient trees, shrubs and an abandoned brick kiln, its air scented with the smell of the river and ghentuphul. Perhaps the answer lies in their creators’ ability to sustain the ironies of the human condition even in afterlife. In some of the stories, the ghosts do bring minor justice to the wronged with the help of their ingenuity. For instance, Shiji, Guji and their uncle help the young boy get even with his adversaries. The childless Ahididi’s yearning for company, her sufferings at the hands of her irritable mother-in-law, and the fear of her unfamiliar and eerie surroundings are mitigated somewhat by the ghost children.

But in most instances, the spirits themselves, like the living, are seen battling their own privations. In “Bhushundir Mathe”, Shibu discovers, much to his surprise, that he is being assailed by pangs of loneliness, something that forces him to seek the hand of a dakini of great beauty — perfect teeth, a bewitching face, and skin as fair as the white kernel inside a pantua — with disastrous consequences. Just before his wedding, he realizes that the dakini is none other than Nrityokali, his mercurial wife from his previous birth, who had once beaten him with a broom.

Like life, death remains fettered to love. This is demonstrated, most hauntingly, by Simon, who continues to appear in front of Mr Brown every day — curled up on his favourite chair — to allay his master’s grief. The old man confesses in his diary that he had found his peace in the idea of love conquering death. But such knowledge can also be disturbing. For it raises the possibility of death and the dead not being entirely free.